China says missing leopard dead

Public criticism has not receded after a safari park in East China’s Hangzhou admitted it had covered up for weeks the escape of three juvenile leopards. The park is suspected of using dogs to search for the missing big cats and being involved in trafficking of wild animal products, which sparked the fury of animal lovers and protectors.

Two leopards have been found while the search for the third is still underway. But animal experts said that, considering the leopard born in captivity had been roaming freely for more than three weeks, it possibly had died of starvation or injury.

The scandal also exposed the challenges of domestic safari parks on how to make ends meet, expansion without careful planning and poor safety management.

A video showing a pack of pit bulls surrounding a leopard has been circulating on Chinese social media alongside the search for the third missing big cat, sparking public criticism against the safari park for the lack of professionalism in dealing with an emergency of this kind.

“Such ferocious dogs could kill a juvenile leopard as pit bulls are bred to fight and could be very violent,” an animal protector who runs a pet content-sharing account with more than 1 million followers, told the Global Times.

Pit bulls are not allowed in cities as pets and there have been many reports of dogs of this breed biting their owners to death after living together many years, the animal protector Jiang Lan said, adding using so many pit bulls for this search is equal to hunting and killing.

The second leopard suffered injuries in one paw after it was captured on Saturday, which added fuel to public anger against the safari park.

Zhang Jinshuo, an expert from the Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told the media that the leopard is juvenile and grew up at the zoo, which means it has limited capability to live in the wild.

“It is either hidden or already dead,” Zhang said.