By: Eva Luo
Reports of lion sightings near Berlin have invoked a massive police hunt. Officials warned residents to stay indoors, and to the conclusion that the animal was most likely a wild boar.
The first sighting was shared by two men on a phone of what was believed by the police and the public to be a lion eating a boar on Wednesday, the 19th.The next day, residents of a nearby town claimed that a lion was chasing and eating a boar on the road side. People also heard loud roars, but upon later investigation, were teenagers playing roars loudly on a speaker.
On Thursday morning, the hunt expanded, with more than 100 police, veterinarians, and hunters all working together. Equipment included more than 30 patrol cars, 2 helicopters, drones, and infrared cameras.
Local circuses and zoos were called, but none reported having a missing lioness, so it was believed that the lion could have been an escaped pet. Some people thought the lion was a private pet, animal rights groups criticized the government for not banning keeping exotic animals as pets, even though there have been similar cases of animals escaping from homes and circuses. “Over the past two decades there have been repeated cases of big escaping from homes and circuses.Despite countless warnings, politicians have failed to ban the keeping of exotic wildlife,” said Peter Hoeffken of rights group PETA.
The search ended after a resident called on Friday, claiming to have seen the lion. Later, when using infrared cameras while flying over the area the lion was spotted, all police found was a family of wild boars.
Also, the footage of the so-called lioness showed an animal without conventional features of a feline. Even though the animal shared some features of a wildcat, like the gray fur, there are other factors, including the length of the creature’s tail, which was too short, and a young boar running through the video frame. “We think that this photo probably shows a wild boar,” said Michael Grubert, mayor of Kleinmachnow, on Friday afternoon at a news conference.
However, wild boars are dangerous as well, with a long history of threatening Berlin residents. Their sharp tusks are capable of injuring, sometimes killing people. In 2020, they also frequently stole bathers’ belongings at Teufelssee, a swimming lake in the east of Berlin.
In the midst of this chaos, some made fun out of it, creating memes.Deutsche Bahn, the national German railway operator, posted on his twitter page, that house cats and smaller pets do not need tickets, individual train passesbigger pets “other than companion lions,”are necessary. Others are still unsure.“A wild boar doesn’t really look like a lion, and we have a lot of wild boars,” said Uda Bastians, a Kleinmachnow resident. “Everyone has seen wild boars, and we all know lions from boars.”
Sources:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/berliners-warned-suspected-lioness-loose-2023-07-20/
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/20/world/europe/lioness-berlin-germany.html