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Berlin residents have reported hearing lions’ roars in the middle of the night as the desperate search for a lioness that has been prowling through the city continues.
Hundreds of German police officers armed with guns are scouring the southern districts of the capital today after two locals saw the escaped lioness chasing a wild boar down in the Kleinmachnow suburb in the early hours of Thursday morning.
Last night, locals reported seeing the lioness and hearing a lions’ roars in the nearby Zehlendorf area near the city limits, Berlin police said.
Officers equipped with guns, night-vision goggles and drones, scoured the area throughout the night, but said they couldn’t find the lioness as the search continues today.
Residents living in the southern districts of the city – Kleinmachnow, Teltow and Stahnsdorf – have been advised to stay in their homes and to keep all doors windows closed. But some Berliners decided to defy the orders today and walk their dogs in a forest in the Zehlendorf area.
It comes as experts on animal tracks joined the hunt for the lioness today as police used helicopters, drones and infrared cameras to search for the dangerous predator.
Police officers begin another day of searching for a lioness that is on the loose in Berlin in Kleinmachnow on Friday
Police officers walk through a forest in Kleinmachnow during their search for a lioness in Berlin on Friday
Video on Twitter appeared to show a lioness wandering through foliage in Kleinmachnow
The danger area where police believe a lioness is roaming the streets of Berlin
Kleinmachnow Mayor Michael Grubert told local public broadcaster RBB late Thursday that authorities would comb the forest near Kleinmachnow and Zehlendorf on Friday with ‘professional animal track searchers.’
‘We have to say that this can’t carry on for days,’ he said, adding that he expected the search to ‘intensify’ on Friday.
There have been a series of sightings of the lioness – by locals, police officers and firefighters – but each time, the predator escapes from their view and they are unable to trace it again.
German police spokesman Daniel Keip said: ‘In the summer, you often hear reports of crocodiles in swimming lakes and then it turns out all it was, was a big duck. In this case, it’s obviously totally real.
‘We’re dealing with a lioness that’s roaming freely through Teltow, Stahnsdorf and Kleinmachnow.’
At around 7pm last night, another sighting of the lioness in a forest by Kleinmachnow district prompted a flurry of activity by police officers.
‘We’re in a hot phase right now, she was just seen,’ a police officer told a local resident, reports German newspaper Bild.
Joggers were barred from entering the woodland by officers, as the search appeared to be ‘heating up’ in the evening with one officer screaming ‘get out of the wood, quickly’ to runners.
Police have been joined by professional hunters and vets, armed with tranquilising guns and pistols, in an attempt to safely capture the lioness – believed to be a private pet – but to no avail.
They said on Friday morning that the search was unsuccessful during the night and was continuing. They urged people to call an emergency number if they see the animal.
Officers have insisted that the operational measures in place will ‘continue until a risk to the population can be ruled out’.
No zoos have reported a missing lioness, leading to questions about where the animal could have came from.
Police were first alerted early on Thursday after two people saw what appeared to be a lioness chasing a wild boar down a street less than (three miles) from the German capital.
Police officers and a hunter gather to search for a lioness roaming the streets in Kleinmachnow, Berlin, on Friday
Police officers and a hunter begin their search of woods in Kleinmachnow, Berlin, on Friday
Panzers! German police use a Survivor ‘panzerwagen’, an armoured vehicle, amid a search for a rogue lioness in the south of Berlin, on July 20, 2023
Residents living in the southern districts of the city – Kleinmachnow, Teltow and Stahnsdorf – have been advised to stay in their homes and to keep all doors windows closed. But some defiant Berliners decided to defy the orders today and walk their dogs in a forest in the Zehlendorf area (pictured)
Hunters and vets were reportedly helping track down the animal in Germany
A woman carries a tranquilizer gun as members from the veterinary office search for the lioness
Police cars drive out of the forest where the predatory cat is supposed to be on Thursday
The two passersby spotted the feline around midnight in the Kleinmachnow suburb, southwest of Berlin.
They shared mobile phone footage of the animal with police, who believe the images are genuine, Kleinmachnow mayor Michael Grubert told a press conference.
‘Even experienced officers had to conclude that it was probably a lioness,’ a police spokesperson told local broadcaster RBB.
The animal was later also spotted by police officers themselves, said Kerstin Schroeder, police spokeswoman in the Brandenburg region around Berlin.
Local authorities were seen driving armoured vehicles – ‘panzerwagens’ – through residential areas as a helicopter with thermal imaging circles overhead.
Thorsten Thaddey was out for a morning jog in Kleinmachnow yesterday when he was stopped by police, who told him a wild animal might be roaming the nearby forest.
‘I have to be honest, I panicked a bit. Because it’s a different calibre compared to a normal dog or another pet that has run away,’ he said. ‘So I’m going to run home now.’
Kleinmachnow mayor Michael Grubert said it was not the time ‘to go jogging in the woods’.
A police spokesperson was forced to admit: ‘We don’t know where it came from.’
Since no zoos or circuses have reported a missing lioness, police believe she must be an escaped pet.
Once the animal is found, it will likely be sedated with a tranquiliser and taken to an animal shelter, the mayor said. But Grubert added that if there was an immediate danger to human life, the lioness would be shot.
Anyone crossing paths with the feline should ‘seek safety immediately and call the police,’ Brandenburg police said.
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