Residents in a Chinese city were told to stay indoors as authorities released flocks of chickens as bait to track down a leopard that escaped from a safari park, state media have reported.
The leafy lakeside city of Hangzhou has been on edge since late last week, when residents began spotting leopards roaming around local hills covered in forest and tea plantations.
The leopard is one of three that escaped on 19 April – the other two have been recaptured – a lapse that police said was concealed by the Hangzhou Safari Park’s management for nearly three weeks to avoid affecting visitor numbers during a long holiday last week.
The incident has led to a torrent of Chinese internet posts criticising the park for endangering the public, and lamenting the abysmal safety and animal-welfare record of the country’s chaotic zoos and wildlife parks.
Public outrage has also been fanned by footage of one of the big cats being mauled in a forest by a pack of hunting dogs, and another showing one of the recaptured leopards with part of its hind foot missing.
A rescuer with his dog, part of the search party looking for the escaped leopard in Hangzhou
The first leopard was quietly recaptured by the park on 21 April, and the second last Friday by a far larger government search organised after news of the escapes went viral.
But the remaining feline has so far eluded the thousands of search personnel using tracker dogs, powered parachutes, and armed with drones and night-vision and heat-detection equipment.
Almost 100 chickens were released to lure the cat, the Modern Express Post in the nearby city of Nanjing reported on Tuesday.
Like the other two escapees, it was born in captivity, is not used to hunting and is believed to be near starvation.
Authorities also have posted additional security near the search zone and residents have been put on alert.
