Police are scouring Berlin and warning the public with a wild animal on the loose. /Annegret Hilse/Reuters
German police have warned the public to stay indoors on the south-western edge of Berlin while they search for a wild animal in the area believed to be a lioness.
Police issued the alarm in the early morning hours of Thursday, after two people saw an animal chasing a wild boar down a street less than five kilometers from the German capital.
Daniel Keip, Brandenburg police spokesman, told RBB radio: "Two men recorded a video on their phones and even experienced policemen had to concede that it was probably a lioness."
Berlin police then alerted the public to the beast's presence, initially putting the southwestern suburbs on alert and then expanding the area of the search. As authorities, backed by several helicopters, scoured the area around the communities of Kleinmachnow, Teltow and Stahnsdorf at the start of the workday, police urged residents not to venture outside.
"The wild animal that escaped has not yet been found!" the police of Brandenburg, the region around Berlin, wrote on Twitter. "We ask you not to leave your houses."
They also advised that pets should also remain indoors.
Three African lions arrived at Berlin Zoo in 2020 – could this be the animal on the loose? /John MacDougall/CFP
It remains unclear where the feline could have come from.
"No animal parks, zoos or circuses are missing an animal of this kind," the police spokesman told RBB.
Dozens of officers were combing through the area, with drones searching from above. A veterinarian and two hunters also joined the search. A spokeswoman for the Kleinmachnow municipality told RBB that daycare centers had been told to keep children inside, and vendors at a local market were asked not to set up their stalls.
Once the animal is found, it will likely be sedated with a tranquilizer and taken to an animal shelter, Keip added.
It is not the first time Germans have been told to be on the lookout for wild animals on the loose. In May, residents in the central German city of Erfurt were jolted by the sight of a kangaroo hopping across a busy road after escaping from a private property.
In 2019, it took several days for a deadly cobra to be recaptured in the western town of Herne, where residents had been told to keep their windows closed and steer clear of tall grass. In 2016, German zookeepers had to shoot dead a lion after it escaped from its enclosure in the eastern city of Leipzig and a tranquilizer failed to stop it.
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