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.
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.
“Leopard tracks have been discovered near mountain villages. Police are searching. Everyone please securely close doors and windows and do not go out,” said a mass text message issued in a neighbourhood adjacent to the park.
The park is about 12 miles from downtown Hangzhou.
Police said on Monday that careless park personnel allowed the animals to escape while cleaning their enclosure and that the attraction’s general manager, Zhang Dequan, ordered a coverup while the park scrambled to recover the animals.
The park came clean only after police launched an investigation into the growing number of leopard sightings.
Officials said five people, including Zhang, had been detained. The park is temporarily closed.
Chinese zoos and wildlife parks frequently face criticism over recurring revelations of poor conditions or deadly incidents blamed on lax management.
State media reported in 2017 that a tiger killed a visitor at a wildlife park in the eastern city of Ningbo after the man apparently entered its enclosure. Tigers at a Beijing park also killed a woman and injured another the previous year after the pair left their vehicle.
