End of the lioness alert in Berlin, the animal was probably a wild boar

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: CHRISTIAN MANG / GETTY IMAGES EUROPE / GETTY IMAGES VIA AFP 18:11 p.m., July 21, 2023

And the lioness became boar again: after more than 24 hours of feverish hunting near Berlin, the authorities lifted the alert Friday in the face of evidence that no beast was lurking in the affluent suburbs of the capital. "This is not a lioness," said the mayor of Kleinmachnow, where the beast had been reported on the night of Wednesday to Thursday. After the testimony and the video shot by passers-by, it is with the same assurance that police and firefighters had claimed that a lioness was walking in the residential areas of the southwest of the German capital.

A hunt for wild animals was then underway, followed by the whole country, and mobilizing considerable resources: more than 200 police officers, fighters, helicopters, drones and thermal cameras. All this was accompanied by calls for caution for the population, which was languishing between disbelief and panic, while keeping its pets locked up. But reports from residents in the past 24 hours, some of whom said they heard roars, "have led nowhere," said Michael Grubert, the mayor of Kleinmachow, southwest of Berlin.

No animal park or circus had reported a disappearance

"There is no situation of danger," he hammered several times, announcing, alongside the police, the end of the search device. Independent experts, including one "from South Africa" analyzed the video, of poor quality, and came to the conclusion that "it was probably a wild boar". In addition to the film shot that night, police officers also said they saw the animal, in an area where herds of wild boars, deer and other foxes abound.

>>

READ ALSO - IN PICTURES - When a black panther takes itself for a gutter cat in Armentières

However, after analysis of the images by specialists, the back, musculature, legs, tail of the animal filmed do not correspond to the morphology of a lioness, explained the authorities, sketches in support. No animal park, zoo or circus had reported any disappearances, according to police, who also made sure that the two dozen lions registered in the state of Brandenburg, which surrounds Berlin, had not escaped their owners. Several experts had quickly expressed doubts about this alert to the lioness.

"If it's a lion, I eat my hat"

Berlin wildlife expert Derk Ehlert was surprised by the absence of any trace of the beast since Thursday morning. "A lioness doesn't just disappear into thin air," he told public broadcaster RBB. With other specialists, he had noted the relatively short tail of the creature in the video as well as its large ears.

"If it's a lion, I eat my hat." "The animal is far too thin and too small," said Michel Rogall, director of a circus near Berlin. This was not the first time the Germans had been on the alert for wildlife getaways. In May, residents of the central city of Erfurt were shaken by the sight of a kangaroo jumping down a busy road after escaping from private property.

In 2019, it took several days for a deadly cobra to be picked up in the town of Herne, where residents had been asked to keep their windows closed and avoid tall grass. In 2016, German zookeepers had to shoot a lion that had escaped from its enclosure in the eastern German city of Leipzig and was unable by a tranquilizer to stop.