A tigress that escaped from an exotic animal farm and has been prowling around Johannesburg for two days has already attacked a man and killed a dog and a deer in its path, South African police warned Monday.
“The search is still underway,” but the 39-year-old victim survived, said spokesman Dimakatso Sello.
Police officers, nature activists, and neighbors: about 40 people are engaged in a hunt for the eight-year-old Bengal tigress. The big cat managed to get out of its enclosure on Saturday after an unknown person cut the fence at a farm about 30 kilometers from Johannesburg, in the country’s most populous province.
“We use drones and a helicopter.” “But the density of the bush makes it difficult,” said Gresham Mandy, a local community representative. The endangered tiger is not endemic to South Africa, but breeding has become increasingly common in recent years. However, the country does not have an official census of its tiger population. According to animal rights NGO Four Paws, nearly 10% of the world’s population (359 specimens) were exported from South Africa between 2011 and 2020, most sold to zoos.
The South African Society for the Protection of Animals (NSPCA), contacted, considered it “extremely dangerous and irresponsible to keep these animals in a residential area.”