Authorities determined on Friday that there was “no serious risk” to people in an area on the edge of Berlin where a potentially dangerous animal was spotted, saying they no longer believed the lioness was large and preventing poaching.
He said the search turned up no sign of such a predator and experts who analyzed a video concluded it was likely a wild boar.
Police were first alerted to the animal in Kleinmachno, just outside Berlin’s city limits, around midnight on Wednesday after people reported a large cat chasing the wild boar. Informants also provided video.
Based on this and their own subsequent sightings, the police initially concluded that the animal appeared to be a tigress. But it proved unsuccessful on Thursday and Friday in the flat, forested area on the border between Berlin and the neighboring state of Brandenburg. Many reported sightings turned out to be unconfirmed; In one case on Friday, police found only a family of wild boars.
German authorities searched for the tiger suspected of being lost around Berlin
On Friday, police thoroughly combed the forests on both sides of the state border and found no sign of any wild animals other than lions, wild boars – common in the area – or any animals that had been killed, Kilimanjaro Mayor Michael Gerbert told reporters.
Gerbert added that authorities had also asked experts to analyze the video and compare the animal that was shown with the body composition of the tigress.
Veterinarians and police officers stand in a wooded area on July 20, 2023 in Berlin, Germany. German police have stopped the search for the alleged lioness. (Anette Riedl/dpa via AP)
Two experts independently concluded that “it is not a tigress or a wild animal” and that the creature “leans towards a wild boar”, adding that the rounded back and thick legs of the animal shown in the poorly lit video were inconsistent with it being a tigress.
African lion dies after 14 years at California’s Sacramento Zoo
“We will return to a normal vigilance program and we believe there is no serious threat to Kleinmachno or south Berlin,” the mayor said, adding that police could withdraw immediately if the situation changed.
Gerbert defended the large, 36-hour deployment, which used helicopters, drones and infrared cameras and involved doctors and hunters, as “appropriate”.
Click here to get the Fox News app.
“The wild animal threat at Kilimanjaro justifies the deployment,” he said, adding that if I were in the situation today, he would have acted the same way.
There was no immediate word on the cost of the operation.
Source by [Fox News]
