The police in Germany on Friday called off their search for a wild animal, initially suspected to be a lioness, in the southern suburbs of Berlin after it was finally determined that this wild animal was probably just a wild boar.
A South African pointed out to the German authorities that it was not a lioness they had been looking for for two days.
A large search was launched for this wild animal on Thursday after two people apparently saw a lioness chasing a wild boar in a street in the southern suburbs of Berlin and made a short video of it on a mobile phone.
The video was provided to the police and they believed it to be real.
However, Michael Grubert, mayor of Kleinmachnow in southwest Berlin, told reporters on Friday that the search has since been called off after experts determined that the suspected lioness in the video is probably an animal that is much more common in this region.
“Everything indicates that it is not a lioness.”
According to Grubert, two specialists “including one from South Africa” checked the video, compared the wild animal in the video with photos of lions and found noticeable differences between the animal in the video and a lioness.
“Both came to the conclusion that there is no way that it is a lion,” says Martina Bellack, spokesperson for Kleinmachnow.
This follows after residents in the area were advised for more than 30 hours to stay indoors and keep an eye on their pets.
In the early hours of Friday, more than 100 police officers combed the southern outskirts of Berlin with night vision goggles and drones in the hope that they would spot the lioness.
