Escaped Devon lynx Flaviu is tracked down by cops using infra-red cameras after he chewed his way out of zoo
Massive operation launched amid fears the animal bred in captivity could learn to hunt
A RUNAWAY lynx playing “cat and mouse” with police has been spotted by a drone, it was believed last night.
A massive operation was launched to track big cat Flaviu after he chewed his way out of his enclosure at a zoo.
More than 30 staff and cops armed with tranquilliser guns and bloodhound sniffer dogs failed to flush him out — despite baiting 25 traps with rabbits, quail and deer.
But police using heat-seeking drones yesterday reported signs of a “small animal” in fields and woodland near Dartmoor Zoo in Devon.
Officers said it appeared as a white thermal signature, directing experts to a precise location where they found paw tracks in the mud.
Zoo owner Ben Mee said: “The thermal images showed a small animal moving in a mysterious way.
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“It looked the right size for a lynx and had the right mobility. The little so-and-so was 50 metres from our boundary fence. He’s playing cat and mouse with us.”
Local cops said it was the first time they had used drone thermal imagery to track an animal.
They were due to return last night in a bid to finally locate the fugitive feline with state-of-the-art cameras.
If that failed, there were fears the Carpathian Lynx — the size of a labrador and bred in captivity — could learn to hunt and vanish further into Dartmoor National Park.
Experts say once there, it would be almost impossible to find.
Mr Mee added: “He’ll be getting very hungry by now. We hope that by Saturday he will be caught in a trap. The other possibility is that he might kill a rabbit. That’s good in one sense as he needs food, but also bad as he’d be learning independence and could go on the moor.”
He said there had been only one credible sighting since Flaviu escaped — by a zoo worker who saw him near the perimeter fence.
The lynx, which is found in Europe’s Carpathian Mountains in the wild, was transferred from Port Lympne Zoo, Kent, after Dartmoor’s previous lynx died of old age.
It was put in its sleeping area on Wednesday evening, but keepers returned the next morning to find it gone and a hole in its pen.
Local children were kept indoors for safety reasons and the public told not to approach the lynx.
Danny Bamping of the British Big Cat Society said: “It may be dangerous if cornered or threatened.”
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