A massive search was launched after a capybara escaped from a UK zoo last week – the animal remains missing but a dogwalker said she spotted the rodent by a river
A capybara has been on the loose after it escaped from a UK zoo.
The rodent was last spotted on a riverbank by a dogwalker, before the animal plunged in the water. This capybara escaped from Marwell Zoo near Winchester, after it arrived to the site from Jimmy’s Farm and Wildlife Park, in Suffolk.
Samba, a nine-month-old capybara arrived to the zoo last Monday, March 16, and escaped just a day after it was sent to its new home. A dogwalker said she spotted a capybara going along the River Itchen, near Winchester, and said her pet spooked the lost animal.
Dogwalker Claudie Paddick said she accidentally spotted the rodent on Sunday, while out with her pet, but said she thought the escaped animal was a deer. Speaking to the BBC, she said: “I thought it was a deer – you don’t casually see a capybara on your walks.”
Staff from the zoo near Winchester has been hunting down the missing animal, including using thermal drones for their desperate search, but the dogwalker shared a word of warning to these teams.
She said: “I don’t think it’s going to be very easy… she was rapid.” Paddick added that she had no clue that there had been a capybara on the loose.
The dogwalker said: “They said ‘are you living in the Dark Ages?’ it’s the missing capybara from Marwell. But the good news is it was happy sunbathing on the riverbank.”
Laura Read, chief executive officer of Marwell Wildlife, revealed there had been several false sightings of the rodent, after the drones picked up muntjac deer – which are similar in size to the rodents.
Read has urged members of the public to keep and eye out for the missing animal and said it was “the size of a small to medium dog – not as big as a spaniel, light brown but she is not fully grown – as she is only nine months old”.
