Rare leopard dies after zoo’s rescue attempt fails

ONE of the world’s rarest big cats died when it escaped from its enclosure and fell 16 feet from a tree after it was tranquillised, it emerged yesterday.

Jade, a two-year-old Amur leopard, which originates from the Russia-Chinese border, got through the wire mesh of her home at England’s Marwell Zoo, near Winchester, Hants, on Monday morning and climbed a tree above it.

The cat, which is the size of a labrador, is extremely rare with only 33 believed to be in the wild and just over a 100 in captivity across the world.

Chief executive of the zoo, Mark Edgerley, said Jade and her partner Akin, three, had just been released into their new £189,000 (€273,000) enclosure when she became frightened and bolted up a tree.

Mr Edgerley said the cat used its momentum to get through a tiny gap between the mesh fixings and the tree and climbed into the canopy of the oak 15 metres above the ground.

Although the cat was technically out of its enclosure, it could only have escaped if it could have got from the tree to the outside, which was not likely.

“We surrounded the enclosure with staff quickly, some of which were armed. After an hour we decided she was not going to come down of her own accord,” Mr Edgerley explained.

“One of our curators was hoisted on a forklift truck up to the leopard’s height and with the second shot we managed to put a tranquilliser and anaesthetic syringe dart into her.

“We knew she would fall from the tree. She fell about four metres but unfortunately she got lodged in a fork of the tree. We recovered her and tried to revive her, but she died. We expected her to recover from the fall as she would have been limp.

“We do not know what caused the death and a post mortem examination is taking place.”

Mr Edgerley said the zoo was closed at the time and although there was a potential danger, it always had the situation fully under control.

An investigation was underway to find out how the leopard got through the newly erected mesh.

The enclosure was to have officially opened this weekend but that has now been cancelled.

Mr Edgerley said staff who examined the mesh said it was only possible to get a fist through the gap. But it was a windy day and the space between the tree and the mesh could have widened as the bolting animal lunged into the wire.