On-the-run lynx Flaviu ‘is outfoxing Devon coppers by nicking bait from traps’ set up to catch him
The 'clever' big cat escaped from Dartmoor Zoo and keepers have warned the public not to approach him
A CUNNING lynx is giving Devon coppers the runaround by nicking meat from traps set up to catch him.
A huge hunt is underway after the “clever” big cat named Flaviu escaped from Dartmoor zoo.
And sleuths trying to track down the Labrador-sized feline reckon it is outfoxing its pursuers by brazenly stealing the bait left out to snare it.
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.
“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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