Escaped lynx finally back in Dartmoor zoo following three weeks on the run from keepers

RUNAWAY lynx Flaviu was finally caught yesterday — after being snared on a killing spree.

His recapture came three weeks after he vanished from Dartmoor Zoo, sparking a widespread big cat hunt.

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He was traced in the early hours on farmland after savaging four lambs. Now the zoo is finding him a female friend to cheer him up after he seemed grumpy at being captured.

Keepers believe the creature had begun reverting to the wild and was practising hunting.

They set a trap and within hours the lynx, which had been on the run since July 6, took the bait.

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Zoo owner Ben Mee received a 1am text from one of his trackers. It read: “We have him.”

He then got a call confirming Flaviu was safe and under sedation for his one-mile journey back to captivity.

Ben said: “I couldn’t believe we’d got him so quickly. It was a moment of pure elation.

“Every professional tracker I’d spoken to said it could take three months. The most important thing is he’s safe.

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"He’s grumpy but we’re already trying to find a female lynx to keep him company.

"Getting him a girlfriend will be some compensation for being back in captivity."

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Flaviu was trapped just 200 yards from Hemerdon Plantation, a woodland near the zoo.

The zoo’s head tracker Andrew Goatman, 37, set the trap after the lynx attacked the lambs a mile west of the zoo on Friday.

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Realising big cats returned to the scene of a kill, he removed the four lamb carcasses and ensured other

sheep were moved to safety.

He then set a 5ft by 2ft mesh trap baited with veal on the precise spot the lambs were found.

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Mr Goatman said: “His instinct told him the veal was his food. He’d not triggered any of the 25 traps we’d put out since he escaped, but the scene of a kill did the trick.

“These attacks show captivity is the best place for him. Sooner or later he’d have been shot.”

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Flaviu is now in Dartmoor Zoo’s empty cheetah house until his specially strengthened pen is ready.