POLICE are searching for a lion on the loose in central Spain after a delivery driver reported one near Toledo.
The Guardia Civil received a call at 10.43am yesterday and attended the area between the towns of El Real de San Vicente and Navamorcuende, near the Pielago convent.
Seprona, the force’s environmental arm, also launched their own operation to locate the feline, deploying community safety patrols, drones and a helicopter to survey the Sierra de San Vicente area.
READ MORE: Theories behind origin of black panther in Spain’s Granada point at drug lord or tycoon
Investigators quickly conducted a census of Tibetan Mastiffs registered in the area due to their resemblance to lions.
Meanwhile, zoos in Castilla-la-Mancha and Madrid were contacted and requested to do a head count of all of their animals.
Fauna Aventura Safari Zoo in Hinojosa de San Vicente confirmed that ‘no animals are missing’.
“We ask that no false accusations linking this sighting to our zoo be circulated,” they wrote on social media.
Local councils in El Real de San Vicente, Navamorcuende, Hinojosa de San Vicente and Almendral de la Cañada have posted statements on social media urging the public to take every possible precaution.
The mayor of Almendral de la Cañada, Marcelino Fernández, told the news agency EFE that the residents were ‘surprised’ and ‘nervous’ about the sighting, although no more were reported.
A list of all of the wild animal sightings that have taken place over the last decade shows that all of them were the result of confusion, or simply dismissed.
A supposed black panther spotted in the Sierra Norte de Guadalajara in June 2017 turned out to be a black dog.
In the summer of 2020, another alleged black panther scared the town of Ventas de Huelma, in Granada, so much so that the next year, the town erected a statue of the animal that has become a tourist attraction.
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