After evaluating a video and other clues, the police and authorities in the Brandenburg municipality of Kleinmachnow came to the conclusion that there was probably no lioness in the searched area. “The trend is clearly towards wild boar,” said Kleinmachnow Mayor Michael Grubert at a press conference. “There is no serious evidence of any animal other than a wild boar,” Grubert continued. There were no traces of a big cat, nor could a lioness be seen on a video that is now widely known. Two scientists independently confirmed that the animal was a wild boar. “There is no acute threat to Kleinmachnow and the south of Berlin,” said Mayor Grubert.
The search for a supposed big cat roaming free in Berlin and Brandenburg had kept the police in suspense for almost 30 hours. The search for the animal continued until Friday afternoon. But apart from several wild boar families, no wild animals were found. According to the Berlin police, a good 100 emergency services were busy searching in the morning. During the night there was no new information about the whereabouts of the animal. The municipality of Kleinmachnow in Brandenburg had even asked professional animal trackers for help.
According to the police, indications of lion roars have not been confirmed. “Our colleagues investigated this together with a veterinarian and the city hunter. Even with the help of a drone, the clues could not be confirmed,” tweeted the Berlin police. It is now said that young people played the noise via a Bluetooth box.
Expert: I only see two wild boars
The search for the possible predator near the southwestern city limits of Berlin began on Thursday night. It was triggered by a video on which a lioness was suspected. The video snippet made the rounds on social networks on Thursday. The investigating authorities assessed the video as genuine. According to a spokeswoman for the authorities, police officers said they had also seen a wild animal “secured”. In addition to dozens of police officers, veterinarians and the Berlin city hunter were also involved in the search.
However, renewed supposed sightings of the sought-after predator and information from the population turned out to be wrong. “There isn’t a single clue that has led to any assumption that it might be a lioness or a wildcat, a big one,” Grubert said. At the beginning of the search, it was said that the lioness had been seen killing a wild boar. However, the remains of this animal could not be found either.
“I happen to hunt in the region myself and I know that the hunters have very good dogs there. It is completely unthinkable that the dogs would not have found anything if a wild boar was actually dissected there,” said Achim Gruber, Managing Director of the Institute for Animal Pathology in Berlin, on Friday of the German Press Agency. “If a lioness had chewed up a wild boar there, the dogs would have found something.”
Despite the many unanswered questions about the story, Gruber considered the search effort justified. “The measures are justified in view of the justified initial suspicion. You have to make the effort,” said the FU expert. Police officers with submachine guns and protective shields were out and about in the forest on Friday. Mayor Grubert also defended the large-scale search for the alleged lioness. “The level of risk was such that the use of the police was justified,” he said.