Desperate Dartmoor Zoo keepers build huge trap to capture the notorious escaped lynx
Cunning Flaviu has so far evaded capture and has now been on the run for more than a week
DESPERATE keepers at Dartmoor Zoo were last night building a huge trap to catch the escaped lynx.
Cunning Flaviu has so far evaded capture and has now been on the run for more than a week.
Zoo staff set 25 humane traps baited with rabbit, quail and deer to catch the two-year-old Carpathian Lynx.
But the big puss – the size of a labrador - has been taking food from outside the traps but has been too scared to enter them and has retreated to its hiding space.
Now the zoo – which Matt Damon film “We bought a zoo” was based on – is planning to build a monster size trap which Flaviu will not be afraid to enter.
Specialist tracker Andrew Goatman has designed an extra-large mesh cage with a wooden frame around it to make it look like an enclosure that the lynx was used to living in.
Zoo owner Ben Mee said: “We’re making bigger traps that hopefully Flaviu will not be intimidated by and will be happy to take food from inside.”
Ben still believes that the fugitive feline is hiding within a few hundred metres of the perimeter fence of the animal park near Plymouth, Devon.
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Cops said they were alerted to a possible sighting by a member of the public on Wednesday night but since then staff have seen nothing.
Keepers also think that Flaviu might respond to a Kentish accent because he spent the first two years of his life at Port Lympne Zoo in Kent.
They are thinking of hiring a voice specialist to call to the lynx through a megaphone with a Kentish accent – which includes dropping the letter h and shortening vowels.
Zoo owner Ben said: “Out tiger is from a German zoo and he responds to German phrases like ‘Alles gut’.
“Our Jaguar responds to French after coming from a French zoo.
“Flaviu is from Kent so we might try and get someone with a Kent accent to call to him.” The zoo is using straw from Flaviu’s mother’s cage to try and lure him in.
They have also rigged the surrounding area with thermal imaging motion activated cameras, and are applying to DEFRA to lay down poo from bigger predators to deter him from roaming further away.
The zoo is surrounded to the north by quarries and beyond that almost 500 square miles of wild moorland and scrub where Flaviu could hunt and survive.
