A capybara who escaped from her enclosure at Hoo Zoo and Dinosaur World in Telford has been spotted by a drone following a specialist search.
Cinnamon escaped from her enclosure on Friday when the gates were opened for grass cutting. She entered the woodlands within the zoo grounds but on Saturday evening she managed to get beyond the zoo’s perimeter fence and was spotted on a nearby road.
Yesterday evening a search was carried out by zoo keepers and with help from a thermal imaging drone operator she was spotted overnight in a field about 200m away from Hoo Zoo munching on grass.
Writing in an update on Facebook a spokesperson for the zoo said:
“Thanks to the tireless efforts of our team last night along with a couple of local volunteers (including a thermal drone operator) we managed to locate Cinnamon.
“It turns out that she is currently living in a field and section of woodland right next to the zoo – less than 200m from her home.
“Despite efforts last night to recapture her she managed to hide in dense thicket and the decision was made to place down live traps rather than attempt to catch her by hand and cause further stress (or drive her further away).
“Live traps are essentially cages with an automatic door that cause no harm to the animal – they simply walk into some food and the door will close behind – we hope that these will allow us to recapture Cinnamon without any further stress.
“We will be continuing to monitor the situation and conducting further searches. We’d like to thank everyone who helped last night including Scott, Ryan and the keepers from Exotic Zoo.”
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