BERLIN: German police on Friday called off a search for a wild animal initially believed to be a lioness roaming the outskirts of Berlin after determining it was more likely a wild boar.

In a story that fascinated Germany and gave rise to a slew of satirical memes on social media, two people had spotted early on Thursday what appeared to be a lioness chasing a wild boar down a street outside the capital and made a short, grainy video.

But their account and a sighting by police officers remained the only evidence of an animal more at home on the African savanna than the sandy soil of eastern Germany.

The mayor of the small town of Kleinmachnow, Michael Grubert, told reporters on Friday that the search had been called off when experts determined it was probably an animal far more common to the region.

“Everything indicates it is not a lioness,” Grubert said. The animal thought to be the lioness in the original amateur video was “with relative certainty” a boar, he said.

Police had been combing the streets of suburban communities southwest of Berlin in the small hours of Friday using night-vision goggles and drones but called off a forest search until daybreak.

Grubert had told public broadcaster RBB earlier that professional animal trackers searching for dung or bloody remains of prey had been enlisted alongside police, veterinarians and hunters.

But he acknowledged that the massive operation involving over 100 police officers as well as helicopters and thermal-imaging cameras was stretching his community’s resources.

“This can’t go on for days,” he said.

Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2023