German zoo frees tiny lynx that kept trying to escape

A young Carpathian lynx called Chapo, which is Spanish for Shorty, has won his freedom after repeated escape attempts and is now roaming the wilds of Saxony in search of rabbits, foxes and deer.

The one-year-old wildcat, which was born in Nuremberg Zoo, had been intended for a breeding programme for the species which was hunted almost to extinction in Germany by the early 1900s.

However, he had other plans and jumped over the fence of his enclosure shortly after his arrival at a breeding station in the Harz Mountains in early June.

He was quickly caught but his wanderlust was evident. “He kept looking for ways out of the enclosure and found it difficult to settle down,” Saxony’s wildlife authority said in a statement. “This showed that the young lynx was better suited to being released into the wild.”