As the residents of Berlin remain on the lookout for the lion that is apparently loose in the city, it seems as though it’s the right time of year for animals to escape. Case in point, a ruffed lemur has decided to move-it-move-it out of a zoo in Basel, having escaped on Thursday.
On Thursday evening, people across the city received a warning on their mobile phones via the Alertswiss app, informing them that a wild animal was on the loose. It was later confirmed by Basel Zoo that a ruffed lemur, perhaps inspired by recent events in Berlin, decided to make its escape, successfully finding itself free in the south of Basel.
The mobile alert in question did not ask the public to take any specific precautions. However, locals were told to keep their distance, not chase or pet the lemur, or try to feed it anything.
Luckily, the good people of Basel should not have been worried, as recent footage given to 20 Minuten showed the animal running around harmlessly in the streets around the zoo. In one unconfirmed clip shared by the newspaper, the lemur was also seen waiting patiently at a tram stop, maybe hoping that the number 1 tram to Dreirosenbrücke would make a quick detour to Madagascar - where the lemur is originally from.
However, unlike the lion of Berlin, the lemur of Basel was quick to be recaptured. After an extensive search that at one point involved the police, the animal was recaptured by workers and specialists from Basel Zoo later on in the evening.
This is not the first time that a wild animal has escaped in Switzerland. In 2010, a fully-grown elephant escaped three times from the Circus Knie in Zurich. During one of the attempts, the elephant was seen taking in the sites of the city and even swimming in the lake at Landiwiese at one point - a typische Züricher after all.
The lemur was confirmed to be in good health and is now back in its enclosure. With the lion escaping in Germany and this latest incident in Basel, now all we need is a hippo, giraffe, zebra and some penguins to escape then we’ve got ourselves a movie.