British police call off search for supposed lion
Police stand at Earls Hall Farm in St Osyth, southern England where a lion was apparently seen Monday Aug. 27, 2012. Outside the idyllic English village of St. Osyth, police are hunting a lion. A small army of officers and tranquilizer-toting zoo experts, along with a pair of heat-seeking helicopters, are spending their Monday combing the woods, ponds, and farmland around the coastal community after a resident spotted what was believed to be a lion lounging in a field of grass. Where such a beast may have come from is anyone's guess; the local zoo says its animals are accounted for, and police have said a local circus isn't missing any either. (AP Photo/Steve Parsons/PA Wire) UNITED KINGDOM OUT NO SALES NO ARCHIVE
LONDON >> So, were the locals lying about the lion?
Police said Monday that they’ve found no evidence to support locals’ claims that they’d spotted a big cat prowling the countryside near the idyllic village of St. Osyth, in the southeastern English county of Essex.
Sunday’s reported sightings alarmed the village’s 4,000 residents, and authorities sent about 40 officers, tranquilizer-toting zoo experts, and a pair of heat-seeking helicopters to the area in an effort to find the beast.
But a police spokeswoman said that, after and an extensive search, “we’ve found no evidence of any big cat.”
So does that mean there never was any lion?
The official, who spoke on customary condition of anonymity, demurred, noting that the people interviewed by police were convinced they’d spotted a lion. That aside, she said, “we’ve stopped searching for it.”
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It seems the mysterious “Essex Lion” will join a host of other mythical beasts who regularly appear and then disappear into the British countryside — particularly in the dead of summer, when journalists struggle to fill papers and news bulletins.
In 2011 there was the Hampshire Tiger, whose appearance near a sports field led to a police alert (the tiger turned out to be a stuffed toy.) And in 2007, the British media went wild over a man who claimed to have photographed a great white shark off the coast of Cornwall, in southwestern England.
The man, a bouncer, later admitted that the pictures were actually taken while on vacation in South Africa, adding that he couldn’t believe anyone had been foolish enough to take the hoax seriously.
