Panther Panic Strikes Again
Big game hunt launched in northern countryside
Piacenza - Italy has been hit by one of its periodic bouts of panther panic
with a full-scale 'big game hunt' in the countryside around this northern
city .
Authorities said they had sent out police and forest guards after several
sightings of "a big cat, probably a panther" in the local hills .
They said the animal may have escaped from a circus "or the villa of some
eccentric citizen" .
The latest feline flap followed a similar scare on the outskirts of Rome in
February, when panic set in after six goats were found dead .
Locals calmed down when experts said the tooth marks on the goats were those
of a big dog. The Piacenza hunt is Italy's seventh panther alert in just
over a decade .
In December, Turin was shaken by panther fears after a series of sightings
sparked rumours that a visiting Moscow zoo had lost one of its biggest draws
.
The zoo squashed the reports, saying it had no panthers but only dogs,
camels and horses .
The December reports revived memories of a wild cat chase near Turin six and
a half years ago .
That 1999 report spurred copycat incidents as feline fever spread to the
provincial border with Como .
Most of the other reports of predators on the loose have come amid midsummer
news droughts known to journalistic insiders as "the silly season." Panthers
were reported to have been sighted in the harsh landscape of central
Sardinia in 2001 and the rolling countryside of central Umbria in 1993 and
1995 .
After the second Umbria sighting locals said they had also seen a lion
roaming in the vicinity .
Earlier related story: Italians In Rome Panther Hunt
ANSA (Italy): 6th April 2006
