EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Police and firefighters in Juarez, Mexico, are reporting the rescue of a stray lioness from a neighborhood near the Rio Grande on Sunday night.
Authorities say they received a call around 10:30 p.m. from residents of the Colonia Ampliacion Felipe Angeles in northwest Juarez reporting a large feline had escaped from an unknown residence.
Police found the lioness wandering along Rocinante and Vaca streets, but the animal climbed onto a roof, leaped onto the top of a wall and then back to the roof. Juarez police called for backup from the fire department and the Mexican army. A video released by the city government shows how firefighters use a ladder and ropes to pull the feline from the roof and get her into a plastic cage.
Juarez Mayor Cruz Perez Cuellar said the lioness was taken to a fire station for temporary safekeeping. Local authorities notified the Federal Protection Agency (PROFEPA), which will take custody of the feline.
Mexican law requires special permits for its citizens to keep dangerous or protected animals on their property. There was no word who the lioness belonged to or how it was being kept in a heavily populated neighborhood.
This is the second time in less than two months that Mexican authorities find large felines in residential areas in the region. In September, Chihuahua state police found a rare liger — a cross between a lion and a tigress — in a recently abandoned home near Ojinaga, across the border from Presidio, Texas. The home’s walls had visible bullet holes.
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