MANIWAKI, Quebec, April 30 (UPI) -- Authorities in Quebec were searching Wednesday for a 150-pound African lion cub on the loose after escaping from its owner the night before.
Quebec provincial police spokeswoman Melanie Larouche told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. the animal was last seen near Maniwaki, located about 90 miles north of Ottawa. A relative of the cub's owner told the network the animal is less than a year old and is named Boomer.
The CBC identified the owner as Stanley Dumas Whiteduck, a resident of the Kitigan Zibi Algonquin First Nation reserve. Whiteduck reportedly was walking the cub, which has been bottle-fed since birth and is litter-trained, while tethered to dog leash when it escaped.
Local authorities closed area schools and day-care centers and a helicopter was brought in to aid in the search. They fear the lion could forget its human conditioning and revert to its primal nature if allowed to roam freely in the area's woods for too long.
