April 15 (UPI) -- Officials with the Utica Zoo in New York announced they are using drones to search for a beaver that escaped from the facility.
The 2-year-old beaver, named Cauliflower, had only been at the zoo for a few weeks when keepers discovered he had escaped sometime before the end of the day Wednesday.
The beaver was initially spotted near the zoo's Rotary Pavilion shortly after the alarm was sounded Wednesday evening, but he managed to give workers the slip and sparked a search that has now gone on for nearly a week.
"We haven't found him yet," Utica Zoo Executive Director Andria Heath told the Daily Sentinel newspaper. "So far, we feel like we've done everything we could think of, to no avail. Then we realized that we could try drones."
Heath said a local drone company has been contracted to do fly-overs of the zoo and its surrounding area.
The executive director said Cauliflower may have fled his enclosure to search for a mate.
"We anticipate that he probably went exploring a bit because he was in with his sisters," she said.
The beaver and his sisters, named Mustard and Tangerine, came to Utica from the Minnesota Zoo a few weeks before the escape.
