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German Safari

Augsburg Police Spend Hours Chasing Escaped Zebras

Four zebras escaped from a circus in Augsburg on Monday. The ensuing chase made the police look like clowns.

Pedestrians in the southern German city of Augsburg on Monday witnessed a bizarre cat-and-mouse game played out in its streets. But the cat in this case was the local police. And the mice? Four zebras who had escaped from a circus currently visiting the town.

Passersby were able to corner one of the zebras until its keepers could capture it, according to a police statement. The other three zebras led police and their handlers on a zig-zag chase through the city 65 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of Munich.

Finally, after 45 minutes, police and animal handlers were able to corral the three remaining runaways into a paddock on the edge of town. While loading the animals for transport, however, one of the three managed to escape once again. This time it took two hours and a veterinarian with a tranquilizer rifle to bring the animal down so it could calmly be transported back to the circus.

During their equine spree, the zebras hurt no one but managed to damage two police cars.

It remains unclear how the animals escaped. A spokesman for the local police told SPIEGEL ONLINE that the circus was in the process of dismantling and that the animals' handlers might have been "insufficiently attentive."

jtw -- with wire reports