'Hobby zoos' face calls for crackdown after second lynx dies at animal park home of Lillith

News of the accidental strangling of Nilly at Borth Wild Animal Kingdom comes after the shooting of escaped enclosure-mate Lillith the Lynx  

Adam Lusher 

The Independent Online

A Welsh zoo is facing calls to close after it emerged a second lynx was accidentally strangled in  “a terrible handling error” days before Lillith the lynx was shot and killed following her escape from the same attraction.

Borth Wild Animal Kingdom near Aberyswyth was branded a “hobby zoo” after news of the death of the second lynx emerged, throwing a spotlight on fears that at some UK animal attractions well-meaning but underqualified owners are failing to look after creatures properly.

Launching a petition for Borth to close in the light of the two deaths, the Lynx UK Trust, a conservation group working to reintroduce the lynx to Britain, accused the zoo’s management of having “little to no understanding of wild animal behaviour or welfare needs”.

Dr Paul O'Donoghue, Chief scientific adviser to the trust, added: “What if it had been Borth's crocodile that escaped? Or their two lions?  

“How long are we going to let these hobby zoos run by amateurs keep operating? Will it take the death of a human for someone to take action?"

News of the second lynx fatality came amid controversy over how one and a half-year-old Lillith was shot dead by a marksman on Friday, having been on the run since late October.  

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The lynx effect: search for one-year-old Lillith continues in west Wales

Borth Wild Animal Kingdom attracts large crowd of visitors as mother prowls cage while offspring eludes staff and police

Steven Morris

Monday 30 October 2017 18.10 GMTFirst published on Monday 30 October 2017 16.53 GMT

Zoo keepers kitted out with thermal imaging equipment, nets and cages baited with rabbit have been scouring a craggy hillside and the gardens of a seaside town in search of a wild cat that made a daring leap for freedom.

Lillith the Eurasian lynx is thought to have climbed a spindly sapling growing in the pen she shared with her mother and two siblings and dived over a 4-metre fence and two electrified wires, possibly as she chased a bird.

The year-old lynx – around twice the size of a domestic cat – has eluded the efforts of staff at the Borth Wild Animal Kingdom in west Wales and those of Dyfed-Powys police, who provided a helicopter to recapture her.

“We’re pretty sure we know roughly where she is,” said Dean Tweedy, who runs the small coastal zoo with wife, Tracy. “It’s a matter of tempting her back. It’s a waiting game. She’s never hunted for herself or ate live food so she’ll soon get hungry if she can’t catch rabbits or rodents.”

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