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Florida already has alligators, panthers, and all sorts of crazy snakes. We don’t need other continent’s weird animals running lose.
Yet we’re only three days into 2014 and there’s already been a rash of weird animal escapes in the state. On New Year’s Day a kangaroo was found hopping through a Central Florida neighborhood, and earlier today a lion was on the loose in the Tampa Bay area.
According to the Associated Press, a 7-year-old lioness slipped out of her enclosure at the Survival Outreach Sanctuary. Authorities set up a perimeter around the property. Eventually, the animal was found, tranquilized, and placed back in her pen.
Earlier this week, a kangaroo was spotted in a suburban neighborhood near Orlando. The animal was apparently owned by someone with the proper permits but was under the care of a babysitter at the time of the escape.
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“She said she’s the babysitter, so [it] sounds weird,” witness Annie Stokes told UPI. “I said, ‘Do you live here?’ She says, ‘I don’t live here. This kangaroo lives here.'”
Deputies caught the kangaroo, which was taken back to its babysitter. The case was then closed.
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