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Komodo dragon stolen from French reptile farm

Police in southern France are desperately trying to track down a Komodo dragon stolen from a crocodile farm.

Komodo dragon stolen from French reptile farm
Police are now monitoring the situation. Photo: Tony Cyphert/Flickr
Workers at the Pierrelatte crocodile farm in the Drôme département of southeastern France were faced with a sorry sight on Thursday morning.
 
Among the broken glass and forced locks was an empty space where one of their Komodo dragons used to live. 
 
But a wet cloth left behind on the floor told zookeepers that this wasn't some kind of violent dragon escape to freedom. 
 
“This is the work of an enthusiast, or at least someone who was acting on orders,”  farm manager Samuel Martin told Le Parisien newspaper.
 
He said thieves would have used the cloth to put over the lizard's eyes in an effort to prevent it from panicking. 
 

(Photo: Richard Cassan/Flickr)
 
The dragon, which weighed around 4.5 kilogrammes and measured 120 centimetres long, was the only reptile taken by the thieves, and was one of four on loan from the Barcelona Zoo where it was born in captivity.
 
A security guard at the farm was quick to raise the alarm, but police who arrived on the scene have so far been unable to track down any culprits. 
 
Komodo dragons, also known as Komodo monitors, are the largest lizards in the world. 
 
Zookeeper Samuel Martin said the lizards can grow to be three metres long and weigh up to 160 kilograms, “roughly the size of a crocodile”.

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ANIMALS

Coronavirus: Four lions test positive at Barcelona zoo

Four lions at Barcelona Zoo, three of them older females, caught Covid-19 last month but suffered only mild symptoms and have since recovered, the Catalan animal park said.

Coronavirus: Four lions test positive at Barcelona zoo
File photo of lions in a zoo: AFP

Their keepers were tipped off when they noticed “mild respiratory symptoms” among three 16-year-old females and a four-year-old male, a zoo statement said.

The symptoms emerged as two of their keepers tested positive for the virus.   

“The four lions were tested with the viral antigen detection kit… and were found to be positive,” it said, indicating the diagnosis was confirmed by PCR tests.

They were immediately treated with anti-inflammatories and closely monitored under a protocol similar to that for the flu, and “responded positively”.

“At no time were the lions seen having difficultly breathing or other respiratory issues, and all symptoms disappeared within a fortnight, apart from coughing and sneezing,” the zoo said.

To avoid catching the virus, the keepers wore FFP3 masks, plexiglass visors and protective footwear, and they were lowered into the enclosure in a halter.   

The zoo also contacted “international experts such as the Bronx Zoo veterinary service in New York, the only one to have documented a case of Sars-CoV-2 infection in big cats,” it said.

In early April, a four-year-old female tiger at the Bronx Zoo tested positive for Covid-19, likely contracting it from a keeper who was asymptomatic at the time.

Since the start of the pandemic, cats, dogs and various other animals have tested positive for Covid-19 but until now, minks are the only animals proven to both contract the virus and pass it on to humans.

Several countries have ordered the mass culling of their mink populations, notably Denmark where more than 10 million have already been killed.

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