{"id":379630,"date":"2026-04-03T07:55:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T07:55:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/379630\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T07:55:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T07:55:20","slug":"marwell-zoo-not-giving-up-on-finding-escaped-capybara","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/379630\/","title":{"rendered":"Marwell Zoo &#8220;not giving up&#8221; on finding escaped capybara"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Marwell Zoo in Hampshire, England is &#8220;not giving up&#8221; on finding its missing capybara as the search for Samba continues.<\/p>\n<p>Nine-month-old Samba escaped the zoo on 17 March alongside her sister Tango, who was found hiding in bushes on the <a href=\"https:\/\/blooloop.com\/animals\/in-depth\/top-zoos-and-aquariums-europe\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">zoo<\/a> grounds and safely returned.<\/p>\n<p>Samba&#8217;s breakout, however, has resulted in search efforts in the area involving the local community, thermal drones and a specialist sniffer dog.<\/p>\n<p>A member of the public from Owslebury, just over a mile from <a href=\"https:\/\/blooloop.com\/marwell-zoo-endangered-horses-return\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Marwell Zoo<\/a>, spotted Samba on the evening of 17 March. <\/p>\n<p>Search for Samba continues<\/p>\n<p>She was later seen along the banks of the River Itchen in Hampshire, about two miles from the zoo.<\/p>\n<p>Laura Read, CEO of Marwell Zoo, said (via the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cyv1q6qp5p5o\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">BBC<\/a>): &#8220;We will always follow up on any public sighting. We still have that public number available. She won&#8217;t evade everybody forever.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re not giving up,&#8221; she added. &#8220;When this happened 30 years ago, it took two months to locate and get them back.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re in it for the long haul. We&#8217;ve got a duty of care and we will exercise that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Marwell Zoo provided an update late last week and urged members of the public to get in touch on 07436 167 401 if Samba is spotted.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We do believe she&#8217;s probably still in the vicinity of the River Itchen,&#8221; Read said in an Instagram video.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It provides a really great habitat for her with food [and] shelter, and the area that she was spotted is very quiet and away from urban areas, noise, and dog walkers.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Marwell Zoo is asking the public to follow three rules: take a photo or video of Samba, provide the zoo with a precise location, and don&#8217;t approach the missing <a href=\"https:\/\/blooloop.com\/animals\/in-depth\/ize-leadership-interview\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">animal<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Although capybaras are gentle creatures and won&#8217;t pose any risk or threat to anyone, [Samba] will be scared and being approached is likely to cause her to flee,&#8221; said Read.<\/p>\n<p>Images courtesy of Marwell Zoo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marwell Zoo in Hampshire, England is &#8220;not giving up&#8221; on finding its missing capybara as the search for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[54867,13747,13748,85086,169626,61,60,82,169625,263,169624,22772],"class_list":{"0":"post-379630","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animal-welfare","9":"tag-attraction-design","10":"tag-attractions-business","11":"tag-attractions-management","12":"tag-balppa","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-uk-experience","17":"tag-wildlife","18":"tag-zoo-design","19":"tag-zoos"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}