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A new sighting has been reported of a capybara which has been missing from a Hampshire zoo for more than a month.
Samba made headlines when she escaped from Marwell Zoo on 17 March, with efforts to locate the runaway rodent so far proving unsuccessful.
On Monday morning (20 April) Louise Nyman says she spotted Samba while on the school run near Colden Common, Winchester.
Speaking to ITV Meridian, Ms Nyman said: “I saw something run across the road, and I immediately thought, oh my gosh, it’s a capybara.
“So I quickly pulled in and jumped out my car, left my daughter in the car, and rushed to go and try and get a photograph of it, and it kind of looked at me in the field and then ran away quite quickly.
She continued: “I immediately thought it was the capybara, and then I sort of second-guessed myself thinking, was it a dog? Was it a small deer?
“And then I kind of was looking at the stature of the small legs, the round bottom, and thought, no, it’s definitely nothing like a dog or a deer, and it was completely alone, and it was quite skittish, and I was expecting that from a capybara.”
In a statement, Marwell Zoo said: “The teams are continuing to use the same methods of trying to track Samba down including camera traps, thermal drones and a specialist dog unit.
“The continued request is for the public to call the hotline, 07436 167401, with any sightings and an exact location.”
Samba escaped from a temporary holding enclosure at Marwell Zoo near Winchester on Tuesday 17th March.
Her sister, Tango, also ran off but keepers were quickly able to locate and re-capture her.
The pair had recently arrived from Jimmy’s Farm & Wildlife Park in Suffolk.
Since then, the team has used specialist tracking dogs, drones and camera traps to try and spot Samba but with no luck so far.
Video footage of Samba resting on a bank of the River Itchen, near Winchester, was shared last month.
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