Footloose Lion Is Recaptured in Florida Tourist Territory

KISSIMMEE, Fla. — In a tourist mecca where a mouse named Mickey is usually king, the two-day reign of a wayward lion called Nala ended happily Wednesday when a searcher fired a tranquilizing dart into the fugitive’s flank.

While walking through a swampy woodland near the roadside zoo from which the lion escaped, veterinarian James Barnett came face-to-face with the 450-pound cat and immobilized her with a dose of anesthetic.

“I called her name, she hissed a little bit and then ran off,” said Barnett of his first encounter with the 2 1/2-year-old feline. Barnett said he found the cat again just yards away, hunkered down in palmetto bushes.

The first shot from his dart pistol ricocheted off a branch. The second struck the animal in the hip. For the next three to five minutes, Barnett said, man and beast stared at each other until the drug kicked in. When the animal seemed to nod off, Barnett said he jabbed another syringe into the lion’s haunch.

What was Barnett’s heart rate as he faced the lion? “Rapid,” he replied. “There was an adrenaline rush.”

As tourists coming and going from nearby Disney World slowed their cars to look, a dozen men carried the semiconscious lion from the woods on an aluminum extension ladder, ending a 48-hour hunt.

Nala’s eyes were glassy and half-shut, and her breathing appeared labored as the cat--still splayed across the ladder--was loaded onto the back of a pickup truck and driven across the lawn of the Gator Motel and back to her pen.

State game officials and the operators of the JungleLand zoo said that Nala--declawed, born in captivity and named after a character in the Disney movie “The Lion King”--was not likely to go far or to endanger people. “She’s a very personable cat,” said JungleLand marketing director Kathy Bacon.

Yet Nala had never been free of an enclosure before, and state game officials had warned that the animal could be dangerous if threatened or cornered.

“She’s in surprisingly good health,” said Barnett after examining the animal. “There is no sign of trauma. She looks fine.”

Nala’s run for freedom began Monday as JungleLand staffers entered her enclosure to install a platform made necessary by heavy rains that have caused flooding throughout the area. Although the lion had been given two doses of tranquilizer, Bacon said the noise of construction apparently spooked her and she burst through her chain-link fence and ran for the woods.

“The animal went ballistic,” Bacon said.

The escape caused a flurry of excitement in this area of fast-food restaurants, motels and T-shirt shops that form a corridor to the front gates of Disney World.

As word spread at midafternoon that Nala had been spotted, scores of reporters and law officers scrambled down busy Route 192, and tourists pulled their cars to the side of the road to get a look at the action. “We’ve been coming to the Orlando area for years, and this is the first time for this,” said Mary Maubray, a visitor from Diamondale, Mich., who was with her husband--and a pair of binoculars.

Also among the gawkers was 23-year-old Michael Medeiros, who lives a few hundred yards from the search area. He brought his video camera. “I was putting my Christmas lights up this morning while looking over my shoulder.”

Nala was sighted several times Tuesday by spotters in helicopters and by those on the ground, but hunters with dart guns were unable to get off a shot. Searchers placed chunks of meat in the woods in a failed effort to lure the cat back to its enclosure.

Eventually, it was time that led to the cat’s capture. “She probably was tired and confused,” Barnett said.

Officials of JungleLand, which charges visitors to see about 300 exotic animals, said that inspectors from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the state’s Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission would conduct an investigation of the pen from which Nala escaped.

Meanwhile, as the adventures of Nala ended, another wildlife drama began. A black bear, native to Florida, was spotted on a high school campus north of Orlando Wednesday and, as night fell, it had been treed in a residential neighborhood.