A Puma at Large

更新：2023-11-22

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[00:01.53]Lesson 1
[00:03.33]A puma at large
[00:11.48]Where must the puma have come from?
[00:16.23]Pumas are large cat-like animals which are found in America.
[00:22.55]When reports came into London Zoo
[00:25.23]that a wild puma had been spotted forty-five miles south of London
[00:30.05]they were not taken seriously.
[00:32.83]However as the evidence began to accumulate
[00:36.90]experts from the Zoo felt obliged to investigate
[00:40.93]for the descriptions given by people who claimed to have seen the puma
[00:45.10]were extraordinarily similar.
[00:48.55]The hunt for the puma began in a small village
[00:51.66]where a woman picking blackberries saw 'a large cat'only five yards away from her.
[00:59.33]It immediately ran away when she saw it
[01:02.60]and experts confirmed that a puma will not attack a human being unless it is cornered.
[01:10.15]The search proved difficult
[01:12.44]for the puma was often observed at one place in the morning
[01:16.61]and at another place twenty miles away in the evening.
[01:21.13]Wherever it went it left behind it a trail of dead deer and small animals like rabbits.
[01:28.97]Paw prints were seen in a number of places and puma fur was found clinging to bushes.
[01:35.85]Several people complained of 'cat-like noises' at night
[01:39.87]and a businessman on a fishing trip saw the puma up a tree.
[01:45.08]The experts were now fully convinced that the animal was a puma
[01:50.36]but where had it come from?
[01:52.53]As no pumas had been reported missing from any zoo in the country
[01:57.20]this one must have been in the possession of a private collector
[02:01.53]and somehow managed to escape.
[02:04.93]The hunt went on for several weeks but the puma was not caught.
[02:10.88]It is disturbing to think
[02:12.66]that a dangerous wild animal is still at large in the quiet countryside.