Cleaning lady finds leopard behind washing machine

It was not a normal working day for South African vet Cliff Bull when he was called by a cleaning lady yesterday. In a house in Benoni, a town not far from Johannesburg, she found a leopard behind the washing machine when she wanted to do the laundry, Bull explained.

After the remarkable call, Bull immediately went to the site to sedate the young animal. That turned out not to be an easy task. The leopard was hiding in the tight space behind the washing machine and had bitten the water supply pipe of the device so that the entire washroom was flooded. “I finally managed to hit him through the window in his right shoulder with an anesthetic arrow,” the vet said.

Bull brought the remarkable guest to a wildlife sanctuary. The caretakers there are not sure yet whether the five-month-old leopard was illegally kept as a pet and escaped somewhere, or whether the young animal ended up in the city after it lost its mother.