'Help! Lion!' Turns out it was just a shopping bag

Residents of Meru in Kenya panicked when they spotted a lion hiding in a nearby bush and called the Kenya Wildlife Service for assistance.

The rescue team rushed to the scene, armed and ready. However, the “lion” turned out to be a carrier bag with a realistic lion face printed on it.

Officers from the Kenya Wildlife Service found seedlings of an avocado plant in the bag, which explains why it looked full and why the residents mistook the bag for a lion's head peeping out from under the hedge.

In a tweet, the wildlife department praised the public for sounding the alarm.

The risk of encountering a lion in Kenya has increased in recent years. There are about 2,000 of the predators in the east African country and its government estimates that the number of wild lions has risen by 25% since a 2010 census.

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