20120512 NAIROBI, May 11 (Xinhua) -- Kenya's wildlife body plans to move a lioness which was captured on Thursday to a national park in the north of the country.
Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS) Corporate Affairs Manager Paul Udoto said the lioness that had been roaming in a city suburb is being held at the KWS Veterinary Laboratory in Nairobi for a check-up pending a decision on the appropriate place to move it to.
"One of the places being considered is a national park in Northern Kenya," Udoto said in a statement released in Nairobi late on Thursday.
The move comes a week after four cubs were also captured and their mother was killed when it charged at rangers who were trying to capture it.
Udoto said they suspect that the lioness which was captured on Thursday was in the company of the one that was killed in the same location last week.
The animals' presence in Nairobi's Mukoma Road in Karen/Langata adjacent to Nairobi National Park has aroused fears among residents for the last couple of months.
Last week, the KWS rangers set seven lion traps in an effort to capture the lioness on the day it was killed. However, Udoto said, the attempt failed when it aggressively charged at the rangers and veterinarians who were preparing to dart it.
He said the four healthy young cubs have been successively rescued and are kept at the Nairobi Animal Orphanage.
"We appeal to residents of Mukoma Road and its environs to report to KWS should they see another lion in their area as it is possible more than one lion had strayed from the park," he said.
KWS has listed elephants, lions, wild dogs, leopards, cheetah, hyenas, sitatunga, Tana crested mangabey, and Tana red colobus monkeys as some of the most endangered wildlife species in Kenya.
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