Meet Louise; a playful black panther who had been living in an apartment in northern France, when neighbors panicked after spotting the wild animal roaming along the rooftops.
According to CbsNews, the couple had been sentenced to jail, although that part of the punishment was suspended on Thursday. The couple defended their decision about keeping Louise, stating they regarded the wild cat as their baby.
The magistrate sentenced the man owning the cat to 18 months in jail which was suspended; he was also ordered to pay a $17,000 fine. He was barred from keeping animals for five years. The woman received a four month suspended sentence and ordered not to own any animals for the next two years.
The owners said they saw the panther as his baby, and that the animal was extremely affectionate and cuddly. He stated he had purchased her from a “traveling community.”
The odd case goes back to September 2019 when the eight-month-old panther had been spotted walking along the rooftop in Armentieres after escaping from the couple’s second story open window.
Authorities were called and tried to trap the cat calmly as not to frighten her. Louise then slipped inside one of the windows enabling the rescuers to trap her. The 55-pound cat was then sedated with darts.
There were no injuries reported. The panther has since been relocated to the Stichting Leeuw Big Cat Sanctuary in the Netherlands where she is reported doing very well.
An attorney for an animal rights group compared keeping the wild cat as a pet as “tantamount to species trafficking.”
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