By now, you’re conditioned to expect that any factory going idle is doing so because of a shortage of critical parts or semiconductors. It’s 2022! Supply chains are clogged, demand is up, and automakers are struggling to keep up with it all. So consider it … refreshing, perhaps, to see a car plant hit the pause button for a unique reason: A leopard got loose inside of it.
This really happened in India recently, at a Mercedes-Benz factory. The leopard somehow wandered into the plant and then decided to hang out in the “manufacturing unit,” understandably stirring up some concern amongst the staff. The local forest service and Wildlife SOS, a group dedicated to animal conservation (and responsible for the video below, complete with dramatic music typical of such groups’ advertisements and other marketing clips) were called to help wrangle the cat.
Mostly, the leopard kind of roamed around and, once spotted, laid down and hid behind some shipping pallets. Turns out everyone has a cat allergy when the cat is huge. If you’re not a fan of seeing a majestic creature be tranquilized, maybe don’t watch the clip, but the leopard was safely knocked out with a dart and brought off-site for evaluation. According to Wildlife SOS, the leopard is a three-year-old male, and as far as we can tell, he did not contribute to the assembly of any Mercedes-Benz products while on-site.
