India’s Mercedes Plant Briefly Shut Down Due to Leopard’s Unexpected Visit

These days when you hear about an auto plant shutting down, it’s usually because of the global chip shortage. But for the Mercedes-Benz factory in Chakan, India, that was not the case.

What happened was a young male leopard, believed to be about three years old, entered the factory and wandered around for a few hours. Rather than risk their safety, factory workers had to briefly shut down production while animal control officers were called in to remove the animal.

The rescue was led by the Chakan Forest Department and Wildlife SOS to safely remove the young leopard from the factory. Once the jungle cat hid by some pallets and boxes, animal control workers were able to successfully sedate it from a distance.

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The teams eventually found it around the manufacturing unit and stayed near piles of boxes and pallets in the manufacturing department. Once it stayed put long enough, the leopard was tranquilized from a safe distance and hurried off the factory. The animal was kept under medical supervision before being released into the wild.

It was said that the rescue took about four hours, and factor production was shut down for six. The plant is also one of the highest producers of Mercedes-Benz in the world, producing models like the C-Class, E-Class, S-Class, and CLA Coupé.

Mercedes-Benz India released a tweet about the furry visitor, saying “We had a very special guest at Mercedes-Benz India campus this morning. A leopard strayed into the company’s production facility and was later rescued with the prompt support of the Forest Department and Local Police.” They then added, “Seems like the forest inspector ran a QC and gave us a star rating.”

At the end of the day, it you were waiting on a new Mercedes-Benz and it’s a day late, remember that it could be a lot worse. You could have been one of the unlucky customers whose new Lamborghini found itself at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.