NAIROBI, Kenya: A lion that escaped from Nairobi National Park wandered around the Kenyan capital on Friday and attacked a man, resulting in his hospitalisation.

Officials at the Kenya Wildlife Service said on Twitter that three units had “taken control of a lion incident” and that a man who was injured by the lion had been taken to a hospital.

It was the fourth time in less than a month that lions have strayed from the park and caused panic, according to the Kenyan news media. In mid-February, a lioness and her cub went for a little trip of their own and headed toward the city center.

Nairobi National Park, a bushy expanse of long grass and watering holes, is just minutes from the glass towers of downtown Nairobi.

The park, a popular tourist destination where visitors can see lions, leopards, giraffes and even rhinos, is also close to a large and densely populated slum, raising fears that a breach in the fence that is not repaired could put more people in danger.

Kenya wildlife officials have yet to explain how the lions keep breaking out. Wildlife experts say that escapes happen from time to time, usually without incident, as the creatures wander off, probably just to see what is on the other side.

But residents in a farming community near the park said that three escaped lions had killed 150 of their sheep and that they were now scared to go out at night. “If it can eat goats,” said one elder, “it can eat people.”

Images posted on social media on Friday showed a big, dark-maned adult male lion jogging along Mombasa Road, one of Nairobi’s busiest, as motorists beeped, shouted and flailed their arms out the window. The man who was hospitalised was said to be 63; officials said his life was not in danger.

“People were there, hooting their horns, taking selfies and all that, and the lion got agitated,” a spokesman for the Kenya Wildlife Service, Paul Udoto, was quoted by news agencies as saying.

— New York Times News Service