FRANKFURT — Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

In a brief but dramatic episode, two lions, two tigers, a jaguar and a bear were reported missing from their enclosures in a zoo in western Germany on Friday, prompting an all-hands search by the police, the fire brigade and a team of veterinarians.

The drama grew by midmorning when the bear was discovered outside his enclosure in the zoo and shot dead.

Then a local broadcaster reported that some of the big cats might have slipped entirely out of the 74-acre compound of the Eifel Zoo in Lünebach, near the borders with Luxembourg and Belgium. Residents in surrounding areas were told to stay indoors until all the animals were accounted for.

In the end, a drone sighted the remaining animals in a corner of their own enclosure, where they were hiding after heavy overnight thunderstorms had caused severe flooding.