There it sat, casually munching on some grass, nothing but a railing between parks staff and one of Toronto's most wanted — a runaway capybara.

So close, yet so far.

But instead of launching a daring nighttime capture on Monday evening, park staff decided conditions were too risky and capture would have to wait for another night.

For Ben Lovatt, Daniel Giannone and Darlene Robinson-Lynch, it was a bit of a disappointment after the excitement of spotting the clever creature two times in as many days.

"There's no reason why, with a couple of boats you could come in from one side," said Lovatt, "It must be financial or something, but if Canadian Tire was still open. I'd throw the money down to buy some boats and rescue the capybara."

Robinson-Lynch and Giannone were walking in the southeast corner of High Park at about 9:30 Sunday evening when they spotted the furry animal out on the path and managed to capture a blurry Sasquatch-esque picture of it before the beast bolted.

"I spent the next couple of hours chasing it around," said Giannone.

Their calls to 311 and park staff went unanswered, so instead they called in Lovatt, founder of the natural history museum Prehistoria, a wildlife wrangler and friend whose experience has mostly been with reptiles.

"I've wrangled alligators and anacondas, so a large mammal wasn't really that worrying for me," said Lovatt, joking that his girlfriend calls him the "Batman of animal rescues."

Ultimately the capybara jumped in the water and eluded them.

But on Monday night they headed out again, and within minutes of beginning the search had located the giant rodent along the narrow concrete edge of a drainage pond, munching away. It was right where they'd left it the night before.

Giannone quickly put in a call to the cavalry, hoping zoo staff, animal control, somebody would come to capture the capybara.

What they got was parks manager Donna Kovachis, wielding a small yellow flashlight. Kovachis wouldn’t give any details except to say that the park had a "strategy" it planned to follow.

On Monday, that meant leaving the animal where it was and waiting for a better opportunity.

"It's the great capybara stalemate," lamented Lovatt.

As Kovachis got back in her car, the group of friends stood a short distance from the capybara, refusing to let it go.

"We'll be back tomorrow," said Giannone. "Plus there's still another one out there."

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Beyond the beams of their flashlights sat what everyone had been searching for. So close, yet still so far.

"When you've worked that hard to try and find it, just walking away is kind of a kick in the ass. "

The city’s 311 phone line has received hundreds of calls reporting capybara sightings since the pair went missing May 24, parks division spokesperson Megan Price said. But only a handful of those reports has been deemed credible — and all of those placed the pair still in High Park.

City staff had set up live traps with corn and fruit in areas where the two had been spotted.

“They are social creatures, so the thought is that if they smell the food and hear the noises they will be attracted and come back, but not if they’re totally and completely terrified,” Price said.

The city chose the live-trap method after consulting with experts, Price said, adding that “going out and trying to catch them … is not generally successful.” The city is asking for anyone who sees a capybara on the loose to call 311 and not approach the animal, she said.

Lovatt said he doesn’t care who catches the animal — he’s just concerned for its well-being.

“When it was sighted originally, it was within eyesight of a major road. There’s no reason why a dog couldn’t spook the animal, it runs into traffic and it dies, or it doesn’t get found and the weather changes and it dies. This is not the appropriate environment for a capybara, and its long-term survival is going to come down to zero eventually,” he said.

“I just love animals. That’s what it comes down to.”

By the way, for anyone thinking of offering a lonely, homeless capybara shelter in their home — don’t. Among the animals that the Toronto Municipal Code prohibits are any rodents that exceed 1,500g.

With files from Evelyn Kwong