Officials in Paris are on the lookout for a tiger on the loose.

Police, fire officials and a specially-trained hunting dog began searching for what they believe is a tiger that was seen in a town outside of Paris.

"It is a tiger, for sure, a dangerous animal," Pierre-Emmanuel Portheret, deputy chief of police in Seine-et-Marne, France, told ABC News. "We don't know how much time it will take to find the tiger, maybe several days. The animal might get hungry by then."

Residents in Montevrain, Chessy and Chalif were told to stay indoors as officials wait for daybreak before they resume searching for the wild cat that was first spotted in the town of Montevrain, according to a news release from the Seine-et-Marne prefect.

A woman told officials that she saw the animal in a supermarket car park in the Paris suburb. Her husband, the owner of the lntermarche supermarket in Montevrain, said "She didn't get out of the car and called me to say 'I think I saw a lynx'," he was quoted as saying.

As a result, officals went on the hunt armed with tranquilizer guns, a helicopter and a lieutenant who specializes in hunting wolves.

Although the town is located near a big cat park called "Parc des Félins de Nesles," park officials told ABC News that the tiger did not escape from their custody.

"It's too young to be ours. Our small tigers are taken care of by their parents and they wouldn't let that happen," said a park spokeswoman. "We don't have nurseries."

The spokeswoman said that the park has 180 animals, which are counted twice a day, adding that all animals had been accounted for Thursday morning.

"With the security that we have here, it's impossible. It would have made holes everywhere along the barriers," said the spokeswoman.