Texas police are hunting a vandal believed to have set free a rare clouded leopard by snipping a hole in the fence around its enclosure.

The cat was eventually found near where it went missing at Dallas Zoo, but only after a day-long search and the 40-hectare zoo being closed to the public.

The zoo tweeted that the cat, named Nova and weighing about 11 kilograms, did not appear have sustained any injuries and was returned to its repaired enclosure.

The zoo announced Nova had been found just moments after a news conference in which police said a criminal investigation had been opened.

Police and zoo officials said they have reviewed surveillance footage but would not say what it showed if it revealed potential suspects.

“It is our belief that this was an intentional act,” Dallas Police Sergeant Warren Mitchell said.

Mitchell said Dallas police at first dispatched SWAT officers to the zoo, not understanding the size of a clouded leopard. Police drones helped search the zoo grounds, including trees.

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Harrison Edell, executive vice-president of animal care and conservation at the Dallas Zoo, said clouded leopards like to climb.

The zoo tweeted earlier in the day that the missing cat was a “serious situation”, but officials said the animal posed no danger.

Another clouded leopard at the zoo, Nova’s sister, did not leave its habitat.

Animals have escaped enclosures from the Dallas Zoo before.

Most notably was in 2004, when a 150-kilogram gorilla named Jabari jumped over a wall and went on a 40-minute rampage that injured three people before police shot and killed the animal.

-with AAP