Is there a cougar loose in D.C.?

Found this interesting news report this afternoon.

Friday - 10/28/2011, 1:40pm ET Amy Hunter, wtop.com WASHINGTON -- There's a cougar on the loose in Northwest D.C. We're not talking about a good-looking, older lady. We're talking about an actual cougar, or mountain lion or puma. And we can't say for certain that there is, actually, a predatory cat roaming Glover Park. But we can say that animal control officers are scouring the streets in search of such a creature. "Someone could very well have had it as a pet and let it go," says Scott Giacoppo, chief of field services at D.C. Animal Control. "But we're leaning more toward some other kind of animal, maybe a fox, with a skin condition."

The article went on to say that there had never been a verified mountain lion report in the are before.

A second story has some eye witness accounts:

Some believe a mountain lion may be lurking in northwest Washington. One neighbor described the creature as larger and wider than a deer, with the long tail of a cat. Another woman said she was walking her dog in McLean Gardens at the edge of Glover Park when she spotted the large cat last week. The cat, which she believes is a mountain lion, ran off into some nearby woods. Someone else reported seeing the cat last February.

I, for one, wouldn't doubt that there is a large cat roaming around. Either a loose pet or one that has moved in from somewhere else. For all of the urban characteristics of D.C. It is a city with great swaths of green corridors and plenty of deer.

I do have to wonder about how seriously this is being taken. A fox with a skin condition? LOL.

reply to post by angrywhitechick


Sorry got the wrong end of the stick.

I saw the title and thought
"Not Another Hillary Clinton thread?"

WOW. That’s really odd/coincidental. Link to my Local News There has been several (unfounded) reports of seeing a mountain lion in the area.. (Im in Philly’s suburbs).

This is his planet as well and has every right to be there. He's more than likely just looking for food. If he is ferrel then every effort should be made to trap him alive, provided the medical care he needs and released back into the wilds at a safe distence from civilization. However, knowing the trigger happy nature of police officers and Wildlife and Fisheries, they will probably just shoot on site.

Originally posted by HumansEh
reply to post by angrywhitechick

 

Sorry got the wrong end of the stick.

I saw the title and thought
"Not Another Hillary Clinton thread?"

I had wondered how many posts until someone brought this up!

Very first one!!!

What's up with all these exotic animals sightings in urban areas over the years?
Usually its about a big cat of some kind.
Tons of people see them but authorities are never able to catch one lion/panther/tiger/jaguar/whatever.

Originally posted by Britx
WOW. That’s really odd/coincidental. Link to my Local News There has been several (unfounded) reports of seeing a mountain lion in the area.. (Im in Philly’s suburbs).

Of course they didn't find him when they looked. He had headed south already!

I would believe people were mistaking a large dog (like they we saying in your link) well before I would think they were mistaking a fox with mange.

reply to post by angrywhitechick


Could likely be a cougar. I know up here in Canada, we don't have anywhere that doesn't have cougars. They are everywhere.

I don't understand how it could be mistaken for a fox with a skin condition, even from a distance

They look completely different, from nose to tail, and a fox is much smaller, unless it's a baby cougar, and even their colouring is usually much brighter

Originally posted by amaster
This is his planet as well and has every right to be there. He's more than likely just looking for food. If he is ferrel then every effort should be made to trap him alive, provided the medical care he needs and released back into the wilds at a safe distence from civilization. However, knowing the trigger happy nature of police officers and Wildlife and Fisheries, they will probably just shoot on site.

I agree it would be nice if they could catch him and release him somewhere where he is less likely to be harmed by people.

Unfortunately, one of the article states if it was someone's pet it was probably declawed. It couldn't survive in the wild if it was declawed.

I am hoping with the backlash over the killing of all those animals in Ohio a better effort will be made to trap this animal if it does turn out to really be a cougar.

reply to post by angrywhitechick

Sorry, my bad.
My fingers were typing before my brain caught up.
It was a reflex.
Thanks for seeing the (slightly) funny side, don't mean to detract from your thread. I actually find the phenomena of wild animals existing in places that man deems to be his domain very interesting, theres something dangerously exotic about it.

I wonder how the animal reacts to the unnatural environment with its strange smells and sounds not found in nature. It must be extremely stressful and would probably cause it to act aggressively and out of its nature. Cats (of all sizes) are such adaptable and resilient creatures though, one could probably evade detection for a long time.
S&F for being so nice about my crap joke!

Originally posted by snowspirit
reply to post by angrywhitechick

 

Could likely be a cougar. I know up here in Canada, we don't have anywhere that doesn't have cougars. They are everywhere.

I don't understand how it could be mistaken for a fox with a skin condition, even from a distance

They look completely different, from nose to tail, and a fox is much smaller, unless it's a baby cougar, and even their colouring is usually much brighter

I think the fox quote was just a good representation of the disrespect felt by animal control for the people in the D.C. area. Although, to be fair, last summer people caught a "mysterious" animal in a trap and it was a fox with mange. I just don't see how it could be mistaken for a much larger animal, though.

This could very well be an out of place animal. Although officially there are not supposed to be any cougars in the area over the last 10 years or so the number of encounters has jumped in Virginia and West Virginia and both of those are really close to the D.C area.

Mountain lions do occur in Maryland and Virginia, I have been hearing rumors for awhile that they are moving back.

Originally posted by AurelioMaghe
What's up with all these exotic animals sightings in urban areas over the years?
Usually its about a big cat of some kind.
Tons of people see them but authorities are never able to catch one lion/panther/tiger/jaguar/whatever.

I think sightings of big cats in urban areas was a big joke to law enforcement until 2008 when Chicago police shot and killed a cougar. So maybe there is more to the reports besides misidentified animals?

Cougar shot in Chicago

Originally posted by HumansEh
reply to post by angrywhitechick

 

Sorry, my bad.
My fingers were typing before my brain caught up.
It was a reflex.
Thanks for seeing the (slightly) funny side, don't mean to detract from your thread. I actually find the phenomena of wild animals existing in places that man deems to be his domain very interesting, theres something dangerously exotic about it.

I wonder how the animal reacts to the unnatural environment with its strange smells and sounds not found in nature. It must be extremely stressful and would probably cause it to act aggressively and out of its nature. Cats (of all sizes) are such adaptable and resilient creatures though, one could probably evade detection for a long time.
S&F for being so nice about my crap joke!

Thanks for the S&F but it wasn't a problem. I laughed!

It sounds like the animal is sticking to the woods so it probably isn't too far from it's element. My only worry is it someone's pet and will seek out a human to be fed and end up getting hurt or hurting someone because of a misunderstanding. If it is wild, unless it is sick, there is plenty of deer to eat in the area. I just hope it moves on once it sees to many people.

I doubt that it's a mountain lion. I'm a D.C. resident, and a great fan of the mountain lion, so over the years I've been aware of locals' supposed sightings of the cats in the city or the suburbs, most recently (a few years ago) in College Park, Maryland. In that case it turned out to be one those super-expensive exotic house cats that was a bred with some Indian wild cat DNA, producing a reasonably domesticated cat that was substantially larger than a typical house cat. Folks saw it and were SURE it was a mountain lion, and that it was much bigger than it really was (i.e. it was located and captured and turned out to be someone's pet).

The area is also close to bobcat habitat, and although their sizes are substantially different, bobcats too are much much larger than virtually any cat you would see in an urban area. I grew up perhaps twenty miles outside of D.C., and I do recall folks I knew then to have seen bobcats near the wooded areas surrounding my high school, so it's not at all inconceivable that the D.C. witnesses saw a large (or normal) bobcat and were simply mistaken about its actual size.

Having said all that, I would *love* for it to be an honest-to-god mountain lion, just because they're awesome. It's long been my dream to see nature triumph over human urbanization and reintroduce apex predators to the region, especially in the wooded areas of the city, such as Rock Creek Park. Rock Creek Park extends up into Maryland, is larger than Central Park, hosts foxes, coyote, raccoons, perhaps a bear family (a bear was seen a few years ago not a mile from the park's western border, rifling through an apartment building's dumpster), owls, hawks, homeless humans, and of course, lots and lots and lots (and lots) of deer. It would be a perfect habitat for a mountain lion, but for the lack of breeding opportunities (but I don't find many of those in D.C. myself!).

Originally posted by nixie_nox
Mountain lions do occur in Maryland and Virginia, I have been hearing rumors for awhile that they are moving back.

Yes, you are right. I think I read somewhere that in 2005 some agencies started a longer term study to prove it but haven't heard anything. I know there are a couple of places on the web to report sighting.

I really wouldn't be surprised if it is wild (not feral) at all.

it was probably one of these
en.wikipedia.org...
the gov officials claim that they have all gone extinct but i have seen them on three separate occasions in my area of nc. so maybe there is a breeding population in nearby Virginian forest and one wandered into dc area looking for food. they are usually very shy animals. i used to be ridiculed by local friends who were hunters till one of them caught a couple recently on camera they had posted by where they were baiting deer

reply to post by angrywhitechick



More than just one..
They offered to buy me drinks.. and I dont remember the rest of that night.

North American Cougars used to have a range that covered the entire country. People stopped seeing them in more populated areas and probably just assumed they'd died out or been pushed away.. that doesn't mean they aren't still there and didn't come out to DC wanting a snack.

Or maybe the Cougars are occupying DC.

The cats, not the women.