Most reports of mountain lion sightings in Texas are never verified with physical evidence, although such reports can arouse fear and cause a local publicity stir, according to wildlife experts with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. In one incident this spring, TPWD’s John Davis pulled up a photograph on his computer that someone had taken in a neighborhood north of Austin showing an animal’s tail barely visible behind a cedar tree.
The man who sent the grainy mobile phone photo said the animal was a large cat, prompting some people to speculate it was the latest in a rash of supposed mountain lion sightings in urban areas. Closer inspection proved otherwise.
Davis, TPWD conservation outreach coordinator and a former urban wildlife biologist, examined the size of a prickly-pear pad next to the cat in the photograph and used it as a scale to measure the animal’s size. “That’s a feral cat, maybe about 18 inches tall,” he said. “It’s not a mountain lion.” Also this spring, TPWD Game Warden Arlen “Turk” Jones handled a report of another supposed mountain lion sighting. Continue reading Most Mountain Lion “Sightings” are Unreliable