Rochester describes close encounter with mountain lion
This New Yorker is getting his dander up over a reported mountain lion roaming Rochester.
Curtis Jones said he has armed himself with a baseball bat after he spotted the big cat lurking around his block last week — and locked eyes with the beast as it slinked by and sent neighbors scattering.
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“It when right over there, and it said ‘Rawr!’” said Jones, who spotted the panther prowling around his street Wednesday. “I seen it, see me, see it.”
“I heard the ‘Rawr,’ I felt the ‘Rawr.’ I know he be pushing, I know that,” Jones told WHAM. “In my head I’m like, ‘No, I gotta go, man. I’m out.’”
He was just one of numerous people in the Rochester neighborhood who reported spotting the beast last Wednesday, prompting police to order a shelter in place while a search for the suspected cougar was launched.
Officials were unable to verify the sightings, so the order was lifted — but witnesses like Jones say they know what they saw, and are keeping prepared to avoid becoming panther prey.
“They ain’t find it last night. It’s still out here, it could be out here in one of these bushes,” he said, pointing into nearby treetops. “You know them mountain lions, it be ‘Rawr,’ they be crawling, you know. They serious.”
“It about like this big, it was just walking, slithering. I don’t know man,” Jones said. “Imma keep this bat right here, man, just in case. I’m gonna protect this. I ain’t gonna let nothing happen to us, nothin’, okay?”
But Jones is hoping it doesn’t come to that.
“I don’t play with lions, I don’t play with tigers, bears, nothin’ with the wild, I don’t play with those. I promise you.” Jones added, shaking his head.
“I don’t even do roller coasters. I’m good.”
Home security footage appeared to capture a ferocious feline stalking down a Rochester sidewalk Wednesday night, while the the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office deployed a drone to search the area.
Rochester’s Seneca Zoo even weighed in, assuring authorities that none of its animals had escaped.
Mountain lines haven’t had a sustained population in New York since the 1800s, according to the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), though they have been known to range through the state from as far away as South Dakota.
The last confirmed sighting of a cougar in New York was 2011, but the DEC says the animal in the doorcam footage does appear to be one.
“DEC is actively investigating reports of a big cat in a Rochester neighborhood and determining if there is evidence to validate the images,” the DEC said in a statement.
“Additional information will be provided as it becomes available. DEC reminds the public to treat an encounter like any other with a large, potentially dangerous wild animal or unfamiliar dog.
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