Cryptid Caracas Lion’s Roars Confirmed
Posted by: Loren Coleman on September 4th, 2007
There is news out of Caracas, Venezuela, of a mystery felid, being heard and evidence of its presence being found.
Roars from the unidentified feline have scared residents of a mountainous Caracas suburb and triggered a hunt for the capture of what neighbours are convinced is a lion.
But Venezuelan authorities, who have scoured on horseback the woods where the bellowing comes from, could only confirm the presence of some type of feline after finding the carcasses of small animals including a half-eaten armadillo.
“One of the people that saw this animal talks about a lion,” said Juan Fernandez, mayor of the affected Las Salias municipality, in an interview with local radio on Monday, September 3, 2007.
“We cannot say if (the animal) is a lion, a tiger, a puma or a little spotted cat,” he said.
As the media there notes, Venezuelan jungles and mountains are teeming with exotic fauna but encounters with dangerous wild animals are rare around the South American nation’s crowded capital that is typically clogged with noisy traffic.
In the wake of my recent posting on the use of the “circus train myth,” I’m not surprised by what the papers there mentioned next. To wit, local media reported two lions had escaped years ago from a nearby zoo, but Mayor Fernandez said the institution has denied any of the predators were missing.
Source: “‘Lion’ roars spook Caracas residents, spark hunt,” Tuesday, September 4, 2007, Caribbean News Net. Thanks to The Anomalist for bringing this to Cryptomundo’s attention.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
hey loren great lion article indeed. thanks bill green
The area in question here doesn’t surprise me any that something of that nature could be living there. What does peek my curiosity is that they just now began hearing it. It definitely just came into the area recently. Now the question(s) would be thus: “Is the incoming of the “lion” due to natural means (territories and such) or is it because of mankind (zoos, circus, etc…)?” The only other question I would have is: What large cat is native to the area?
The only lage cats in the area are the Jaguar and maybe a stray Puma. Another explanation could be an excaped/released lion from a “drug lord’s” private collection. I remember reading of one in either Columbia or Venezuela that had many exotics, including Hippos that now are semi wild and have a growing pod of animals in their lake on the former compound….could be an explanation anyways……
When they used the word “lion” do they literally mean an african lion? I’m recalling an old movie (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, I think) in which the characters use the word “tiger” when referring to a jaguar.
One tantelizing thought-I dont know WHERE in the wilds of South America this was supposed to have occurred, but there have been reports that sabre-toothed cats had been sighted. I think more mundane explanations are the more probable ones, of course, but I wonder; just maybe….
I agree with TampaSteve on the whole drug lord idea of escaped exotic animals. Columbian drug lord Pablo Escobar (who was listed as one of the 7th wealthiest men in the world in 1989) has an entire zoo at one of his estates. After he was gunned down the Columbian government siezed the estate and the zoo, so we can only guess what happened to any of the exotic animals that were kept there.
However the article also states “some type of feline after finding the carcasses of small animals including a half-eaten armadillo.” This isn’t exactly indicative of a full grown African Lion which would require something far more substantial than half an armadillo to survive, the farmers around Caracas would be missing cattle and goats if it were an full grown lion. So I’m leaning more toward the jaguar or puma idea.
Oh God! I do hope if they find this felide it’s not a new species.
I couldn’t stomach the idea of a new cat with the taxonomical name “PANTHERA CHAVEZ”
🙁
astra
It’s spelled “tigre” when referring to a jaguar — it’s the name commonly used in Northern Mexico (I first encountered it in a Roy Rogers comic book in the 60s).
Of course, only lions and tigers (and sabre tooths, presumably — though they were hunters of the plains so not likely to be in South American jungles, if my Discovery Channel zoology is correct…) roar. Leopards and jaguars sort of cough and snarl, but don’t roar.
My guess on this: totally made up media hoax. But if a lion could get to Gilligain’s Island, well, I guess Caracas isn’t totally out of the question.
Norm – LOL
ok, so lets just start of by saying its spelled. Colombia. And yes there are many private zoos there, not just drug lords.I recall one located at the enterance of the town i lived in, just as you were coming out of the mountains.
next to the road was a large black cage that generally held a large black cat, wich i would assume was a black jaguar. And yes, tigre is a local term for the jag.
Well, considering a lions roar is amplified by the reverberation of cartilage in the throat and can be heard for miles around, I can certainly see how it could spook natives of the area that had not heard such a thing from the native fauna before. The problem is, as shumway mentioned, is why is it happening so recently? If this is really a new indigenous species, then I would expect to see reports of these sorts of roars going back some time. I am fairly convinced that these are escaped exotics we are dealing with here.