February 17, 2012
PhotoExpert has forwarded an enhancement of the photograph taken in Farmington, Connecticut, which he feels shows the appearance and thus identity, more clearly:
PhotoExpert writes: “I must admit, at first glance, it initially screamed ‘cougar’ to me. However, keeping objectivity in mind, I enhanced and analyzed the photograph and it is obviously a bobcat.”
+++++
News reporter Kaitlin McCallum writes in The Farmington Patch, “A large cat spotted in Farmington [Connecticut] is just a bobcat, the town’s animal control officer says. What do you think?”
It appears the official word that there are no cougars/pumas/mountain lions in Connecticut has filtered down to local authorities, even in the face, now, of photographic evidence questioning such statements.
McCallum continues, in part:
Rumor has it there’s a mountain lion roaming the area around the UConn Health Center in Farmington. Employees in an office building there snapped a picture of a large animal that was said to be just outside. The picture was circulated in the office and on Facebook and conjecture ensued.
“It’s not a mountain lion. It’s a bobcat,” said Farmington animal control officer Charlene Rogers, who had seen the picture.
“Bobcats live in our area, especially in the UConn area and there has been a family denning there for at least 20 years,” Rogers said.
The sighting was reported to UConn Health Center police as well.
Officially, the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection maintains that there are no mountain lions living in Connecticut.
The rest of her article containing the usual “official statements” about no mountain lions in the East can be read here.
What do you think?
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.
Filed under Alien Big Cats, Breaking News, CryptoZoo News, Mystery Cats, Photos