Lima Lion Lurking
Posted by: Loren Coleman on June 7th, 2008
The following article appeared on local Ohio TV News Net 5, on June 6, 2008:
Big Cat Sightings Reported Near Ohio City
Sightings of a big cat in northwest Ohio have some families on edge.
Authorities south of Lima haven’t confirmed any of the reports that began to
circulate a few weeks ago.Some people said they think it was a panther.
Ohio Department of Natural Resources trapper Craig Shafer said he’s pretty
sure there’s a large cat out there based on the footprints he’s seen.Gary Guagenti said he spotted the big cat trotting across a field near his
home in Shawnee Township. He said he’s keeping his kids inside to be safe.The latest sighting came in to police Friday morning when someone said they
saw a big cat chasing a deer.Police looked but didn’t find anything.
Thanks for the tip from Deirdre Storm.
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.
Wow, seems like these could be a cougar related sightings in Ohio. That part of Ohio is not far from the Indiana border nor the ‘Michigan’ border.
The Michigan DNR even conceded that there have been confirmed cougar sightings there. Last time I heard, the politics were based on whether or not there were ‘breeding’ populations and whether or not they were fully extirpated in the first place as the state claims.
Looks indeed like we may have cougar sightings in Lima. Cool.
Or “panther” sightings. Hope more appear.
Puma – maybe.
But Ohio has some of the most lenient laws in the nation regarding exotic pets and there are literally thousands of captive big cats there. So could be an escapee.
Yes kittens, but also keep in mind, that every state surrounding Ohio has reported Cougar sightings, not to mention the officially documented wanderers that seem to have been traveling back east from the rockies for what is at least a few years now.
The whitetail deer population is booming in states such as Ohio.
Thats enough incentive to stay for a while. So the question may be this:
If Cougars are traveling back east looking for there own territory (and keep in mind they need a lot of territory). Then at what point would or should we anticipate breeding populations in the Midwest or East Coast? And that’s if breeding populations aren’t established yet.
And thats not taking into account some researchers contentions that the Eastern cougar was never fully extirpated.
As far as exotic cats go, it seems that there are indeed many thousands of big cats in the us as pets. Floods, tornadoes etc. happen (unfortunately). Escaped exotics and released exotics could be possible for for some sightings too.
Well,personally I’d like a little more information on the appearance of the cat, something more than “big cat”, before trying to take any sot of stand on what it could be. Maybe puma, maybe something more exotic, but it is hard to make that call with so little to go on here with regards to what it actually looks or behaves like. The description given of a large cat that chases deer pretty much describes every big cat there is. Also, I am curious as to why eyewitnesses claimed to have seen a “panther”. I wonder if there was anything to make them think that it was a panther rather than a cougar.
In the midwest, panther often = puma = cougar.