Multiple Sightings of U.Md. Cougar

The Campus Cougar Alert of July 31st has been followed by more details of the sightings, through comments at Cryptomundo and media information.

The Examiner of August 1 and July 31, carried articles by Joy Pavelski, Aleksandra Robinson, and Carrie Wells.

Police described the animal as “light tan and tawny brown, about four feet long with a four foot tail, and weighing about 50 pounds.”

The newspaper noted today that four people told campus police they saw a cougar prowling around the University of Maryland, College Park, on Wednesday, July 30, and Thursday, July 31, but 18 officers and news helicopters have not yet found any such critter.

Police stopped combing woods near the reported sightings when nothing surfaced — in flesh or on security cameras — during a full day’s search, but said they still hoped to capture the cat.

A 4-foot-long, tawny-brown, 50-pound cat lay sunning himself on the road at 6 a.m. Thursday when a college maintenance employee drove up, the man told campus police. He left his car and approached the animal. It stood, looked at him and walked away.

Upon receiving the maintenance employee’s report, campus police e-mailed students and staff an alert at 1:21 p.m. Thursday. Three other people then reported seeing the cat.

Two unnamed individuals later told police they had seen the animal Wednesday night. The third sighting came Thursday morning just after the maintenance worker made his report.

Thursday afternoon and evening, campus police and a Department of Natural Resources specialist searched woods on the northwest side of campus near the sports and recreation facilities, including Cole Field House and Comcast Center.

Students live right across the street. Many have left campus for the summer, but college staff, children attending summer camps and athletes competing in a swim meet all traversed that area Wednesday and Thursday.

Police encouraged anyone who has seen a large, catlike animal near campus since Thursday morning to not approach it but call University of Maryland campus police at 301-405-3555.

Loren Coleman 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.

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