- If your cat is fat enough to pass for a cougar, maybe you should put your pet on a diet.
Cougars — or mountain lions or pumas — are majestic but potentially dangerous creatures. Although they mostly avoid humans, a cornered cougar can do some damage if it decides to defend itself.
The Pacific Northwest is one of the few remaining strongholds these big cats have in America. We recently got two reminders that cougars are still part of life in this region.
The cities of Tigard, Oregon, and Moses Lake, Washington, issued warnings of cougars that had been spotted within city limits. In the latter case, the alarm led to an elementary school going into lockdown.
It seems, however, that officials in both states may need some additional lessons in identifying local wildlife. In the end, it turned out that neither city had been invaded by cougars on the prowl.
In both cases, the alarming animal turned out to be a regular, if not a bit chubby, house cat.
So, it was a false alarm. There are no cougars loose in either Tigard or Moses Lake — at least not of the feline kind.
We can’t guarantee that there are no lovesick middle-aged ladies lurking in the shadows.
Fooled by Grainy Video
First, let’s look at what happened in Tigard. Reports of the supposed wild cat came in on November 16.
“There has been a cougar sighting at Cook Park. We have alerted the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife [ODFW] and the Tigard Police Department,” City of Tigard Public Works wrote on X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter.
In the post, the city department encouraged local residents to stay aware of their surroundings. They also encouraged everyone to leash their dogs and posted a link to a state website providing additional instructions on how to deal with a potential cougar encounter.
It later turned out that the alarm and the original report were based on an extremely poor-quality video clip supposedly shot in Cook Park. The footage is so grainy that it’s hard to tell whether the creature on it is a cougar or some kind of alien visitor.
The ODFW, however, had a response to the alert the following day.
“That ‘cougar’ spotted at Cook Park in Tigard yesterday? Turns out it was a house cat,” the agency tweeted (or X-ed, we’re not sure what the current appropriate word is).
The ODFW determined that the animal was not a cougar by comparing its size to a tree and a garbage bin visible on the video. Based on their estimates, the beast was less than a foot tall — cougars are usually at least two feet.
Additionally, the animal wasn’t the right drab tan color to be a cougar. Its bright orange fur betrayed the beast as a house cat.
“You’d be surprised how often other animals (dogs, house cats, coyotes, bobcats) are reported as cougar sightings,” the ODFW added.
A School Lockdown
The Oregon agency seems to be correct because another cougar alert took place only five days later. On November 21, a mountain lion was spotted in Washington, in the city of Moses Lake.
Local authorities quickly took action and began informing relevant institutions and departments. One of them was Groff Elementary School.
At around 10.30 a.m., Groff administrators received word of the cougar sighting. Consequently, the school engaged in its routine emergency protocol and went into a full lockdown.
That said, the administrators must have determined that it was unlikely the animal would forcibly break into the school. Soon enough, the lockdown was lifted, and the school switched to the “secured building” protocol where classes were allowed to resume while the students stayed indoors.
Yet, even the secured building alert was soon called off as the administrators received word of the supposed threat’s true nature. There was no cougar loose in Moses Lake.
Instead, the animal turned out to be a fat cat in the midst of eating a rat.
In the end, the students went home as usual, together with a note explaining what had happened.
But hey — at least Moses Lake parents now know Groff Elementary will take appropriate action if a genuine cougar happens to wander into town.