- A Game Commission biologist visited the site in Lower Macungie
- He spoke to the person who captured the photo and took several measurements
- He concluded the animal seen Sunday was a house cat, not a mountain lion or bobcat
LOWER MACUNGIE TWP., Pa. — A possible mountain lion sighting that gripped a township development with fear turned out to be a common house cat.
That’s the determination made by a Pennsylvania Game Commission biologist who visited the site Monday and conducted an investigation.
“It’s just a house cat,” said Thomas Keller, furbearer biologist for the Game Commission.
Keller said he inspected photos taken by a resident, spoke with the resident and took several measurements at the site in an effort to identify scale.
State police said they were called to the Village Round development about 11:45 a.m. Sunday to meet someone who had images of a large cat in the area.
State police at the time said was the image of a large feline — possibly a mountain lion — in fields behind Hanover Drive.
“We will generally go out and try to talk with who reported it and get perspective on where the photo was taken,” Keller said Monday. “We look at original picture and measure what we can.
"We get a lot of these every year. We look at things in the picture that we can get scale from. It might look like a mountain lion, but we need to know what those measurements are to get the scale.”
"I encourage the public and other law enforcement agencies to get in touch with us and let us figure out what you’re seeing there before making a judgment call if you’re not sure.”Thomas Keller, Pennsylvania Game Commission biologist
Keller said he was able to determine it was a common cat based on his measurements and re-creation at the scene. The resident who reported the sighting took photos from her second-floor apartment window, about 90 yards away from the animal.
Keller, who specializes in Pennsylvania species that are trapped, said there are no mountain lions in the state.
“There’s none," he said. "We get hundreds of these reports every year and we haven’t been able to substantiate one yet."
But he said there are bobcats — and bobcats in the Lehigh Valley — so visiting the site and conducting the investigation had value.
“It gives us some clarity, especially in places like this where it has been reported to the police because there’s a lot of fear and panic that can spread,” Keller said.
“The real value especially in these cases is to let people know that we serve Pennsylvanians as the state wildlife agency.
"I encourage the public and other law enforcement agencies to get in touch with us and let us figure out what you’re seeing there before making a judgment call if you’re not sure.”
The last wild mountain lion in Pennsylvania was reported to have been killed in the 1870s in Berks County, according to the Game Commission.
