This New Yorker is getting his dander up over a reported mountain lion roaming Rochester.
Curtis Jones stated he has armed himself with a baseball bat after he noticed the massive cat lurking round his block final week — and locked eyes with the beast because it slinked by and despatched neighbors scattering.
“It when right over there, and it said ‘Rawr!’” stated Jones, who noticed the panther prowling round his avenue Wednesday. “I seen it, see me, see it.”
“I heard the ‘Rawr,’ I felt the ‘Rawr.’ I know he be pushing, I know that,” Jones advised WHAM. “In my head I’m like, ‘No, I gotta go, man. I’m out.’”
He was simply certainly one of quite a few individuals within the Rochester neighborhood who reported recognizing the beast final Wednesday, prompting police to order a shelter in place whereas a seek for the suspected cougar was launched.
Officers had been unable to confirm the sightings, so the order was lifted — however witnesses like Jones say they know what they noticed, and are conserving ready to keep away from turning into panther prey.
“They ain’t find it last night. It’s still out here, it could be out here in one of these bushes,” he stated, pointing into close by treetops. “You know them mountain lions, it be ‘Rawr,’ they be crawling, you know. They serious.”
“It about like this big, it was just walking, slithering. I don’t know man,” Jones stated. “Imma keep this bat right here, man, just in case. I’m gonna protect this. I ain’t gonna let nothing happen to us, nothin’, okay?”
However Jones is hoping it doesn’t come to that.
“I don’t play with lions, I don’t play with tigers, bears, nothin’ with the wild, I don’t play with those. I promise you.” Jones added, shaking his head.
“I don’t even do roller coasters. I’m good.”
Dwelling safety footage appeared to seize a ferocious feline stalking down a Rochester sidewalk Wednesday night time, whereas the the Monroe County Sheriff’s Workplace deployed a drone to look the realm.
Rochester’s Seneca Zoo even weighed in, assuring authorities that none of its animals had escaped.
Mountain strains haven’t had a sustained inhabitants in New York because the 1800s, in keeping with the Division of Environmental Conservation (DEC), although they’ve been recognized to vary by the state from as far-off as South Dakota.
The final confirmed sighting of a cougar in New York was 2011, however the DEC says the animal within the doorcam footage does seem like one.
“DEC is actively investigating reports of a big cat in a Rochester neighborhood and determining if there is evidence to validate the images,” the DEC stated in a press release.
“Further data will likely be offered because it turns into out there. DEC reminds the general public to deal with an encounter like every other with a big, probably harmful wild animal or unfamiliar canine.
