mountain lion sightings Archives - Higher Calling Wildlife

A recent report of a possible mountain lion near Sacramento International Airport turned out to be something very different. According to KCRA, the animal spotted lying in a muddy canal was not a cougar at all, but an abandoned French bulldog.

The dog was rescued and taken to a shelter after wildlife responders determined it had likely been dumped. While the story quickly went viral, it also highlighted a familiar issue in wildlife reporting: misidentification.

When you think of animals that look like a mountain it’s of course the French bulldog.

But misidentification doesn’t mean reports should be dismissed outright. It means they should be verified.

That distinction matters when discussing mountain lions, especially outside the western United States. In many regions, cougars are still considered absent based on official range maps. When sightings occur outside those boundaries, they are often written off immediately.

Sometimes that’s justified. Sometimes it isn’t.

I recently documented clear photographic evidence of mountain lions outside the accepted range, taken in East Texas. These images are not folklore or rumor. They are photographs evaluated in context with known mountain lion anatomy, behavior, and dispersal patterns.

I break down the evidence and what it does and does not suggest — in this video:

Mountain Lions Where They’re Not Supposed to Be (Photographic Evidence from East Texas)
👉Click here to watch.

The Sacramento case ended with a dog being rescued because someone took a report seriously enough to investigate. That same principle applies everywhere.

Verification matters.

Chester Moore

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A recent photograph from Port Arthur, TX has sparked debate about whether the animal captured on camera is a cougar (mountain lion) or just an ordinary domestic house cat.

You can read the story and see the pics here at KBMT.

Southeast Texas is within the cougar’s range, despite some state officials downplaying their presence over the years.

They are not common here but they do inhabit the greater Southeast Texas area and are technically native to all of the Lower 48. Actually, they’re native from Canada all the way to Argentina.

A cougar looking quite intense. (Photo by Chester Moore)

Upon close inspection of the photo in question the animal in my opinion is a large domestic cat, made to appear more imposing due to its distance from the camera.

Jan. 2025 Update: Photographic proof of cougars in East Texas. Click here to see.

Perspective can play tricks, and this in my opinion is a classic case of misidentification—a phenomenon I’ve encountered many times in my investigations of alleged cougar sightings.

People make mistakes in identifying things in blurry pictures. It happens.

Over the years, I’ve analyzed numerous photos that were believed to depict cougars. In many instances, these turned out to be domestic cats or even bobcats, their true size exaggerated by camera angles or distances.

Something I noticed about the animal in the photos is the size of the paws. They are domestic cat size in proportion to the body.

Cougars have big paws from juveniles to adults. I have included a photo of me when I filmed with a young cougar in 2013 at a zoological facility.

See how big the paws are?

I have a full body cougar mounted in my office that I inherited years ago. The cat was probably 120 pounds. Notice the paws in comparison to my fairly large hand.