A Rochester man has made an intriguing revelation, stating that he spotted a mountain lion lurking around his block last week.
Curtis Jones stated he had armed himself with a baseball bat once he spotted the beast as it slinked by and sent neighbors scattering.
“It when right over there, and it said ‘Rawr!’” said Jones, who spotted the panther prowling around his street Wednesday. “I seen it, see me, see it.”
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“I heard the ‘Rawr,’ I felt the ‘Rawr.’ I know he be pushing, I know that,” Jones told WHAM. “In my head I’m like, ‘No, I gotta go, man. I’m out.’”
Jones was just one of multiple people in Rochester who reported spotting the beast last Wednesday, and it prompted cops to order a shelter-in-place while a search for the suspected cat was launched.
Officials could not verify the sightings, leading to the order being lifted. However, witnesses like Jones say they know what they saw, and are keeping prepared to avoid becoming 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 said, pointing into nearby 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 said. “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?”
Nonetheless, Curtis 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.”
Home security footage seemingly captured a ferocious feline stalking down a Rochester sidewalk Wednesday night, while the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office deployed a drone to search the area, per The Post.
Rochester’s Seneca Zoo touched on the matter, assuring cops that none of its animals had escaped, and the possibility of it being a mountain lion is heavily unlikely.
Since the 1800s, mountain lions have not really sustained a population in New York, according to the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), although they have been known to range through the state from as far away as South Dakota.
The last time it was confirmed that a cougar was in sight in New York was 2011, yet the DEC says the animal in the doorcam footage isn’t one.