Rare Big Cat Spotted In Capital Region Neighborhood

The Capital Region is a place where we have the opportunity to see a lot of different wildlife if you're looking in the right places. Sometimes we even get a glimpse at something that might not be quite normal for our area.

As i Was scrolling my Nextdoor app I saw a photo posted showing what appears to be a mountain lion and it was in the area Saturday night around 8:30pm. Eric Erkkinen captured this rare encounter in Voorheesville, New York.

The trail camera picked it up and unless that is a bigger housecat I would say that is a cougar for sure. The thing about it is that these animals shouldn't even really be here.

How rare are mountain lion sightings?

From the New York State DEC, they say that mountain lions, or eastern cougars, are not normal for New York State in general and are not native to this area. So spotting one is a very rare occurrence.

They have been absent from this state since the late 1800s; however, there have been a few isolated sightings. Each sighting involved cougars that are not native to New York.

 

Read More: Video Shows Possible Mountain Lion in Upstate New York

Growing up in New York I always thought that all wildlife was native to this area. Probably because I was watching movies like "White Fang" and reading books like "The Call of the Wild." Plus I had a whole lot of woods to explore growing up in the Helderberg Mountains aka "The Hill."

If mountain lions aren't native to New York, where could they be coming from that would land them in the Capital Region? Doing a quick search I found that most mountain lions are actually out in the Western part of the United States but there is one place that they could be coming from according to mountainlion.org.

Florida could be the place they're migrating from, but that would be a very long way. Google AI (if you can trust it) also says that Connecticut has some mountain lion population. That would seem more likely to me. They're also native to Canada, so perhaps this little kitty just went on a road trip and is on the way back home.

Either wat, stay safe and keep an extra eye on your animals at night with something like this wandering the area.