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I saw a wild cat, and I can't figure out what it was
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this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2024
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You gotta accept that your perception and recollection of the animal will both be imperfect. Plus, there's substantial individual variety in any large mammal species. So all of your guesses are plausible. It's not out of the question you saw a mountain lion wandering New England - they can travel enormous distances alone, especially males. It's reasonable that it might have been a bocat or lynx and the angle you saw it just made the tail look longer than it actually was. It could be one of those crazy hybrid breeds of cat - 3 miles is really not that far for a stray housecat to wander.
All the wild/domestic hybrids have pretty striking coat patterns (Bengals have rosettes like jaguars or leopards, and Savannah Cats look just like their Serval ancestors), so if it was just brown, that's probably unlikely. The only normal-ish cat that might get to be almost the size of a Labrador would be a Serval (or maybe a very large F1 Savannah male), and the coat definitely would have stood out on either of those. A mountain lion out of its normal range seems like by far the most likely explanation to me. Could be a younger male who is wandering in search of territory.
This response is the one that makes the most sense to me. In particular, I trust LanyrdSkynrd's perception of it's shape and movements as being "cat", but it can be surprisingly difficult to judge the size of an animal in the bush. Seems hard to believe that you could misidentify a tail where there was none (otherwise it would be Case Closed, You Saw A Bobcat). The Cougar/Mountain Lion hypothesis is not crazy. There are no permanent populations in New England, but it was part of their historic range, and they do show up on occasion. A juvenile mountain lion would fit your description, and they can definitely swim across water obstacles. But I had to bet on something, I would say that it was probably an escaped or feral exotic housecat hybrid.
It's pretty interesting that you were able to surprise it, cats are usually so alert to their surroundings. Maybe it was hunting, and just zeroed in on it's prey?
I love these kinds of mysteries, because there is usually no concrete answer, but exploring it helps us understand our natural world.
This is a good case for it being a formerly captive animal - it might just perceive humans as nbd. A mountain lion would probably be far more aware of humans in its vicinity than the inverse. But if it was a young one, who knows.
I was surprised by that too. I had turned around to head back when I encountered it, so I had passed that point 10-15 minutes before.
The occurred to me in that moment that I might have been the prey, but in retrospect I doubt it.
You're definitely right about the limits of my recollection. Even though I was trying to remember everything it happened fast and my cognition is always a little wonky when I'm running.