BLOOMFIELD, Ind. (AP) – The Department of Natural Resources has confirmed the presence of a mountain lion in southern Indiana. DNR official Gary Langell says it’s impossible at this point to tell whether the animal sighted in rural Greene County is wild or a formerly captive cat.

A DNR biologist investigating a reported sighting of the cougar used motion-sensitive trail cameras to photograph it last weekend. The confirmation is the first since the DNR implemented a new policy March 1 to evaluate reported sightings of the animal. Another mountain lion was confirmed in late 2009 in Clay County.

The DNR says the last documented case of a wild mountain lion in Indiana is believed to have been recorded between 1850 and 1865.Posted byJon Downesat21:52

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Deputies shot a mountain lion Thursday near a school beside Big Bear Lake just days after the same cat killed a dog in the area and another lion treed a Lake Arrowhead jogger, officials say. “If you live in mountain or foothill communities in Southern California, there’s a possibility of a mountain lion showing up at any time,” warns California Department of Fish & Game biologist Kevin Brennan. “Usually, they’ll go after a pet or livestock before they’ll go after a person.”

A motorist summoned a deputy sheriff early Thursday after spotting a mountain lion crossing North Shore Drive in a residential area and near a school along the east end of Big Bear Lake. The sighting was only about a mile from where a mountain lion killed a pet dog Friday along Panamint Mountain Drive, said Brennan.

Deputies killed the animal at 9:35 a.m.

Authorities said the critter was an obviously underweight female weighing about 70 pounds. “Our on-scene biologist is of the opinion that it’s definitely the same lion that killed the dog on Friday,” said Brennan, who told of two other sightings since then. “Last night, the county trapper was out there with the hounds, but he was unable to find the lion. It obviously has been frequenting the area since it killed the dog.”

About 30 miles to the east, what is believed to be a different mountain lion chased and tried to attack a female jogger Tuesday near the Willow Creek Treatment Plant in the forest along the north shore of Lake Arrowhead.
“There was a standoff. She backed away and sought refuge in a tree,” said Brennan, who could only guess why the animal didn’t climb the tree after her. “Maybe because she was shaking a stick at it and squirting water at it.”
Workers from the water treatment plant heard her screams and drove to help her, scaring away the animal.
A federal hunter and his hounds were assigned to kill the animal, but the dogs couldn’t find the scene. And the big cat didn’t return to the area, though authorities set out animal carcasses as lures, Brennan said.

As a result, officials have called off the hunt.

“We don’t have any indication that there’s a mountain lion still in the area,” Brennan said. “It can no longer be considered an imminent threat to public safety.” Anyone confronted by a mountain lion or bear should resist the urge to run and, instead, try to appear exceptionally large and intimidating by raising their arms over their head or spreading open their jacket or shirt, Brennan said.

“If you are attacked by a wild animal, fight back,” he said. “People have successfully repelled mountain lions with whatever they had at hand: baseball caps, cups, jackets.” The motorist who spotted the ill-fated lion near Big Bear Lake says such sightings are becoming increasingly common. “They (seldom) come into the populated areas,” said Ray Bowling, of 31-year resident of Big Bear City and a north shore business owner. “But in the last couple of years, I’ve started to see them.”

He believes deputies had to open fire on the Big Bear Lake mountain lion because it was in a residential area near an elementary school and had repeatedly returned to the neighborhood after killing the dog. “The deputies were pretty brave to run down in front of this animal and keep it from escaping,” Bowling said. “They put themselves in harms way.”

Reach Richard Brooks at 951-368-9463 or rbrooks

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IT IS a far cry from the scorched savannah plains, but experts are hunting an African lioness in Scotland.
A retired academic believes he spotted the big cat roaming the Kilsyth Hills, north of Glasgow. Although there have been more than 2,100 sightings of pumas, panthers, and lynxes in Britain – with 125 in Scotland -Dr Bob Sharp’s sighting, on April 22, is believed to the first of a Panthera leo.

Wildlife experts yesterday described the claim as “not impossible”, but they want more information. Dr Sharp, 64, was climbing the 1,874ft Meikle Bin, east of Fintry, Stirlingshire, when he saw a “large animal running from left to right yards away”. The respected academic, who also led Loch Lomond Mountain Rescue for 12 years, said the five-foot long beast had beige fur, chunky, fur-covered legs, a long tail and “rounded-off ears”, and was clearly a female African lion.

The former head of department of sports studies at Strathclyde University said: “I was nearing the summit and I saw this lion, and I have no doubts. “I saw it for about 10 seconds. Initially, my brain was trying to say it was a fox, but it clearly wasn’t. It was 50 yards in front of me, just padding across the hillside, left to right, running, not going at full pelt. I watched before it disappeared briefly, and then reappeared before it went into the tree line.
“I’ve been walking the Scottish mountains for 35 years and I have never ever seen anything like that.” The area in which the lioness is prowling is close to farmland and moors, which would provide a plentiful supply of deer, lamb and sheep.

Experts believe many large cats were released when the Dangerous Animals Act came into force in 1976, by owners who did not want them to be destroyed. Simon Milne, chief executive of the Scottish Wildlife Trust, said he was keen to find out more about the sighting, adding: “It is certainly not impossible. It could have been something someone released at some stage.

“People sometimes keep the weirdest of pets until they become too dangerous or too big.” Lions normally live in prides, and, with their massive shoulders and strong forelimbs, long, sharp claws, and short, powerful jaws, their roar can be heard more than five miles away. Both Strathclyde and Central Scotland Police say they are not aware of lions within their force areas.