Spotted in Georgetown: Big, Bad … Mountain Lion?
By • September 16, 2019 One Comment 1978
Every now and then, a story pops up in the news about what people see on their home security cameras. Georgetown homeowner Giulia di Marzo checked her Ring security camera footage from the weekend and noticed what appeared to be a mountain lion crawling up her fence.
The footage, which was time-stamped around 4 a.m., shows a big cat crawl up the fence, walk along the top and then jump into di Marzo’s yard.
Di Marzo told NBC4 the cat was too big to be a domestic feline and its hair was too short. The home is near Rock Creek Park. The Smithsonian National Zoo was contacted and said all of its animals were safe.
For now, the mountain lion mystery remains unsolved. However, mountain lions are not native to the D.C. area. They tend to stick around the West Coast and a few are currently found in Florida. The total population in the United States is an estimated 30,000.
Watch the NBC4 report here.
I hope it was a Maine Coon Cat. They can weigh as much as 45 pounds. However, with unexpected migrations of animals for exceptionally long distances, it’s not impossible that a mountain lion made it to the East Coast. Once upon a time we had no coyotes. They were exclusively in their Western habitats. Then in about 1976 the first coyote was spotted. Now we have large colonies in Rock Creek Park. The 3rd and only other explanation there could be is that someone had a captive mountain lion and accidentally or deliberately let it go.