Possible 'big cat' sighting in Chicago unfounded following search by animal care and control
UPDATE: An update to a story we brought you on Thursday about reports of a "big cat" sighting in a Chicago neighborhood.
People living in Beverly and in surrounding neighborhoods say they received alerts from a Ring app that included pictures of a mountain lion. FOX 32 has since learned the pictures came from surveillance video taken in Idaho and California years ago.
Chicago Animal Care and Control did tell FOX 32 they had a report of a bobcat sighting at 12th and Kildare that they checked out on Wednesday, but they did not find anything.
We reached out to Ring for clarification on what happened and they say the post was made on the Ring Neighbors app. The post has since been deleted.
ORIGINAL STORY BELOW:
A huge cat was spotted roaming a Chicago neighborhood and officials confirm it is a mountain lion.
Now, neighbors are getting worried as it is still on the loose.
Beverly resident Watson Jones snapped a photo from his Ring doorbell late Wednesday night. Other neighborhood residents saw the same image on their Ring camera as well.
The mountain lion was spotted in the vicinity of 99th and Western.
On social media over the last 24 hours, residents have grown quite concerned wondering how the animal got to the mostly residential community.
The frightening situation is reminiscent of a case in 2008 in the Roscoe Village neighborhood, where police had to kill a five-foot long, 150-pound cougar that was caught roaming that neighborhood.
The entire situation frightened families for some time, especially those with young children.
It is the same fear that Beverly residents are now experiencing.
"I have a little dog, and I have little children, And even when I was walking my kids to school, I was walking and I was watching my back because again, if there's a mountain lion here, you wouldn't know that it's stalking you unless you looked. And that's a scary sight," one neighborhood resident said.
FOX 32 reached out to the city's animal control and they said they too received a report on Wednesday of a large bobcat being spotted on Chicago's West Side.
In the meantime, city officials are working to determine where the mountain lion is now.
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