Rare sighting of mountain lion caught on video in North Texas
Perhaps Rowlett High School should change its mascot from the Eagles to the Mountain Lions?
Texas Parks and Wildlife officials have confirmed a mountain lion sighting near Lake Ray Hubbard in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
A surveillance camera caught the rare footage in the early morning on Nov. 22 in Rowlett, near Highway 66 and Miller Road.
Stephanie Higgins posted the video on Facebook. The footage has gone viral with news stories popping up all over the world. Why? Because mountain lions are very rarely seen in these parts of North Texas. The last few sightings include one near Glen Rose and one near Mineral Wells.
“We reviewed it a couple of times and came to the conclusion it was a mountain lion based on the size and how long the tail was,” Stephanie Higgins told the Dallas Morning News. Higgins and her boyfriend, Logan Aduddell, set up the trail camera on the edge of his property near the lake.
Officials from Texas Parks and Wildlife verified the sighting. Paw tracks near the area were found later that day.
“One key thing to keep in mind is mountain lions are a component of the natural landscape in many parts of Texas, and unless they are in what we would consider a no-tolerance zone such as near a school, or if the lion exhibited threatening behavior, then there’s really no action they would consider taking,” the TPWD said in a statement.
This story was originally published December 1, 2020 at 3:25 PM.
