Officials suspect the dead mountain lion in Hunt County recently is the same one seen in Rowlett, Princeton

The third time was not the charm, at least for the mountain lion.

The big cat with two sightings confirmed last month is probably the same one that died recently in a remote area of ​​Hunt County, about 50 miles northeast of Dallas, officials said.

“The Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife suspects that this could be the same lion that was seen and photographed in Rowlett in late November and near Princeton in early December,” said Megan Radke, a spokeswoman for Texas Parks and Wildlife.

Hunt County Game Hunter Gary Miller, Jr. said the licensed hunter killed the private lot a few miles west of Celeste, northeast Texas.

“The cat approached his deer feeder,” Miller said, adding that the mountain lion was preying on deer.

The lion was a larger adult male weighing approximately 160 pounds.

“It was 6 feet long from the tip of the tail to the head,” Miller said.

Mountain lions are not classified as hunting in Texas and there are no seasonal restrictions on killing or harvesting them.

The news quickly spread on social media, leaving some wildlife enthusiasts unhappy.

Karin Saucedo, a photographer and wildlife conservation advocate, said, “I felt heartbroken when I heard about the mountain lion that was shot dead outside of Celeste, Texas.”

“We should work to protect these rarely seen native cats from unlimited and unbridled killings instead of inciting unnecessary fear to put a target on their backs,” Saucedo said.

“Terrible news, but probably that result was inevitable, it’s sad to say,” said Chris Jackson, who runs a popular website and Facebook page called DFW Urban Wildlife.

Jackson was one of the first experts to confirm the observation of a mountain lion in Rowlett, just days after a trail camera captured a photo of the cat last month.

He inspected the mountain lion’s footprints, “in the soft, wet sand, just south of where the cat’s videos were recorded,” he said. He also shared his photos with a tracking expert who verified the impressions.

Rowlett residents Stephanie Higgins and her boyfriend, Logan Aduddell, had installed a trail camera on the edge of their property, near Ray Hubbard Lake, where they usually saw ties and coyotes. Around 4 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 22, a mountain lion passed in front of the camera.

Later that day, Higgins posted the video on his Facebook site, with the text “Big kitty in the city !!”

State biologist Sam Kieschnick said last month there was more than enough evidence from the video and clues found by Jackson to confirm the animal was, in fact, a mountain lion.

Kieschnick said mountain lion watching is so rare in North Texas that it has acquired a mysterious, almost mystical nature, similar to the Bigfoot of North Central Texas. Rowlett’s observation was the first confirmed report of a mountain lion in Dallas County in modern history.

After the capture of Higgins’ camera, the lion was seen on December 7 at Princeton, about 20 miles north of Rowlett. A Texas Parks and Wildlife Facebook post said Thursday that the department had confirmed camera photos, taken Monday, of a mountain lion near Princeton, Collin County.

Earlier this month, the Hood County Sheriff’s Office said it suspected a mountain lion was responsible for the death of a 28-year-old man near Lipan, about 85 miles west of Hood. Dallas. But the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife disagreed and said in a written statement that its guardians and other experts found no evidence that “indicated an attack by a mountain lion or another. wild animal “.

Mountain lions are found mainly in areas of west and south Texas, Radke said. The last and only other confirmed sighting of mountain lions in northeast Texas was in 2018, in Grayson County, along the border with Oklahoma, Radke said.

“Cheer up the lion”

“I was really cheering the lion as I navigated the glove of all deer with a hunter behind it,” said Ben Sandifer, a Dallas accountant and naturalist who is a staunch supporter of desert conservation.

There had been many false visions over the years, which made the confirmed report of a mountain lion in the Dallas area even more exciting to read, Sandifer said.

Mountain lions are one of the few animals that have a physical height equal to or greater than humans, he noted. “If you see one, you’ll quickly realize that you’re not the apex predator at the time,” he said.

“I was just excited. It seemed to be the real business, living off the land, “he said.” But then I felt so discouraged to see that someone had killed him. “

According to Sandifer, the area where the cat was killed a few miles west of Celeste is a very wild area, one of the last in the region to be established by pioneers in the 19th century.

The site is about 40 miles northeast of Rowlett and 20 miles northeast of Princeton, where the lion was last seen. It was just the kind of remote area preferred by mountain lions, who are extremely reclusive, Sandifer said.

“Unfortunately, we are in the midst of deer season,” he said. “And all deer have a gun.”