| Updated: 7/14/2011 10:11 pm |
Published: 7/13/2011 10:30 pm
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Mountain lions tracking through Green Country and one, posed for a picture in Sand Springs.
Meanwhile Mannford neighbors say they've seen black bears in their neck of the woods.
The Oklahoma Wildlife Department gets the call when someone thinks they’ve seen a bear or a mountain lion in the backyard. There’s not always proof to back those sightings up.
FOX23's Jamie Oberg went to Sand Springs where one young hunter caught that big cat on his camera.
The picture was all the proof one hunter in Sand Springs needed; he captured a clear picture of a big mountain lion on camera but wants to leave it at that. He only wanted to show Oklahoma Wildlife experts exactly where the picture was taken because he wants to protect this cat.
"I clicked and clicked and clicked again and thought this ain't right, sure enough he was right there,” 22-year-old Kyle Ingram said.
Mountain lions bear sightings, you name it, growing up Kyle Ingram heard a lot of what he thought were just tale tales. Then his friends said thought they saw a mountain lion running around Sand Springs.
"I just thought oh, there trying to scare me you know,” he said.
He went to his favorite bow-hunting spot, he only expected to see the usual…“Coyotes, turkey’s mountain lions? That’s crazy,” he said.
But there it was on his computer, when the big cat’s eyes glowing from the flash of one of his eight trail cameras.
Kyle had to let the snap shot sink in for a second, and then he called the Oklahoma Wildlife Department.
"He ended up confirming it was a real picture, you know, I guess they get a bunch of fakes,” Kyle said.
In Mannford, Lynn Montgomery has her camera set up too. But she's hoping to show wildlife workers there are black bears out by her house.
"About the size of my fist! See the claws?" Lynn Montgomery showed us some fresh tracks in her backyard in Mannford.
"I saw it, people are like oh, maybe it was Sasquatch,” she laughs now, but when she saw the bear she was serious. "It’s not a raccoon, not a possum that was a bear."
Whatever it is, she hopes...to get proof like Kyle did.
"If I hear something I don't know if it's going to be a bear or a mountain lion or what,” Montgomery said.
Kyle isn't scared to go back to hunt the bucks, but let's just say he is happy it was the camera and not him standing so close to the big cat.
"If I do see her with some cubs, I wouldn’t want to be coming between her and her cubs,” Kyle said.
Montgomery believes whatever left those big tracks. Is probably the reason chickens are disappearing and her horses are spooked.
She hopes Oklahoma wildlife will come out and take a look.
We called the Tulsa zoo, because they had said the mountain lion they had in their care might be released back in the wild when it was ready, but that cat is still there. The mountain lion in Sand Springs is a different cat. The Tulsa Zoo is working with Oklahoma wildlife officials to find the best place for her to go next. Meanwhile, Oklahoma Wildlife workers went to Sand Springs to check out the latest sighting.
