Apparently, one mystery big cat wasn't enough content for the week.
On Thursday, local authorities in the southwestern town of Głogów, spooked by grainy thermal-imaging footage of a large cat lurking between trees, declared an official puma alert.
They did what any reasonable Polish municipality would do: called in a police helicopter. Not just any helicopter — the one usually reserved for chasing speeding drivers on the motorway, now repurposed for aerial big-cat reconnaissance.
The animal seen near the town of Głogów, southwestern Poland. Photo: Michał Wnuk/Facebook screenshot
There was just one problem. It wasn't a puma.
"Suddenly pumas are popping up in Poland like mushrooms after rain”, mammal specialist Prof. Rafał Kowalczyk of the Polish Academy of Sciences, wrote on Facebook after taking one look at the footage.
“It’s panic and hysteria now but even a cursory look at the footage makes it clear that the animal does not have the body proportions of a puma or other large cats, whose body length-to-height ratio is typically around 2,” he added.
“Instead, its proportions are consistent with those of a lynx, where the ratio is closer to 1.5”, Kowalczyk concluded.
The lynx is Poland's own largest wild cat, native, and topping out at a distinctly non-puma 20–30 kg, with a stubby tail that should have been the first clue.
(mo)
Source: zielona.interia.pl; Facebook