Creature on the loose has city on edge

• One man saw the creature for only a few bone-chilling seconds, but he remembers it was big, with heavy brown fur and a long tail, and not in any particular hurry as it walked through his neighbourhood and then disappeared into a thickly wooded ravine.

A police officer, tracking it the next day, described it as a “catlike animal” that had successfully evaded capture again. And Annie Nolen, a resident who spotted the animal slinking along a fence in her backyard, said she was momentarily paralyzed by the sight.

“I couldn’t move,” Nolen told reporters later. “I thought, what am I looking at?”

Officials are still not sure exactly what kind of animal has been spotted for the last week wandering through densely populated areas of this city, sitting under bridges, darting down hills and casually slinking past parked cars and bungalows.

It could be a young African lion that was purchased, kept as a pet and then released when it became too large to handle. Or it could be a cougar, an animal spotted more frequently in populated areas of the Midwest in recent years.

Whatever it is, the Milwaukee Lion, as it is now widely known, has captivated this city of 600,000 people, who seem to be alternately amused and panic-stricken by the creature in their midst. A grainy cellphone video of the animal, taken last week, has given it a Bigfoot-like celebrity, while a citywide search has intensified and expanded, bringing together the Milwaukee Police Department, the state Department of Natural Resources and local wildlife officials.

It has been jokingly rendered in pictures, Photoshopped with a bright yellow cheesehead perched on its mane and lounging at Miller Park, watching the Brewers play baseball.

But the week-long hunt has put some Milwaukeeans on edge. By Monday morning, police were reporting a sighting along a quiet area of homes near the Milwaukee River.

“I’m taking it very seriously,” said Jackie Bradley, who said she had forbidden her three grandchildren to play outside that day. “I have a dog in the back, and I keep going back to check on him and I think I’m going to bring him in. I have a six-foot fence, but I’m worried a lion could jump the fence.”

Laura Hood and her son, Brandon Redd, scanned nearby shrubbery for any glimpse of the animal before hurrying to their car. “I’m terrified to come out of my house,” Redd said.

Last week, one man apparently mistook a creamcoloured pit bull in his neighbourhood for a lion and shot it, wounding its right leg.

Jeff Kozlowski, owner of the Wisconsin Big Cat Rescue in Rock Springs, Wisc., said that if it is someone’s pet, there was little hope of finding the person who lost it. “If you had a pet lion and it got out and it was causing this much uproar,” he said dryly, “would you call in and say it was yours?”