Mountain lion rumor shot down in N.D.

MINOT, N.D., Jan. 15 (UPI) -- Wildlife experts, after a young mountain lion was reported sighted in Minot, N.D., stress the odds of seeing a cougar in a city are slim.

Outreach biologist Greg Gullickson, who is part of the North Dakota Game and Fish Department's Minot office, said that the animal was almost certainly a house cat, the Minot Daily News reported.

"By the time a mountain lion is 3 weeks to 4 weeks old, its tracks are already definitely larger than a domestic house cat," said Gullickson. "If this was a (cougar) kitten with tracks small enough to match even a large house cat, it would be partially blind, heavily spotted and most definitely not traveling on its own."

He added that a kitten that young would be "within feet" of its mother and still nursing.

Federal Trapper Scott Evans was "100 percent" sure that the tracks were made by a house cat, said Gullickson.