A simple, rather blurry video kept Germany on tenterhooks for days from last Friday evening. It shows an animal prowling through bushes near Geiseltalsee in Saalekreis, Germany.
What the council employee captured looked elegant, large and most definitely wild. When the video went viral on Monday, Braunsbedra went on high alert. Was this a puma?
Spotting the puma
Authorities initially kept the sighting quiet, but then the excitement became public.
"There was an eighty per cent probability it was a puma", explained Sabine Faulstich, the district's public order officer. The first sighting was on Friday, but warnings weren't issued until Monday, as the team waited to gather more information. But when six other residents reported sightings, the situation spiralled out of control.
Police, fire brigade, drones, and a helicopter were mobilised, and residents received warnings through emergency apps.
Walks were cancelled, dogs kept on tight leads and the mobile command centre at the fire station became the search headquarters.
The trail leads nowhere
Despite intensive searches with cutting-edge technology, the animal couldn't be found. No paw prints, no trace. Yet officials had already made plans: if the animal was spotted, they wanted to tranquillise it before moving it to Halle's Bergzoo.
No zoo or circus reported an escaped animal. All known animal keepers had been checked too, which left everyone confused as to where it could possibly have come from.
Then on Wednesday, the puma drama came to an end. Mayor Steffen Schmitz officially gave the all clear: the animal was considerably smaller than initially thought, and shockingly, the supposed big cat was just a large house cat!
After days of worry, it turned out that there was no puma. Just a four-legged misunderstanding.
