Latest big cat sighting worries west Lawrence man

It’s still out there.

A mountain lion that has been spotted by several people on Kansas University’s west campus and on the Alvamar Golf Course was seen again Monday night in west Lawrence.

“It was more surreal than anything,” said Jim Clement, who had an encounter with the big cat about 8 p.m. Monday just north of the intersection of 15th Street and Wakarusa Drive.

Clement says he’s worried that the mountain lion might bring some harm to one of his neighbors or one of their children who walk and play along the Viola & Conrad McGrew Nature Trail, which is just to the east.

“I don’t care if it’s somebody’s pet or it got out of the zoo. It makes no difference to me,” Clement said. “If this thing is 80 to 100 pounds, that’s 80 to 100 pounds of pretty potent cat.”

Clement said and his family were driving south on Wakarusa Drive when he saw it bound across the roadway in his headlights.

“It was just as plain as day,” Clement said. The big cat came out of a gully on the west side of the road and ran to the east, he said.

“It took him like three strides to cross all four lanes,” he said. Clement said the mountain lion was light in color, with a long tail.

Clement said his wife was turned toward the back of the car, helping their two children with their ice cream cones, so he was the only one who saw it.

He turned around at the intersection and pulled into the parking lot of the U.S. Geological Survey building where he saw it go, but it had disappeared into the wooded area.

Clement, who lives about two blocks southeast of that area, went home and called police. He then went back out there to wait, but no police arrived. He shined his flashlight around behind the wooded area, but saw nothing.

Clement said he realized the potential danger when he saw a young man on the sidewalk along Wakarusa, just where he saw the mountain lion come across the road.

After going home, he searched on the Internet and found recent Journal-World stories and realized that was the same animal he had seen.

Clement then phoned Mark Jakubauskas, a KU professor who took a photo believed to be of a mountain lion last October with a motion detector camera on west campus.

Jakubauskas, who has testified before a legislative committee about the recent sightings in Lawrence, said he went out to the site Tuesday to hunt for tracks, but found none.

Both Clement and Jakubauskas noted that the big cat probably regularly travels through the wooded area. Both men planned to go out again and try to find tracks.

“I am a little concerned now more than ever,” Jakubauskas said. “We are getting reports. The critter is moving around populated areas.”

He noted that the cat was spotted twice in February on and near the Alvamar Public Golf Course, which “has connectivity” to the latest sighting.

Jakubauskas has had a lab confirm that droppings he found on KU’s west campus were from a mountain lion.

Clement, who regularly jogs and runs in his neighborhood, said he’s changing his habits.

“There’s no way I would go out and run in the evening or early morning,” he said. “No way.”