SOUTH BEND, Ind. (WNDU) – A neighbor on South Bend\u2019s west side says she spotted a large cat in her mother\u2019s backyard Sunday, prompting a report to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. <\/p>\n
A DNR mammal expert has since reviewed the video and ruled out both a mountain lion and a bobcat.<\/p>\n
Tami Bryant said she spotted the animal just before sundown Sunday at a home on the west side of South Bend.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe thought it was a dog, a cat, a deerling, we couldn\u2019t really make it out, and I didn\u2019t want to go all the way back but I started to take some video,\u201d Bryant said.<\/p>\n
Bryant said the animal was larger than an average house cat and had a long tail. Once it stood up, she said, her concern grew.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it stood up, there was a concern because there\u2019s not a cat that big and it was moving like a cat for sure,\u201d Bryant said.<\/p>\n
Not everyone in the area shares Bryant\u2019s concern. A neighbor, John Sater, said he believes the animal is a large domestic cat.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom what I saw it just looks like an extra large house cat, I think it\u2019s called a Maine Coon, they\u2019re just a big house cat,\u201d Sater said.<\/p>\n
DNR rules out mountain lion<\/b><\/p>\n
Bryant reported the sighting to the DNR. Brad Westrich, a state mammal expert with the Indiana DNR, reviewed the video and said the animal does not appear to be a mountain lion or a bobcat.<\/p>\n
\u201cLooking at the video, I was able to rule out that it was a mountain lion at least in this one observation. And it also wasn\u2019t a bobcat. There have been no other reports that have come in in St. Joe County,\u201d Westrich said.<\/p>\n
Westrich said the animal\u2019s physical characteristics did not align with what is typical for a mountain lion.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seemed like the legs of the animal were too thin, the tail was well too thin and the observation overall of the animal just was not lining up with what is typical for a mountain lion \u2014 which is how I\u2019ve come to this interpretation,\u201d Westrich said.<\/p>\n
Westrich said anyone who spots a strange animal in their backyard should take video of it for the DNR to review, as long as it is safe to do so.<\/p>\n
Stay up to date on local news with WNDU<\/a> on-air and online. Be sure to download the 16 News Now App<\/a> and follow our YouTube<\/a> page as we continue to bring you the latest news coverage.<\/p>\n Copyright 2026 WNDU. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SOUTH BEND, Ind. (WNDU) – A neighbor on South Bend\u2019s west side says she spotted a large cat…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":919987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[27],"tags":[371433,371432,371431,371435,371434,159,371430,371429,67,132,68,837,42036],"class_list":["post-919986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-big-cat-sighting-south-bend","tag-big-cat-spotted-south-bend","tag-indiana-dnr","tag-large-cat-sighting-south-bend","tag-large-cat-spotted-south-bend","tag-science","tag-south-bend-big-cat-sightning","tag-south-bend-large-cat-sighting","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-wildlife","tag-wndu"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116882209719189359","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=919986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/919987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=919986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=919986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=919986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}