Escaped Mountain Lion from a zoo or private collection? Greenwich, Connectitcut Conservation Officials believe they have an escapee making its way through the States wooded suburbs.............Trap and/or shoot and kill, always the first response when Cougars are seen in the East................Since all North American Cougars are of the same genus, maybe one of these days an escaped female meets up with an escaped male mountain lion and we get rewilding accomplished through this "back-door" process,,,,,, since the Feds have decided to get out of the Cougar Restoration business in the Eastern USA.............

 State conservation officials believe this photo, taken recently in Greenwich, shows a mountain lion. The animal, which has been spotted in the northern part of town since the end of May, likely had been held in captivity and was released or escaped, officials said.  State Department of Environmental Protection officials investigating sightings of a large cat in backcountry Greenwich say it appears the animal is a mountain lion that may have been released or escaped from a local handler.

DEP officials say they came to the conclusion based on a photograph taken by someone in Greenwich and paw prints left by the animal, which had been seen over the last few days in the northwest part of town.
The most recent sighting was reported on Sunday evening by several Brunswick School faculty, who said they saw a mountain lion at the school's King Street campus, according to Greenwich Police.

DEP spokesman Dwayne Gardner said officials got a blurry photo of the animal taken from a spot on King Street, and recreated the shot with a dog to get perspective on the animal's size. The dog they photographed is bigger than a bobcat, which some people mistakenly believe are mountain lions, and officials determined the animal is two to three times the size of the dog.

There is no native population of mountain lions in Connecticut and the eastern mountain lion was declared extinct in March by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. No one is sure yet where the animal is from. In New York state, possessing a mountain lion is legal for permitted handlers, Gardner said, though there is no such legal permit in Connecticut

Lionshare Farm, a 95-acre animal sanctuary near the Greenwich-Stamford line, legally keeps a number of wild animals, but a woman who answered the phone there Wednesday said none of the facility's animals are missing or loose.In fact, Gardner said Lionshare Farm contacted Greenwich officials and offered assistance with tracking the animal."We don't have any reason to believe it's them," Gardner said.

Gardner said DEP environmental conservation police will be in touch with Greenwich police Thursday, and if there are any more sightings, they will attempt to locate the animal. The DEP also has reached out to its counterparts in New York because it doesn't have traps large or effective enough for the animal.