When Matt Myers scanned through the images from a trap camera he set up on the perimeter of a rural bean field, he didn’t capture the deer he was hoping for. Instead, Myers got a snapshot of what he believes - and what local officials and biologists are checking into - is a big cat. At 11:17 a.m., a large, muscular black cat walked past the trap camera, which snapped two consecutive shots of the thick-tailed feline as it strolled the field. It appears roughly half the size of the bean sprouts. Myers called the Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Department Thursday to report the sighting, which forwarded him on to the Indiana Conservation Office. Officer Ashlee Jackson came to the bean field just after 8 p.m. Thursday night to check the trap camera images Myers had, and then went to the bean field the camera was set up in. Jackson said he found no evidence of the cat, but said he forwarded the pictures on to the Tri-County Fish and Wildlife Area, which handles such sightings. A representative from that office did not return a request for comment. Jackson said a wildlife biologist will likely study the images. Jackson said the cat appears to be a large barn cat, and not the cougar or mountain lion Myers suspects it could be. Jackson said that while trap cameras commonly distort images and make identifying the size of creatures they capture difficult, the cat appears too small to be a mature big cat. Jackson said the cat appears from the photos to have recently birthed a litter, which would make it a mature cat. A mature big cat would be well taller and more stout than what appears on Myers’ images, Jackson said. The Indiana Conservation Officer fields the occasional report of big cats from residents, though its still widely believed by officials that the big cats are not making the region home.
