Deborah Flamini was helping her two children at their lemonade stand on Crystal Lane Monday afternoon when her 5‑year-old son spotted something strange in their front yard.
It was an animal the size of a dog with ears like a cat and a long, thin tail. Flamini said it appeared to weigh about 40 pounds.
At first she thought it was a bobcat, but police who responded to the street said the long tail is more characteristic of a mountain lion.
State Department of Energy and Environmental Protection spokesman Dennis Schain said it’s not likely the animal was a mountain lion, because they are much bigger than 40 pounds.
“It scared the daylights out of me because it was so close,” Flamini said.
Police were unable to locate the animal, which had wandered off into Flamini’s wooded back yard. The state DEEP was notified.
The Sighting
Crystal Lane is a cul-de-sac off Isinglass Road, near the Trumbull town line. The area is wooded and near a reservoir, and Flamini said they often see wild turkeys, turtles, deer and coyotes.
“It’s not unusual to see out of the ordinary things,” Flamini said. But the animal she and her son saw Monday “for sure was out of the ordinary.”
Flamini and her son were walking toward their house to get a Band-Aid when they saw the animal. It was in the front yard, between them and the front door.
“We both made eye contact. We both stopped and he was staring at us. We were only 30 feet apart,” Flamini recalled Monday afternoon.
She grabbed her son, and backed away from the animal. As she backed up, she called to the other two children at the lemonade stand and told them to run toward a neighbor’s house across the street.
“In order to get to my house I would have had to cross its path,” Flamini said. “My concern was the kids and to get the heck out of there.”
While Flamini and her neighbor watched from across the street, she said the animal curled up and laid down underneath a tree, as if it was napping.
Five minutes later, it sauntered off into her back yard.
Police searched the area and found no trace of the animal. They warned residents on nearby Kimberly Drive of the sighting, according to Police Chief Joel Hurliman.
No one else reported seeing anything out of the ordinary, Hurliman said.
False Sightings?
Schain said the DEEP has received reports from across the state about mountain lions, but has only found two to be credible: A sighting in Greenwich, and the subsequent killing of a mountain lion, which was struck by a car in Milford. Click here to read a DEEP statement on the mountain lion.
“A lot of times people report a sighting, but it’s a coyote,” Schain said.
Other times it’s a house cat, or a bobcat, Schain said.
That was the case on Aug. 19, when the state DEEP received a report of another possible mountain lion sighting on Asbury Ridge Road in Shelton, Schain said.
Upon reviewing a photograph of that animal, the DEEP determined it was more likely a bobcat, he said.
However, there were several bobcat sightings in Shelton over the winter.
Teresa Gallagher, a conservation agent with the City of Shelton, reacted to the sighting on the Valley Indy’s Facebook page. Based on the description, the animal could be a coyote, Gallagher said.
“There are a ton of coyotes off of Isinglass, they are howling in there all the time around the reservoir. A coyote with mange can look a lot like a mountain lion, long ropy tail, short fur except around the face,” she said.
Click here for information published a few years back about bobcats on the Shelton Trails blog.
Schain said if residents see an animal, they should try to take a photograph so the DEEP can determine what kind of animal it was.
Flamini wasn’t able to take any pictures: Her first concern was getting the three kids to safety. Once inside their neighbor’s house, they were too far for a camera to capture the animal clearly.
“I wish I had thought to take a picture,” she said. “I was just scared.”
The map below tracks animal sightings in the area. Check it out:
