The reputed cougar of Cobbs Creek Park hasn't been sighted since Sunday, but there's been no shortage of humans trying to sight the cat. And evidently at some mighty odd hours.
Small groups have been entering the park between midnight and dawn, apparently hoping for a close encounter with the celebrated cat, said Stephen Labov of Greater Philadelphia Search and Rescue, a group involved in the cougar search.
The would-be hunters may be obliterating cougar tracks, Labov said.
Philadelphia police now are enforcing a curfew that bars the public from city parks after 1 a.m., officials said yesterday. "Their main objective is to keep the public out of there," said Philadelphia Zoo spokeswoman Antoinette Maciolek.
The park has drawn some well-intentioned, and misinformed, cougar sympathizers. They have left such delectables as hot dogs, chicken wings and doughnuts, she said.
"I guess they don't want him to starve," she said. "They don't realize he's a predator and he can get his own food."
The attempted feedings are also inhibiting efforts to capture the cougar, Labov said.
"The main problem is, it's not going to go into any traps that we might set," he said. "We had people trying to catch the animal with hot dogs and a leash."
This animal, he noted, is no house cat.
Tracks suggest the animal is a young cougar, weighing between 100 and 125 pounds. "It's capable of bringing down an animal 800 to 1,200 pounds," Labov said.
Labov said he believed the cat was living off creek water and food from dumpsters, doing most of its feeding and traveling between midnight and dawn.
Labov is part of a cougar task force, of sorts, that held its second meeting at the Philadelphia Zoo on Monday, Maciolek said.
The group, whose members include representatives of the zoo, the police force, the SPCA and the Pennsylvania Game Commission, first met at the zoo on Jan. 12. It will reconvene Monday, she said.
The group is sifting through the information and disinformation volunteered by callers to the zoo and elsewhere. The zoo has been inundated with calls since the first sighting Jan. 4 in Yeadon, Maciolek said.
She said the calls have included a mix of friendly advice and personal experiences.
She said one caller told her: "I saw him at my back door and I put out chicken wings. I went back inside because I did not want to frighten him, and when I went back out the chicken wings were gone."
Another woman said that since she had about a dozen cats, the cougar might respond to her voice.
Offered another caller: "The reason this cougar is hiding is he smells the guns. It's not only the guns he smells, it's also the uniforms."
The cougar remained at large yesterday.