It’s been 10 years since the ‘Milwaukee lion’ mystery. Social media says there was a big cat sighting this week
“Don’t tell me there’s another lion running around.”
That’s what Karen Sparapani, executive director of the Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control Commission, had to say when informed that a user on the Nextdoor app reported seeing a big cat at Milwaukee’s Riverside Park on July 25.
Sparapani worked for MADACC when reports of a lion in Milwaukee in 2015, 10 years to the week, prompted a feline-hunt with officials using long guns, setting meat traps, and even utilizing a helicopter after former Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn said he reviewed cellphone video of a “lion-ish creature” in the city.
Numerous callers reported seeing the creature. Every time, police would respond, investigate and turn up nothing, until a Milwaukee police officer said he spotted a “lion-like animal” near North 30th Street and West Fairmount Avenue. Authorities believed they had the big cat cornered on the city’s north side and in came the TV cameras, national media outlets and photographers. Of course, the lion slipped away and forever lives in our thoughts.
The first report of the “Milwaukee lion” came on July 20, 2015, when a woman said she saw the big cat in the 200 block of East Garfield Avenue, in Brewer’s Hill.
Others reported sightings near Washington Park. Former Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett joked at the time maybe the lion wanted to return to the location of the city’s first zoo at Washington Park. The Milwaukee County Zoo maintained that no lions had escaped.
The search took a sinister turn when a stray pit bull was shot by a man who believed the dog was the lion, officials said. That dog survived the shooting and was eventually adopted by MADACC staff.
A large dog was shot and wounded by a man who claimed to have mistaken it for a lion. The dog suffered a fractured leg in the shooting about 6:30 p.m. Tuesday near N. 21st and W. Chambers streets. The dog was being treated at the Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control Commission.
“It’s very dangerous to think you’re a big game hunter in the city of Milwaukee,” Sparapani said. “Go back in your house or stay in your car and call the police.”
Nowadays, some people turn to social media before authorities. On July 25, a user of Nextdoor.com reported a “big cat” at Riverside Park, on Milwaukee’s east side.
“Potential big cat sighting,” the post said. “Ran off before i could really get a good look at it. Tawny colored relatively long tail compared to its body. It was about 2.5 feet in height at the shoulder. It definitely wasn’t a dog of any sort.”
The Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office, which handles public safety of county parks, hasn’t responded to a request for comment.
Sparapani said MADACC hasn’t received any calls of a big cat in Milwaukee, but cougar sightings have happened in the area and will likely continue to grow. In 2018, a cougar was spotted peering through the front window of a Brookfield home.
Reports of sightings of a lion – or “lion-like creature” – in Milwaukee aren’t new. Big cat sightings were also front-page news in The Milwaukee Journal in 1961 following sightings in Mequon and Fox Point.
The Department of Natural Resources said 37 cougars sightings were reported across the state in 2024. DNR officials have said cougars are sometimes confused with other animals, including house cats, fishers, bobcats, dogs, red foxes, coyotes and wolves.
The cougar, also known as a puma, mountain lion or panther, used to roam Wisconsin. Not as prevalent in the state now, they sometimes travel to the state in search of a new mate or new territory and quickly keep traveling out of urban areas after not finding a suitable situation. The DNR said bobcats are the only big cat known to breed in Wisconsin. A bobcat was spotted in Whitefish Bay along Lake Michigan in 2018 and ended up traveling to Illinois.
“I mean, these animals do exist in the wild,” Sparapani said. “They travel down rivers and train tracks and that’s how they get here.”
Wild animals, like big cats, bears and wolves, will continue to be spotted, Sparapani said. In 2022, a black bear was spotted in Franklin and in 2005, a bear that had been frequenting backyards and a commercial area in Wauwatosa was tranquilized and relocated.
Sparapani added exotic animals will continue to get loose from owners who possess them illegally.
Big cats continue to travel through urban areas
“These things are going to keep happening,” Sparapani said because wild animals lose natural space to humans throughout time.
For instance, if more national forests get cut down, then that will affect where wild animals go, she said.
“Believe me, they won’t like it down here, they have to keep going right through,” Sparapani said.
“But it’s also happening all over the country,” she added, pointing to Rochester, New York, earlier this month, where a large animal was spotted on Ring doorbell camera, prompting a shelter-in-place order.
Some wild animals pose a threat to humans, some don’t for the most part, but nearly all are a threat to a human’s pet. “Don’t leave your pet outside alone,” Sparapani said.
Sparapani said too many times have occurred where owners have left their pet in the yard, even within a fenced in area or with a leash, only to return and see that a wild animal took their pet.
‘Milwaukee lion’ remains a mystery
Although nothing ever came of the “Milwaukee lion” in 2015, Sparapani said she still remembers needing to leave the annual Brady Street Festival after receiving a call to go help police capture the big cat on the city’s north side.
She said there’s a few possible reasons the lion was never captured. It could have been a lost large dog all along, or it could have been a pet big cat, or it was a wild animal that quickly left the area.
“One theory is someone bought a mountain lion, because you can buy a mountain lion,” Sparapani said. “They’re not as common as bobcats, but you can buy them, and the animal escaped. And then whoever owned it was able to track it down … because they’ll find their way home. They know where they’re fed. They want to get back to resources.”
Sparapani said there was never an increase in domestic pets being injured or killed by a wild animal throughout that summer. “So it wasn’t preying on people’s pets,” she said. But the sighting of a cougar in Brookfield, a Milwaukee area suburb, in 2018, could be a sign that maybe the “Milwaukee lion” was not just an urban tale, Sparapani said.
“It hard to say, but anything is possible,” she said.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: It’s been 10 years since the ‘Milwaukee lion’ mystery
