LENEXA, Kan. — A big cat sighting in Johnson County. Some say it looked like a mountain lion, officials believe it to be a bobcat.
The animal was spotted at about 7 a.m. Wednesday at the southeast corner of 95th Street and Santa Fe Drive Trail in Lenexa.
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Dan Robinson was sitting in his car getting ready to go in for work at Adams Cable Equipment, Inc. in Lenexa when he spotted the big cat. Robinson provided a photo and a video to FOX4 of what his co-workers thought was a “cougar,” or a mountain lion, walking near a tree line.
Residents in Johnson County, Kansas, say they captured photos and video of what appeared to be a mountain lion walking through July 30, 2025.
“At first, I thought bobcat, because I’ve heard of them being in the area,” Robinson said. “But after showing the video and to people. Some people said it’s probably a cougar, which I rarely heard about them being around here, but I’m not surprised if they are.”
After reviewing the photo Wednesday afternoon, the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks told FOX4 that it believes the animal is a bobcat based on the length of the tail.
“When I saw the tail and the ears, I knew it wasn’t a fox and it had like a snubbed snout to it,” Robinson said. “It was very feline looking and the way it moved when it finally moved out there, I was like that’s a cat, that’s a big cat.”
According to the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, mountain lions were once common across the country, including Kansas, but by the late 1800s, mountain lion populations declined significantly due to a number of factors, including hunting and habitat loss.
“I’ve seen them at the zoo, but not in the wild, at work,” Robinson said. “A big cat like that, I haven’t seen anything like that around here. I got out of my car, I was going to follow it, and then I thought for a second, ‘eh, maybe that’s not such a good idea.’”
Nowadays, mountain lion sightings are rare. The department says the first confirmed mountain lion in modern times was recorded in Barber County in 2007. Since then, sightings have been confirmed “more than 100 times,” with many of those reports documented just in the last two years, sister station KSNT said earlier this week. The chance of coming across a mountain lion in the state is “extremely low,” the department says on its website.
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