Sighting reported on East Grand Forks side of the Greenway most likely a bobcat -- not a mountain lion

Brad Dokken, Grand Forks Herald
·3 min read
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May 22—GRAND FORKS — The possible sighting of a bobcat or mountain lion earlier this week along the East Grand Forks side of the Red River Greenway serves as a reminder that the green space is a corridor for wildlife of all kinds, and people need to be aware of their surroundings, authorities say.

According to East Grand Forks Police Chief Mike Hedlund, city staff received a phone call from a resident near the 1000 block of Fifth Avenue Southeast who reported seeing a "large cat" at dusk Monday on top of the dike.

The caller thought the animal was a deer at first, Hedlund said, but then realized it was a "cat of some type" — a bobcat, or perhaps a mountain lion — but didn't get a good enough look in the low light to make a clear identification before the critter ran off.

Mountain lions are considerably larger than bobcats, of course.

A second person also reported seeing the cat and stated it was definitely a bobcat, Hedlund says. The East Grand Forks Police Department posted an item about the sighting on its Facebook page, and a

blurry, grainy photo of the animal

was posted Tuesday afternoon in the comments section of the post.

"It's not a great picture," Hedlund said. "It's not much better than the pictures of the Loch Ness Monster you see, so you wonder how much faith you can put in the picture."

Regardless, such a sighting — whether a bobcat or something larger — isn't necessarily a surprise, Hedlund said. In December 2004, for example, a young male mountain lion fitted with a tracking collar was spotted near Turtle River State Park west of Grand Forks, and a mountain lion hit and killed by a vehicle near Bemidji in September 2009 likely came from western North Dakota.

More recently, a hunter shot a mountain lion in January 2022 near Dunseith, North Dakota. The North Dakota Game and Fish Department has offered a limited mountain lion season since 2005.

"Mountain lions are not known to be in this area, but they can travel a long ways — especially those young males when they're searching for their territory," Hedlund said. "They can travel hundreds of miles."

Bottom line, Hedlund said, is that people need to be aware of their surroundings, whether recreating along the Greenway or any other wildlife corridor, and keep a safe distance from any wildlife they might encounter.

While North Dakota and Minnesota both offer limited bobcat seasons, a sighting locally would be "rare, at best," said Bob Seabloom of Grand Forks, a UND professor emeritus of biology and author of two volumes of "Mammals of North Dakota."

Bobcats in North Dakota are most abundant in the western part of the state, Seabloom said, while Minnesota's population of about 2,000 bobcats lives in northern Minnesota, according to the Department of Natural Resources.

"The Greenway seems to be kind of a magnet for wildlife," Seabloom said, adding a pine marten was spotted along the Greenway in January 2023, the first confirmed sighting in more than 100 years. "It's really exciting, as far as I'm concerned."

A bobcat wouldn't pose much of a safety risk, Seabloom said.

"Not at all — unless somebody's pet cat or little dog gets loose out in the Greenway," he said. "I'm sure the bobcat would lick its chops. There's no danger (to the public) — not at all."