North Detroit residents have been on edge in recent days after reports of a big cat prowling neighborhoods surfaced. Reports say that it might be a Savannah cat hybrid breed.
“His tail is longer than my arm,” Antwaun Asberry, who is 6-foot-5, told the Detroit Free Press. “I was like, what the (expletive) ... I don’t know what it is. I just want it gone.”
Another resident said the cat--spotted in northeastern Detroit--hisses, reported MyFoxDetroit.com.
A wildlife expert who spoke with Fox said the cat is likely a Savannah cat, which is a hybrid of a domestic house cat and a medium-sized African cat. The mix was created in the 1980s.
A breeder said the breed is lanky, making it appear larger than it actually is, weighing as much as 20 pounds.
But, as one resident Reginique Williams said, the cat has no “business in the city of Detroit,” according to Fox. “It’s a wild animal,” she added.
“Neighbors have been saying that it hisses and that it runs from them and that it’s been out here for a month,” Laura Wilhelm-Bruzek with the nonprofit Paws for the Cause Feral Cat Rescue was quoted by Fox as saying. “So my guess is, someone had it that wasn’t familiar with the breed, thought it was a really cool thing to have, decided it wasn’t for whatever reason and threw it outside.”
But the Michigan Humane Society said it will investigate the matter to prevent anyone from getting hurt.
“We’re going to put some effort into this,” Nancy Gunnigle, with the Humane Society, told the Free Press. She added big cats are “not easy to catch.”
Resident Cynthia Hogan lives near 13 Mile and Van Dyke, and she told CBS Detroit: “My dog was barking and I looked – I thought it was a small deer – it had the spots on it, but it’s head didn’t look right and it didn’t have the big ears.”
Reports said the cat has been walking around Detroit for a month.
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