Despite image-enhancing technology, officials and experts in Norwalk are still scratching their heads over a large animal caught on surveillance cameras wandering the city’s streets last week.
First described as a mountain lion, then later said to be an older dog by some experts, the exact species of animal on the grainy, night-vision video remains a mystery.
“You can tell even as the animal walks by even at a little faster speed on the tape we don’t know what it is,” Mayor Marcel Rodarte said even after taking a look at a sharper image of the sauntering animal. “It looks like it could be a cat. It could be a large dog.”
Several wildlife experts expressed skepticism that the animal was a mountain lion, noting Norwalk is in the middle of urban sprawl and it is unlikely such a large cat could venture around a suburban neighborhood without anyone seeing it.
The July 29 video shows the animal walking in front of a house in the 11000 block of Tina Street, and the owner of the home security camera initially reported it as a mountain lion sighting.
While officials publicly said it was not a mountain lion, they have been unable to definitively name the type of animal.
