Cougar Sighting at Maryland

The University of Maryland sent a campus alert today warning students of a "possible cougar" on the College Park campus, the Washington City Paper reports. The cougar (the nonhuman type) has been seen at least twice and was described as "light tan and tawny brown, about 4 feet long with a 4 foot tail, and weighing about 50 pounds."

Cougars are not indigenous to the state (or anywhere so far east of the Rockies, really), leading to some confusion among Maryland public-safety officers. "We have never dealt with this before," said a DPS captain. "We will get the occasional report of a coyote on campus, which usually will end up just being a fox."

So where did it come from? "Your guess is as good as mine," officials told the paper.