Woman Reports Seeing Mountain Lion in Backyard

A North Canton woman told police this week that she'd seen either a mountain lion or cougar in the backyard of her home in the 300 block of 5th Street NW. 

Joyce Wise, 65, emailed North Canton Patch this week about the sighting, saying her house cat became scared by something about 2:30 a.m. Wednesday and jumped onto her lap. 

"I jumped up and noticed the motion sensor light was on in my backyard," Joyce wrote. "When I looked outside, I saw this large and muscular orange/tan cat-like animal with a small head and a very fat long tail that hung down almost to the ground and curled up at the end. It was approximately the size of my backyard neighbor's medium size dog, only very muscular."

She said the cat walked across the entire back yard and disappeared between two of her neighbors' houses, heading west toward Hillcrest Ave.

hadn't received any more sightings of large cats in the city, reported the Canton Repository today.

North Canton Patch reported in July of 2011 of mountain lions around Stark County and in the city limits of North Canton.

"Needless to say, I now have my camera on the table next to my sunroom in case I should see the animal again," Wise had written in her email to Patch.