LAST UPDATED: January 2025

This is an article that I have been intending to put together for quite some time now. We have long needed a way to reliably track legitimate Mountain Lion sightings in North Texas. The recent spate of reports documenting the travels of a young Mountain Lion moving through the metroplex in the fall of 2024 provided additional impetus for at last collecting this information and putting it online.

I have been interested in the question of whether there were Mountain Lions in the metroplex since I first put this website online back in 2005. Since then I have investigated innumerable sighting reports, but for years they all proved to be misidentifications or otherwise unconfirmable. It was almost 9 years into the effort before the first really promising report came in. More about that later.

Dallas is the ninth-most populous city in the nation. Do Mountain Lions live here?

First let’s get up to speed on Mountain Lions in North Texas. To be clear, there is absolutely no evidence that we have a resident population of big cats anywhere in this part of the state. In Texas, resident Mountain Lion populations are generally limited to the western parts of the state. There is some evidence that big cats may be coming down from Oklahoma as well. Check the link below for more information…

Oklahoma Department of Wildlife ConservationMountain Lion Sightings in Oklahoma

It is a very rare occurrence when a Mountain Lion actually finds its way into the Dallas/Fort Worth area. There have only been a handful of confirmed Mountain Lion sightings in this part of the state since this website went online in 2005. The few Mountain Lions that have found their way into the metroplex appear to be transient animals that have wandered here from other places. The journey from there to here is hazardous and fraught with dangers for the big cats that attempt it. The mortal threat of traffic, hunters, or irate ranchers always seem to catch up with those intrepid cats that try.

DFW URBAN WILDLIFEAre There Mountain Lions In The Dallas/Fort Worth Area?

But North Texas Mountain Lion sightings appear to be on the uptick. They have been occurring with increasing frequently over the past decade, and there could be a couple of reasons for this change. Below are few possibilities…

  • More Mountain Lions may actually be finding their way into the DFW metroplex
  • There is better and more complete camera coverage
  • Lions may be coming out of Oklahoma as well as West Texas
  • There are better online facilities for reporting and tracking
  • Observers have become better informed and more skilled over the years.

The 2024 Mountain Lion

The first of the latest round of Mountain Lion sightings began on October 27, 2024 in the suburban town of Lake Dallas, Texas in Denton County. Security cameras recorded footage of a big cat as it strolled through the parking lot of an RV park near Lewisville Lake. This sighting was later confirmed as a Mountain Lion by a representative from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

A few days later–on the first of November–the cat was recorded again, this time by a security camera in the backyard of a private residence in Frisco, Texas. This sighting was also promptly verified by TPWD. Somehow the big cat had made its way across Lewisville Lake between these two sightings–lending some credence to the idea that Mountain Lions can and do swim long distances when properly inspired to do so.

The DFW lion was clearly on the move and covering a lot of ground very quickly. The next sighting occurred just 7 days later, on November 8–this time in Plano, Texas. Once again a security camera recorded the Mountain Lion making its way along an alleyway in a residential neighborhood near Central Expressway.

In California Mountain Lions can be found near urban areas.
Awareness is important in such places

The wide roaming cat was now deep into the most urban parts of the metroplex, and I suspected he would likely have a difficult time finding his way back out again. My expectation was that there would be many more urban sightings as the lion worked to get back out to the countryside. I was concerned about the how the big cat would manage the ever-present threat of automobile traffic as he made his way through the 4th largest metropolitan area in the nation. As November drew to a close, I was waiting with bated breath for the next reported sighting to come in.

But then a strange thing happened. The big cat disappeared from the from the headlines and there were no new sightings for weeks on end.

Then, just as I was lose hope about learning anything more about the next phase of the lion’s journey, a disappointing and upsetting report came out of Longview, Texas. On December 12, 2024 a Mountain Lion was hit and killed by a police cruiser. The cat was determined to be an 80 pound female of around 3 years of age.

I later learned of an earlier, unconfirmed sighting near Lake Tawakoni, and then another confirmed encounter near the town of Mineola, Texas. Both locations are on the way to Longview from DFW. It appears highly likely that the Mountain Lion killed in Longview is the same cat that passed through DFW just a few weeks earlier.

Unfortunately, this outcome mirrored that of most other Mountain Lions that have found their way into North Texas. This part of the country is just not conducive to the long term survival of these big cats. There are simply too many hazards.

Earlier Sightings

Before the 2024 there only a handful of other Mountain Lion sightings that had been reliably documented in and around the Dallas/Fort Worth area in recent history. Along with the 2024 accounts, these are the sightings we will document on this page.

In summary, starting in 2014, there were a couple of Mountain Lion encounters, first in Somervell County, near Glen Rose, Texas and the later in Erath County, where likely the same lion was killed by a deer hunter. Four years later, in 2018, there were two new verified sightings. The first consisted of a trail camera photograph of a Mountain Lion next to a deer feeder in Grayson County near the Oklahoma border, and the second incident occurred when a Mountain lion was hit and killed by a car just to the northwest of Mineral Wells, Texas. It is possible–maybe even likely–that these two encounters represent the same cat. Finally, there were a string of sighting in 2020 originating in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. This lion was first observed in Rowlett, Texas when it was recorded by a trail camera setup on the shore of Lake Ray Hubbard. From there the big cat made its way into Princeton, where it was again photographed by a trail camera. This lion’s story came to an abrupt end just a short time later when it was shot and killed by a deer hunter near Celeste, Texas, far to the northeast of the original sighting in Rowlett.

ARTICLEA Lion’s Fate: Thirty-seven Days in the Metroplex

Before 2014 you would have to go back many decades to find the next a credible Mountain Lion sighting in this part of Texas. In some of these counties you would have to go back a century or more. It’s a big deal that Mountain Lions are beginning to be observed in our part of the state with increasing regularity.

Dallas/Fort Worth is the fourth largest metropolitan area in the country.
Can Mountain Lions survive in such an urban environment?

Our Mission

The goal of this page will be to collect verified North Texas Mountain Lion sightings in the general vicinity of Dallas/ Fort Worth as log entries and corresponding locations on a tracking map going forward. Supporting documentation and links will be provide when available. Since 2014 there have been a handful of confirmed sightings in North Texas, so I will record those here as well. Before 2014 it had been decades and even over a century since Mountain Lions had been reliably reported in any of our area counties, so no attempt will be made to track those historical encounters.

This page will be updated as new and verifiable sighting reports occur in the future. We are very interested in new, confirmable Mountain Lion sightings occurring in and around the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. A confirmable sighting must include photographs or video of good physical evidence–either of the Mountain Lion or of indisputable sign (tracks, scat, a recent kill or cache). An on-site investigation may be required to verify the report. If you have a confirmable Mountain Lion sighting that you would like to share, please contact us via email or through Facebook direct message. Links to both are found on the home page of this website.

Confirmed Mountain Lion Sightings in the Dallas/Fort Worth Area Since 2014

Map pins indicate approximate locations of confirmed Mountain Lion sightings.
Colors are assigned to individual lions.
Numbers represent the year the sighting was made, and letters indicate the date order of the observation.
Tracked distance approximately 16 miles over 45 days
Tracked distance approximately 118 miles over 51 days
Tracked distance approximately 100 miles over 37 days
Tracked distance approximately 138 miles over 47 days

2 Replies to “Dallas/Fort Worth Mountain Lion Tracker”

  1. I was running this morning by the Marriott colony. I’m traveling for business. There is a trail that goes under the 121. As I walked back, I saw a mountain lion on the other side of this tall black fence. It made eye contact with me but didn’t make any movements. It was eating a jackrabbit

    1. That would be TWO notable sightings, as jack rabbits have become extremely rare if still present in the DFW area. It is also nice to know that a visitor from California is enjoying nature in North Texas. I noticed the use of “the” as an article appended to the highway number, and thus recognized that the writer was from California.

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