Is it a cougar? A bobcat? Battle Creek residents have been debating on social media after a picture of a mysterious animal was spotted across the property of Northpointe Woods Senior Living Facility and posted online.

Cody Norton, large carnivore specialist at the Michigan DNR, said it is just a domestic cat.

“You can use the vegetation surrounding it as reference,” he said. “A bobcat would have a much shorter tail and a cougar would be much bigger.”

The image was captured by an employee of the living facility after someone pointed it out to the staff, said Northpointe Woods Executive Director Ron Monte. The staff immediately sent out a notice to their residents to bring their pets indoors and be aware of the animal if they were to go outside.

“The number one thing we are concerned with is the safety of our residents,” Monte said. “That’s why we wanted to get the notice out there.”

Monte said they spotted the animal around North Avenue and East Roosevelt Avenue in a wooded area near the living facility.

Heidi Densteadt, office assistant at the Michigan DNR, said that cougars are not native to Michigan and there has not been a sighting of a cougar in the Lower Peninsula since 2017, when one was spotted in Bath Township.

A bobcat, however, would have been much more likely. Bobcats are native to Michigan and despite being more common in the northern half of the state, can still be spotted in the southern half, according to Densteadt.

“Bobcats are all over Michigan,” she said. “They are pretty elusive, so they aren’t seen very often, but they are native to the area.”

Contact Brooks Hepp at (269) 223-0114 or bhepp@battlecreekenquirer.com. Follow him on Twitter at @BrooksHepp.