Tuesday, October 30, 2007

West Virginia: Lions and tigers and bears ... oh, my!

At least two sightings of a full-grown African lion in the Cold Knob Mountain vicinity of West Virginia have game officials on the hunt. The claim comes from an area where mountain lions are known to exist ... but an African lion?

The latest report from a bow hunter who claimed that he saw the King of the Jungle earlier this month has exotic animal expert Jim Forga along with Greenbrier County Animal Control officers and the Department of Environmental Protection baiting the animal with raw chicken and using a video camera in hopes of spotting it.

So far twenty pounds of raw chicken have disappeared but there has been no confirmation that it was the lion who ate it. If able to prove the animal's existence, officials plan to use a bear trap to capture it and relocate it to Forga's Tiger Mountain Refuge, a shelter for exotic animals.

Who knew? In the mountains of West Virginia -- lions and tigers and bears ... oh, my!

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