Mystery ‘puma’ near Munich Airport sparks hunt with drones, dogs and a helicopter

A hunter’s night-vision camera picked up an animal moving through a nature reserve near Munich Airport on Tuesday evening, October 6, and an expert thinks it could be a puma. Three days, a helicopter and two sniffer dogs later, nobody can say for sure, and the AI fakes flooding in aren’t helping either. 

A hunter’s night-vision footage started the search

The animal was spotted late on Tuesday October 6 in the Notzinger Moos, a protected nature reserve in the municipality of Oberding, in the Erding district just a short distance from Munich Airport. A local hunter saw it and filmed it on a night-vision device. An expert who went through the footage overnight considers it possible the animal is a puma, which was enough for the Erding district office (Landratsamt, the local authority) to go public with a ‘big cat sighting’ and ask people living nearby to take extra care. 

However, at a press conference on Thursday October 8, district office spokeswoman Claudia Fiebrandt-Kirmeyer said it still couldn’t be confirmed whether the animal was a puma or something else entirely, with the images now being examined further by experts from zoos and environmental authorities. 

Drones, a helicopter and sniffer dogs have turned up nothing 

Police officers spent Wednesday combing the reserve on foot as a helicopter and drones searched from above, before calling off the ground search at nightfall at around 7pm. Thermal imaging from the air overnight didn’t produce a single new lead either. 

So on Thursday morning the search switched to two dog handlers with German shepherds, looking for prey or remains near the spot where the animal was filmed. Erding police chief Sebastian Pinta said the search so far hadn’t turned up any concrete evidence of a big cat, and there have been no further sightings.

A dead wild animal was then found in the search area, close to where the footage was taken. However, the district office said initial findings don’t suggest a big cat killed it, and no link to a puma has been made.

A house cat and AI fakes have muddied the hunt

Police have received 30 tips from the public, with four being checked more closely. One came from a security guard near the airport who spotted something suspicious on a camera image, and a helicopter was sent up only for police to conclude it was most likely a house cat.

Officers have also been sent several AI-generated fakes, which the Erding police chief said only hinders their work.

District hunting chief Thomas Schreder told the German Press Agency (dpa) he was at least fairly certain the animal wasn’t a lynx or any other wild cat native to Germany. 

Nobody has reported a puma missing 

Pumas, also known as cougars or mountain lions, aren’t native to Germany or anywhere else in Europe, with their natural range stretching across the Americas. They can grow to around 1.2 metres long and weigh between 40 and 70 kilograms.

Some live in zoos in the region, but authorities haven’t heard from any possible owner about an escape. Bavaria strictly bans private ownership of big cats, though neighbouring Baden-Württemberg has no such ban as long as welfare and space standards are met. Back in 2022, a puma was found in a wooden crate inside a car in Bavaria before being nursed back to health and moved to Austria.

Plenty of Germans will also remember the summer of 2023, when police and hunters spent around 30 hours searching for a supposed lioness in Kleinmachnow near Berlin. That search also started with grainy footage and ended with experts concluding it was most likely a wild boar, so it’s no surprise many people are now asking themselves whether this is just another boar. 

Dog walkers told to keep pets on a lead

The search is carrying on into the weekend, with extra officers patrolling the Oberding area and on hand for residents to speak to.

In the meantime, people living nearby have been told not to approach the animal, to keep dogs on a lead even during the day, not to leave small children outside unsupervised and to avoid walking in the area at night. Schreder said there’s no need to panic, but that a puma isn’t harmless either. 

So anyone who does come face to face with it should stay calm, avoid running, make themselves look as big as possible and slowly back away, then call the police straight away.