'A Cat of Unknown Species' Near Munich Airport: A Hunter's Thermal Video Sets Off Bavaria's Hunt for a Possible Puma

OBERDING, Germany (Oct. 6–9, 2026): The hunter was driving home late on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, when something at the edge of the woods made him stop. “On the way home from the hunt I thought: what is that?” he told the Münchner Merkur. “Then I drove toward it and made the video.”

His thermal camera picked up a large animal sitting at the forest edge. It licked its front paws, unhurried, then turned and walked back into the thicket. It moved like a cat, he said, but it was far bigger than a house cat, maybe the size of a larger dog. “And then I noticed the enormously long tail.”

A few kilometers away, planes were landing at Munich Airport. Within a day, police helicopters were in the air over the marsh.

(Quotations are our translations from the German-language coverage.)

What we know

On the record: documents, statements, dates and places. Sources below.

The sighting. A hunter filmed a possible big cat with a thermal camera at about 10:45 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 6 (1:45 p.m. Phoenix time) in the Notzingermoos, west of Erding, and reported it to police right away, Erding police chief Sebastian Pinta told a press conference on Oct. 8, according to BR24 and Der Spiegel. The FAZ, quoting the district hunting association, put the time at about 11:30 p.m.
“A cat of unknown species.” Pinta said the hunter had filmed “a cat of unknown species,” Der Spiegel reported. Police secured the video, questioned the hunter and consider the footage authentic.
The video. According to the Merkur, as cited by Der Tagesspiegel, it’s a 51-second black-and-white recording. Der Tagesspiegel also cited Bild as reporting that police arrived and watched the animal together with the hunter while the footage was shot.
The warning. On Oct. 7, the Erding district office warned residents in Oberding. “After an initial expert assessment, it could be a puma,” spokeswoman Claudia Fiebrandt-Kirmeyer said. The office told people to keep dogs leashed, not to let small children play unsupervised and to report any sighting to police without approaching the animal.
Still unconfirmed. By Oct. 8, officials still couldn’t say what the animal was. Analysis of the footage by environmental agencies and zoos was still under way, “so at this point it can’t be said with certainty whether it is a puma, another kind of cat, or possibly a completely different animal,” Fiebrandt-Kirmeyer said, according to BR24.
The search. On Oct. 7, police combed the reserve on foot and searched it from the air by helicopter and drone, the FAZ and Der Spiegel reported. A drone with a thermal camera hovered over the sighting spot for several hours that night. Dog handlers went out on Oct. 8 to look for droppings or prey remains. Nothing was found except a dead deer that had probably been injured by a combine harvester, Pinta said.
One false alarm. A security guard spotted a suspicious animal on a camera image overnight, and a helicopter was sent to check. It was most likely a house cat, police said, according to the FAZ and the Merkur.
Tips and trail cameras. By Oct. 9, police had received 36 tips from the public and had looked into four more closely, all without a solid lead, Pinta said. Trail cameras had been set up in the reserve, to be checked every morning, and mounted police were due to patrol it on Sunday, Oct. 11, Der Tagesspiegel reported.
No obvious source. There’s no circus with big cats in the area, police said. Officers visited people who had legally kept big cats in the district in the past and confirmed none had kept any for several years, according to BR24 and Der Spiegel.

What’s claimed

Accounts, testimony and theories, as told by the people who tell them.

The hunter’s account. The size and the “enormously long tail” come from the man who filmed it. “That’s an animal you have to report,” he told the Merkur.
“Definitely a cat.” Thomas Schreder, head of the Erding district hunting association, watched the video. “That was definitely a cat, because the animal had the contours of a cat,” he told the FAZ. Its proportions, compared with the trees around it, didn’t fit a house cat or a wildcat, he said, though judging a puma from a thermal signature alone was “difficult.” He told the dpa news agency he was fairly sure it wasn’t a native cat such as a lynx, according to the Merkur.

AI fakes in the mix

The search hit an unusual obstacle. Police said AI-generated images of big cats, including one showing a large cat in the middle of a village, were being shared online and sent in as tips. “These images hinder our investigation,” Pinta said. Each one had to be checked, and “that is a deliberate false tip to the police,” he added. “They unsettle the residents by spreading on social media. And we as police won’t allow that.” Asked whether it was a crime, he said police had saved the cases and would assess them later, according to Der Spiegel.

None of those images appears here. The only footage police have called authentic is the hunter’s.

Not the first false start

German big-cat alarms have a history. In 2023, police and hunters searched Kleinmachnow, near Berlin, for a lioness that turned out to be a wild boar, as the Merkur and Der Tagesspiegel both recalled. Pumas aren’t native to Germany. Their natural range is in North and South America.

The police chief was cautious about what comes next. “The police are not hunting this animal,” Pinta said, according to BR24. The priority would be to locate it, sedate it with veterinary help and capture it. Finding the animal and keeping it in one place long enough to do that is “a highly complex process,” he said, according to Der Spiegel, adding that it wasn’t very likely.

What’s next

The trail cameras are now the best chance of an answer. A clear image, a paw print or a single scat sample could tell investigators whether a puma, a different cat or something else entirely sat at the edge of the Notzingermoos on Oct. 6.

Until then, there’s a 51-second thermal clip that police call authentic, a district office that says it could be a puma, and a nature reserve near one of Europe’s busiest airports that, so far, has kept its secret.

✓ What we know

? What’s claimed

AI fakes in the mix

Not the first false start

What’s next

Sources

What we know

What’s claimed