Delivery man Leonardo Linhares de Oliveira, 29, had another normal working day in Presidente Prudente this Monday (15th), public holiday for the Proclamation of the Republic, until, when stopping his motorcycle on Avenida da Saudade, he saw a puma pass close to it and shoot towards Parque do Povo, one of the main postcards of the city in the interior of São Paulo.
It is the third time that a puma has been spotted in Presidente Prudente (558 km from São Paulo) since the month of September. It is not known if it is the same jaguar, as none of them were captured, or if different animals are being seen in the city streets.
When he saw the animal running in one of the busiest places in the city, Oliveira took his smartphone out of his pocket and began to follow and film the jaguar passing by people who were having fun in the park or resting in the shade of the trees.
“She was running very scared. If the traffic lights were open when she passed, she could have been run over by a vehicle”, says Oliveira.
Upon catching the wild visit to the urban area in the beginning of Monday afternoon, the delivery boy immediately sent the video to his wife and a friend, who shared it on social networks in the city. People’s first reaction, says Oliveira, was that the video would be fake.
“My reaction was not believing what I saw and I wanted to film it to show my son, and my friend started to be questioned about the veracity of the video. People thought the objective was to scare the population. But it was nothing like that.”
The most likely hypothesis is that the animal arrived at the park from pipes existing in the region and then disappeared into closed vegetation nearby.
“I wasn’t scared, but I didn’t expect it. It was much bigger than a German shepherd dog”, says the delivery boy.
The Environmental Police and the Fire Department were called, but they had not found the animal until this Tuesday afternoon (16).
According to the police, the guidance for residents is that, when they see wild animals, avoid cornering or capturing them and immediately call the police.
Before, jaguars had been seen twice between September and October in the urban area of Presidente Prudente.
The records, unlike now, took place at night and in residential neighborhoods that had areas of vegetation nearby. Before the episode in Parque do Povo, the last bust had taken place on October 1st, in Jardim Vale do Sol.
Finding pumas in urban areas is not a common scene, but records have taken place in the interior of São Paulo: in October, firefighters captured one in the bathroom of a house in São Pedro.
Before, in 2019, a puma was captured in São Carlos and, in the previous year, another was found in Piratininga.
.
