The Thermal Cat of the Notzinger Moos

Just south of Munich Airport, the Zengermoos and Notzinger Moos are what is left of an old fen: wet meadow, reed and birch thicket, hard to see into. At about 23:30 on Tuesday 6 October 2026, a hunter there turned his thermal camera on an animal stepping out of the scrub. It sat down and licked its front paws, unhurried, for about 40 seconds, then turned and went back into cover.

Wildlife expert Thomas Schreder, who reviewed the clip for the authorities, told the FAZ that the behavior was plainly a cat’s, and that its size against the nearby trees didn’t fit a house cat or a European wildcat. The tail was “extremely long.” A puma was possible, he said, but naming one from a heat signature alone was “difficult.” The district office said it was still uncertain what the animal was.

The search

Police issued a caution the next day: keep small children supervised and dogs on leashes. Over the following week officers swept the fen on foot and flew a helicopter and drones with thermal cameras; one drone hovered for hours over the spot where the animal had appeared. Wildlife cameras went up across the area on 8 October. When a driver reported a suspicious animal near a farm on the Goldacher Straße in the early hours of 10 October, a police helicopter searched for an hour. On 11 October a mounted unit from Rosenheim rode the area.

The result was the same each time. “We were able to make out countless deer, but no cats at all,” the head of the Erding police station said. No prey remains, no droppings. By 15 October police said no new tips had come in; the cameras stayed up, and local hunters were on the lookout.

The animal itself, meanwhile, became a social-media meme, complete with AI-generated “puma” pictures. None of those are evidence, and we don’t use them.

Sources

• FAZ, “Wärmebildkamera findet keine Spur von mutmaßlichem Puma” (8 Oct 2026)
• BR24, “Puma oder Phantom? Mögliche Raubkatze weiter nicht auffindbar” (12 Oct 2026)
• tz, “Puma-Suche im Notzingermoos” (13 Oct 2026)
• rosenheim24, “Puma in Oberding? Nach wie vor keine Spur” (15 Oct 2026)

Weighing it

A real thermal clip of a large, long-tailed cat exists and an expert took it seriously. A large, intensive search found nothing. Escaped or released exotic cats have turned up in Europe before, and so have misjudged large domestic cats; this file doesn’t decide between them. The map pin marks Oberding, not the sighting spot.