NATCHEZ — After repeated, albeit alleged, cougar sightings, the Mississippi Department of Wildlife and Fisheries will be in Natchez today looking for evidence of the animal.

The department’s exotic species program leader Richard Rummel said he has been enticed by repeated sightings in one area of the Natchez Trace.

“It’s possible,” he said.

The cat was spotted on the Trace in early October and then three times within a 24-hour period between Sunday and Monday.

All four sightings were on, or near, the Natchez Trace between the first and third mile markers.

The most recently reported sighting came from downtown resident Laurie Williams.

Williams said she was biking around dusk on the Trace Monday evening when a large cat-like animal crossed the road in front of her.

She said she initially thought the animal was a deer before she realized what it was.

“I just stopped in the road,” she said. “I didn’t want to become cat food.”

Williams, like other recent witnesses on the Trace, was between the first and second mile marker when she saw the cat.

And today Rummel said he is hoping to find some trace of the cougar.

In the past months, Rummel has said there have not been confirmed cougar sightings in Mississippi in more than 100 years.

Rummel said evidence he’ll be looking for, other than the cougar itself, will be in the form of tracks near creeks.

While Rummel said he doesn’t anticipate coming face to face with the cougar, he did have safety tips in case anyone does.

“Make a lot of noise,” he said. “And wave your arms over your head. You want to appear larger than you are.”

Rummel also suggested throwing a rock or stick at the animal to scare it.

Running is not advised.

“That brings out their predatory instinct,” he said.

Instead, slowly back away from the animal.

And in the event the cougar attacks, Rummel has a very sweeping suggestion.

“Do anything you can to fight it,” he said.

While killing the cougar in self-defense is not illegal, killing it for sport is.

Rummel said killing the endangered cat carries a $100,000 fine.