CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Falfurrias veterinarian and founder of the Texas Border Volunteers, Dr. Michael Vickers is concerned mountain lions are stalking migrants and his volunteers.
He showed 3NEWS video and photos of the mountain lions following a group of migrants, and in one case, his own volunteer team.
Texas Border Volunteers go out into the brush, looking for migrants and then report their findings to law-enforcement to handle. Vickers says this job has gotten more dangerous for him and his volunteers.
"That's a mountain lion," he said, showing 3NEWS video off of his phone. "And there was a group headed that way off of 16, south of Hebbronville, and there was a group headed towards that gate to get picked up but the Border Patrol got there a little bit late and they had already got picked up, but that's what was following them."
Border Patrol Agent Andres Garcia told 3NEWS that the most reported encounters with wildlife are not with mountain lions.
"Wildlife plays a big factor out here in the ranch lands," Garcia said. "The number one that we've seen of course, rattlesnakes, you know, coyotes. The coyotes are impactful, if you see one you know for sure there's five or six around you."
Vickers said one of his volunteers had a close call with one of those big cats.
"This is one, one of our volunteers felt like something was behind them," he said. "He was waiting. We had a group of five or six who were heading his way and he turned around and that mountain line was about 30 or 40 yards behind them, so he might've been din din for that mountain lion."