ALTUS -- An elusive mountain lion whose stomach seems to growl around the same time each week was apparently sighted late Thursday night and again this morning in opposite sides of town.

Police received a call at 10:58 p.m. Thursday reporting a sighting of the cat in the irrigation ditch area east of the 200 block of North Park Lane. Again, at about 9 a.m. today, a caller said the cat was chasing another animal along the railroad tracks west of Hollywood and Vine.

Altus Assistant Police Chief Mike Howeth said that Thursday night he and his wife were leaving Jackson County Memorial Hospital, where they had visited a patient, when the initial call came in on a radio that he was monitoring. They headed immediately to the irrigation canal east of North Park Lane and arrived at the same time as a police unit "less than 30 seconds after the call came in."

An animal control officer arrived on the scene, Howeth said, and spotted a long tailed cat headed back through the grass.

No further information was available at press time this morning on the 9 a.m. sighting.

The cat appears to be staying near the area where a man had reported losing some of his goats, east of the Park Lane Shopping Center, Howeth said, adding however that, in light of the sighting this morning on the northeast side of town, its range is extensive.

"There's nothing that says that cat can't take those canals and follow them around the city limits," Howeth said. "He's got plenty of appetite to keep him going for awhile. He's still around the corporate city limits."

Response times to potential sightings of the cat are narrowing, Howeth said, and he advises anyone who does spot the animal to keep an eye on it. It is most likely in areas covered by heavy shrub and salt cedar trees, he said.

The city may consider calling in the state Department of Wildlife to trap the animal, Howeth said, "before we come up with somebody's pet poodle missing."

Mountain lion sightings have been reported for the past three weeks.

Around 10 a.m. April 21, a woman at 1209 Poplar went outside with her Chihuahua dog, looked up and saw the cat walking west along the railroad track. When the cat spotted her, it trotted off a little. Animal Control Supervisor Steve Ross said he asked the woman to describe the animal, and she "described it as a mountain lion," he said -- tannish red, from 20 to 24 inches tall.

On April 15, a mountain lion sighting was reported behind the Park Lane Shopping Center, and Animal Control Officer Danny Berryhill confirmed the sighting when the cat raced out in front of his vehicle behind the shopping center, about 8 to 10 feet away.