Friday, September 16, 2005
IS THERE A COUGAR IN YOUR FUTURE?
Over the years, I’ve learned to discount most mountain lion (cougar) sightings.
Most reports of seeing or hearing the big cats – also called pumas and catamounts – come from drunks and other unreliables.
Until recently.
Before that, the last sighting came from an old girl friend still living in Dump Truck, Ala., who said a cougar screamed one night outside her shanty, which had once been our love nest.
My guess is that she hoped I’d come riding up in a white limousine to take her away from all that. But I didn’t believe her tale. After all, she’d adroitly twisted the truth when it suited her many times before the mountain-lion-at-the-window story.
However, two events have renewed my belief that there may still be a mountain lion or two on the loose in the East, particularly in Virginia and/or Tennessee where I live and have my being.
An elderly lady (we’ll call her Mrs. X) from the Bedford, Va., area told me this story.
Late one evening, she and her husband heard what she describes as "a loud scream" in the yard. They flipped on floodlights. Nothing.
But a bucket of water in the yard had been flipped over. The couple retired for the night, but the sound she’d heard kept ringing through the corridors of Mrs. X’s memory.
"Then I remembered," she said. "I’d heard that same scream as a little girl in Arkansas. My grandfather said it was a panther or ‘painter" (other regional names for mountain lions). He used to hunt them."
After they’d gone to sleep, Mrs. X was awakened by "not a growl exactly, but a sort of guttural sound" coming from the yard where they’d heard the scream.
This time when the couple flipped on outside lights, a huge cat with reddish/tan body and long tail was caught in the spotlight. "I’d estimate it was five and a half feet long, including tail," she said.
For about 20 seconds, the cat appeared to be mesmerized by the bright lights. Then it dashed for cover.
"I’ll never forget the way it moved," she said. "It didn’t jump. It sort of glided out of sight."
I found Mrs. X’s account entirely believable. After more than a third of a century of outdoor writing – and scores of mountain-lion sightings – I’ve pretty much learned how to tell if the person saw an actual cat or a German Shepherd.
Besides, my conviction has always been that a few – repeat, a few – cougars still prowl the more remote areas.
State game biologists do not say, "No, never," but add this caveat.
"If there are cougar in the mountains today, they aren’t remnants of the Eastern cougar that were native to the area, but pets that someone turned loose," says Bob Duncan, chief of the Wildlife Division of the Virginia Game Department.
In other words, someone gets hold of an illegal cougar kitten – cute little thing, but with an attitude – and when the animal reaches five feet long and has devoured Poo Poo the Poodle, the disillusioned owner takes it to a remote area and kicks it out.
Whitetail deer are a cougar’s main source of food, and Lord knows there are enough deer these days to keep an army of cougars from going hungry.
Then one night a few weeks ago, I was sitting in the porch swing of my mother’s home along the banks of the North Fork of the Holston River near the Virginia-Tennessee state line. From the direction of Cloud’s Ford came an unearthly guttural scream that reverberated off every hill around.
The scream set every dog in the neighborhood to barking. The coyotes that den in the ridge across the river also got excited, and began to yip and howl.
The sound could only have come from a very, very large wild animal. The only thing in our woods big enough to make such an all-consuming sound is a bear. And bears don’t scream (to borrow from a Willie Nelson song) "like a panther in the middle of the night."
I may not live long enough to actually see a mountain lion. But I believe now that I’ve heard one.
I’d stake my reputation (such as it is) on it.
END
Most reports of seeing or hearing the big cats – also called pumas and catamounts – come from drunks and other unreliables.
Until recently.
Before that, the last sighting came from an old girl friend still living in Dump Truck, Ala., who said a cougar screamed one night outside her shanty, which had once been our love nest.
My guess is that she hoped I’d come riding up in a white limousine to take her away from all that. But I didn’t believe her tale. After all, she’d adroitly twisted the truth when it suited her many times before the mountain-lion-at-the-window story.
However, two events have renewed my belief that there may still be a mountain lion or two on the loose in the East, particularly in Virginia and/or Tennessee where I live and have my being.
An elderly lady (we’ll call her Mrs. X) from the Bedford, Va., area told me this story.
Late one evening, she and her husband heard what she describes as "a loud scream" in the yard. They flipped on floodlights. Nothing.
But a bucket of water in the yard had been flipped over. The couple retired for the night, but the sound she’d heard kept ringing through the corridors of Mrs. X’s memory.
"Then I remembered," she said. "I’d heard that same scream as a little girl in Arkansas. My grandfather said it was a panther or ‘painter" (other regional names for mountain lions). He used to hunt them."
After they’d gone to sleep, Mrs. X was awakened by "not a growl exactly, but a sort of guttural sound" coming from the yard where they’d heard the scream.
This time when the couple flipped on outside lights, a huge cat with reddish/tan body and long tail was caught in the spotlight. "I’d estimate it was five and a half feet long, including tail," she said.
For about 20 seconds, the cat appeared to be mesmerized by the bright lights. Then it dashed for cover.
"I’ll never forget the way it moved," she said. "It didn’t jump. It sort of glided out of sight."
I found Mrs. X’s account entirely believable. After more than a third of a century of outdoor writing – and scores of mountain-lion sightings – I’ve pretty much learned how to tell if the person saw an actual cat or a German Shepherd.
Besides, my conviction has always been that a few – repeat, a few – cougars still prowl the more remote areas.
State game biologists do not say, "No, never," but add this caveat.
"If there are cougar in the mountains today, they aren’t remnants of the Eastern cougar that were native to the area, but pets that someone turned loose," says Bob Duncan, chief of the Wildlife Division of the Virginia Game Department.
In other words, someone gets hold of an illegal cougar kitten – cute little thing, but with an attitude – and when the animal reaches five feet long and has devoured Poo Poo the Poodle, the disillusioned owner takes it to a remote area and kicks it out.
Whitetail deer are a cougar’s main source of food, and Lord knows there are enough deer these days to keep an army of cougars from going hungry.
Then one night a few weeks ago, I was sitting in the porch swing of my mother’s home along the banks of the North Fork of the Holston River near the Virginia-Tennessee state line. From the direction of Cloud’s Ford came an unearthly guttural scream that reverberated off every hill around.
The scream set every dog in the neighborhood to barking. The coyotes that den in the ridge across the river also got excited, and began to yip and howl.
The sound could only have come from a very, very large wild animal. The only thing in our woods big enough to make such an all-consuming sound is a bear. And bears don’t scream (to borrow from a Willie Nelson song) "like a panther in the middle of the night."
I may not live long enough to actually see a mountain lion. But I believe now that I’ve heard one.
I’d stake my reputation (such as it is) on it.
END
