Posted on 08/29/2015 8:23:32 AM PDT by Theoria
Officials ponder changing cat’s status, causing roar of protest; sighting a ‘U.F.O.’
Diana Marchibroda insists she saw the beast near the Appalachian Trail in Virginia in May. From the woods sauntered a “tall, very sleek” mountain lion, she says. Ms. Marchibroda, a dentist who is 62 years old, says she and her silver-haired miniature schnauzer, Sophie, “both watched in awe.”
“My sighting is ABSOLUTE,” she wrote the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in July. “I know what I saw.”
Dozens of similar missives have poured into the agency as it proposes removing the Eastern mountain lion from the list of endangered species, where it has been since 1973. That change comes because the agency believes the creature no longer exists and would effectively render the subspecies extinct.
The roar of protest is from Easterners who contend the formidable felines still roam forests, fields and backyards from Maine to Georgia.
“There was no mistaking that long tail!” wrote one commenter to the agency in June, about an alleged sighting in New York. “Big as my bike,” promised another about a purported lion in Harrisburg, Pa.
The debate is “sort of in the realm of Bigfoot,” but with more scientific basis, says Noah Charney, an expert animal tracker in Western Massachusetts. The occasional mountain lion is spotted in the East, after wandering in from the West, but it is exceedingly uncommon and officials say people are reporting far more sightings than technically possible.
Also called cougars, pumas and panthers, mountain lions boast impressive tails, buff builds and often tawny-brown coats. They thrive in the West and have expanded eastward in recent decades, breeding in spots like South Dakota, with sightings increasing in the Midwest.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Ghost kitties in the sky!
A friend and I saw one in a national forest many years ago.... Back when deer were scarce in this area.
The same government that insists they are extinct would happily prosecute somebody who shot one. It’s like keeping abortion legal for physicians, but charging anybody else with homicide or manslaughter if they do something that results in the death of an unborn child.
I see a lot of mountain lions here in CA mountains where I hunt. Of course, we can’t shoot them here. It doesn’t bother me when I see them, it’s the ones I don’t see that bother me.
We have one that lives in our neighborhood. She has cubs last year according to local conservation office. She was spotted half dozen times this spring. Even tripped a wildlife camera. I saw her about five miles from my house last April. She stays in river valley except when it floods.
They don’t exist.
If a rare animal is found living in your state, it is called “endangered.” And all sorts of laws come into place.
Your state government doesn’t want that. And you don’t, either.
So they don’t exist.
My wife and I were hiking in a remote area that straddles the VA/WV border some years ago and were stalked by a mountain lion. I could not get a picture to prove it, but I’m sure that’s what it was.
Saw 2 of `em 500 feet away here in the hills of the Adirondacks going after my friend`s horses 2 months ago. They wuz big big cats.
Yeah, I tell people, you may not have seen one, but one has seen you!
Yeh the DNR guys will tell you all day long there are no Black Panthers in GA either. We had two juveniles walking down the middle of our street one night several years ago. It was about 1:00AM. I woke up and thought I heard a child crying so I got up and eased out on the back deck to listen. The dog started barking in the living room and Mr. GG2 went to look out the window and there they were sashaying down the street. At first he thought they were Bobcats til he saw the long tails.
Mr. GG2 was out hunting in Alabama once and he was walking down a dirt road. He happened to turn and look back and saw a Black Panther slinking across the road.
We have seen tracks on land I own in north AL. An outdoorsman neighbor said a game warden confirmed a breeding pair that frequents our immediate area, as well as another pair not too far away. The neighbor also said the game warden was reluctant to admit their existence. I am a firm believer the eastern mountain lion is NOT extinct.
They are just those eastern “Fat Cats” you hear about.
Your state government doesn’t want that.
And you don’t, either.
So they don’t exist.
Sort of like conservative congresscritters.
As fewer people hunt and population of deer increase, there are more deer now than at any time in many states, the increase of big cats as well as bear and other large carnivores will increase.
As people move into more remote exurban and formerly wilderness areas they are bound to come into contact with species that many have thought were extinct.
‘sthe cougar (mountain lion)is said to be extinct in the lower northern peninsula of Michigan since the early 1900’s...
I drove up on one two years ago, and was told I was either drunk, high, or a combination thereof....
I had witnesses, pictures and what not, but it did not matter..
until the old hippies die off and are gone from this planet forever, we will never be able to coincide with nature..
send the hippies to the outer fringes of our society, and then we will begin our search for freedom..
hint... hippies are socialists.. and socialists are merely juvenile communists..
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