from the WOODSTOCK TIMES

[Emily]

possibly the result of smoke inhalation, but

http://www.ulsterpublishing.com/index.c ... eID=438175

'Too fast for a deer, too big for a dog or coyote...'
Despite DEC debunking, Woodstockers say they've seen a mountain lion




by Violet Snow

Fourteen-year-old Sophie Strand described her encounter with a mountain lion at the end of her driveway on Plochmann Lane in Woodstock on December 20: "It was 6:40 a.m., the day of the big snowstorm, before the snow started. I didn't know school had been canceled. I was waiting for the bus, listening to my iPod with earplugs. I had my eyes closed, but every time a car went by, there was a little gust of wind, and I looked up. One time when I looked up, there was no car. I saw an animal right across the street, walking in the shadows. It stopped and watched me. At first I thought it was a big dog, maybe Lucy, Levon Helm's dog. Then I thought, no, it has a long tail - it's a big cat.

"I debated whether to stay and watch but decided that would not be smart. I backed away slowly. I was calm for about 45 seconds. Then when I got near my house, I screamed to my mom that there was a mountain lion. I turned and ran and lost my shoes."

How does she feel about having a cougar in the neighborhood? "I don't want to wait for the bus alone anymore," she said. "But I don't want anyone to feel they have to capture it. Now I wait in my mom's car, so that's okay."

Cougar sightings in the Catskills have been rare but persistent over the past two decades. They are usually dismissed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) as cases of mistaken identity. Although the big cats were once native to New York State, they were extirpated from the area long ago and are now on the state and federal endangered species lists.

Ranger Tom Lake comments on the DEC website, "There has been no documented proof of wild mountain lions in New York State for over 100 years. A breeding population requires a certain critical mass. Every other form of New York State wildlife that is hard to see or [is] rebuilding its populations, from black bears to bobcats to moose, sooner or later falls victim to either a hunter or an automobile. Why no mountain lions? There have been examples of escapes from captivity, but, as far as we know, no home-grown pumas. It is not impossible that one or more might show up in New York State, wandering in from Canada or northern New England as the moose has done, but, like alien encounters, it would be nice to have irrefutable evidence."

Sophie's father, Clark Strand, saw a cougar nine months ago, while driving down Plochmann, about two to three hundred yards from the intersection with Route 212. "There's a corridor of wilderness from Bradley Meadows to the area behind St. Gregory's Church," he said. "It's undeveloped land that's a natural animal highway, crossing Plochmann Lane at that point. I saw something run across the road. At first I thought it was a deer, but it was so sleek and catlike, and it didn't move like a deer. Then I saw the tail, and that was the clincher. It's so long, as long as the rest of the cat. When you see the tail, there's no mistaking what it is. Of course, nobody believed me. But if you've ever seen one, it's an unmistakable critter."

After Sophie's sighting, the family was reluctant to publicize the presence of the cougar, but when they mentioned it to their vet, said Clark, "She thought we should let people know. They need to be aware that it's around, although the cougar's elusiveness is legendary, and I don't know how they would trap it."

Mountain lions, or cougars, are solitary and territorial. They can be 40 inches high at the shoulder and up to six to eight feet long, weighing between 60 and 150 pounds. They are usually tan, with a red or white belly, and they can prey on sheep, deer, goats and other animals of a like size.



Long tail with a black tip

Supervisor-elect Jeff Moran was ambivalent about describing his two mountain lion sightings. "People roll their eyes when I tell them, and I mean the old-timers who hunt and know the mountains. But I have very good vision, and I've seen lots of animals in the wild, so I am pretty sure."

His first and less definitive sighting came late at night when he was driving back from a planning board meeting. Heading up Schoonmaker Lane - about a mile from the center of Woodstock - to his house, he saw an animal streak by, "too fast for a deer, too big for a dog or coyote," he recalled. "I thought it looked like a puma. Two weeks later, I went out to my driveway from the house one night, and the security light at my office clicked on. I saw a shaggy orange shape. I moved, and it moved. I moved, and it moved again. I moved to a position where I could see it clearly in the floodlight. It had a long tail with a black tip on the end. Its head came to above my knee. It looked exactly like every picture of a mountain lion I've ever seen. It was shaggier and more orange than I expected. I've seen bobcats, lynx, fishers, coyotes, wolves and grizzlies out West. It could be nothing else."

The old-timers he knows say they've never seen cougars or their tracks or scat in the woods. "On the other hand, cats tend to bury their scat," noted Moran. "And they're stealthy. Friends of mine in Shokan have seen them in the Watson Hollow area. It could be one animal with a big range, or a released animal, from someone who got tired of having one as a pet. But I'm as sure as I can be that what I saw this fall was a mountain lion."

In the western U.S., where cougars are more plentiful, they have occasionally attacked humans. "They do present a danger," said Moran. "But people shouldn't get hysterical - most animals are more afraid of us than we are of them. They just need to be aware that there are carnivores out there that are a danger to pets. And I hate to say this, but if you have an infant, don't let the child out of your sight outdoors."

Dave Holden is a volunteer guide for the DEC at the Overlook Mountain firetower and spends a lot of time exploring the woods, but he has never seen one. "And I would just as soon keep it that way. I hope they're anomalous," he said of the local sightings. "There are too many people here. There have been serious maulings out West. It's valuable to make this a cautionary tale for people."++