Diane from the Alabama/Tennessee border further evaluating the suspect evidence of the hunter who claimed to be attacked by a Cougar......Helen McGinnis comments to Diane now has her thinking that indeed another hoax and not a true cougar sighting at all--unfortunately for all of us who want to see F.concolor back on the ground throughout the USA

Diane..........you are a sleuth and could be a CIA Operative..............We appreciate your continuing investigation of  potentialCougar sightings in Alabama/tennesee

Rick


On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 9:46 AM, <CDBW wrote:

Good Morning, Y'all,

 I agree the placement of the claw tears on the man's clothing could be suspect, as Helen pointed out.(referring to Helen Mcginnis of Eastern Cougar Foundation)

I was able to somewhat duplicate the pattern  with my own cat's paw, but only if the paw struck a flat surface straight on, so that the two middle toes struck first and their force impeded, pushing these  two toes back, which can bring the outer claws up in line with the two inner claws. I think that would be unlikely to happen if the claws were extended by the animal (as opposed to me playing with our cat's paw),. I suppose this could happen if the  cat was very weak and only trying to defend itself, and poking rather than swiping.  The man said it was "sickly".
I am now hoping the cat (if there was one) wasn't actually lame or semi-conscious, and the man didn't
actually pull out his knife first and kick the animal to see if it was alive.

Also, something's been bugging me about the wound dressing. I really doubt an  ER MD would put an ace wrap on a wound, particularly one which contained bacteria. (I am an RN, worked ER for 6 years). Any puncture wound from anything dirty can cause bruising and swelling (cat puncture wounds especially) but you wouldn't want to impede the blood flow to this type wound  (you'd want the blood's inflammatory response to reach the tissue) and you'd want the wound to drain, rather than bacteria being trapped in the wound.

Hmmmm......
Amateur Wanna-Be Investigator At Large,
Dianne