Our friend Diane in Alabama further expounding on the believed to be repeated sightings of Cougars on the Alabama/Tennesee border...I am asking Helen McGinnis of EASTERN COUGAR to weigh in on the dialog.............WOULD BE EXCELLENT IF DIANE AND HER FRIENDS ARE INDEED SEEING A BREEDING POPULATION OF F.CONCOLOR...............YET, THUS FAR, NO PROOF OVER THE YEARS THAT COUGARS STILL ROAM THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIANS

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rick Meril <rick.meril@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 11:05 AM
Subject: Re: Large Cat Attack
To: CDBW; Helen McGinnis <HelenMcGinnis@frontiernet.net>

Diane..............glad you are recovering..................I am not doubting you ..............just advising that there have been so many investigations by biologist up and down the Appalachian Spine to confirm evidence of a breeding cougar population.

 Note that it has been acknowledged that the Cougar(f.concolor) is one species throughout the Americas.  The cougars in florida are the same as those in california, Montana, Texas, Oregon, Canada, Mexico and wherever else they continue to carve out a living. The Florida population was beginning to show signs of inbreeding and there were some Texas "cats" put on the ground in Florida to improve the genetic pool of the existing population.

I am putting Helen Mcginnis of EASTERN COUGAR on this email and I know she is interested in communicating with you further. I root for the return of the LION, Wolf, Wolverine, Pine Marten, Elk, Caribou, Black Bear to all of their former haunts throughout our great USA.................keep me posted .................i posted your first note and the WAAF news video on the blogsite today.................

Heal quickly and get some pictures of those "BAMA" lions so the skeptics will become believers.

Happy Saturday to you.

Helen, what can you add and shed light on here?

On Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 10:51 AM, <CDBW wrote:

Good Morning, Rick,

Thanks for the "feel well" wishes. I was actually in the throes of my very first (and hopefully last) gall bladder attack. I am an RN, so I knew right away what the problem was. Whew!  It lasted 5 hrs.

Folks around here are very familiar with bobcats..they are plentiful. Sightings are common, even in urban areas; mountings in public places (convenience stores, etc.) are somewhat common.  

Not to write a dissertation, but.... I first became interested in the cougar issue a few years ago after seeing a large, dark bobcat cross a road while we traveled in central  Florida.  It was quite large as far as bobcats go, and appeared almost black (it was wet). I researched it to be sure it wasn't some other kind of bobtail large cat that I wasn't familiar with...that's when I read about the cougar preservation movement in Florida. I was already familiar with the Florida panther, being a Mobile girl and familiar with black panther sightings there during my childhood. 

 We live 2 miles from the Tennessee state line, Alabama side. We are at the edge of the Tennessee River Valley, farmland intermixed with  mountainous, wooded foothills of the Appalachians.  I've heard two first- hand reports of large cat incidences in this immediate area, both occurring within the last 2 years (I think about 18 mos ago).  One sighting was a by long-time  friend of ours, within quarter-mile of our house, who watched a cougar early one morning as the cat strolled across the back lots of a treeless subdivision,  including his own yard. He had a clear view of  it from his window, and watched it  for several minutes at least, until it got out of sight. He is a reliable historian...my husband has known him for 35 years.  We happened to see this friend that night, and he was freaked.  He kept saying, " It was a damn mountain lion...

I SAW a damn MOUNTAIN LION in my back yard! "

About 4 months later I was at our vet's when a farmer came in to get feed. He whipped out his cell phone and began to play a recording, asking me & the vet assist to guess what it was.  At first I thought is was a child having a protracted screaming temper tantrum, yet  not quite. It was loud.  (I had also been researching fox cries & coyote howls, and it didn't sound like those to me either). He knows fox & coyote cries, too. He said whatever it was, it was out in the woods on his farm one recent night,  and " is at the top of the food chain, whatever it is."   He said he called the next farm over the next morning...that neighbor had also heard it and was about to call him.  The neighbor farmer didn't think it was a fox, coyote or bobcat, either.The vet assistant reported she had  once seen a "mountain lion" one crossing the road, a few miles over the the TN state line; she saw the tail clearly,said it was too large to be a bobcat and looked just like a mountain lion.

This prompted me to call two friends who are native to this area (we are not) and who used to hunt. Both are middle-aged farmers with college degrees...one (Chris) is native American, his ancestors being native to this area;  the other one's (Jim) family has been here farming for generations.

While neither have had cougar sightings, Chris related his nephew was hunting in this area, came upon a cougar sunning itself  on a rock.  He was downwind from the cat; had a good view of the  entire tail.  Considered shooting  it, but feared for his safety if he missed. He retreated and the cat never saw him. This hunter had killed bobcats before, as well as wild dogs, coyotes (all of which were killing foxes they were raising on an enclosed hunting reserve); he was certain of what he saw.  Jim has two hunting buddies who  had a sighting together. 

I think this is a remarkable number of reported sightings considering my very small "research" and few contacts on the topic, and the fairly restricted geographic area.

Chris (the native American) theorized that these are likely the true eastern cougar (rather than migrating Florida cougars), who have always been deep in the Appalachians, and now coming down into the more open areas, possibly  because of the return of the small game animals & deer population (which became very depleted here about 30 years ago).  This makes sense to me, as  I was under the impression  that the Florida panthers are thought to be cats displaced from the southeastern mountains as well.

Sorry to be so long-winded. Won't happen again...I've said about all I know.  But I DO  know what it feels like to have  a sighting and not be able to confirm it or to have anyone believe you  As a young adult, I had a black bear sighting (a large bear) myself in Mobile (south Alabama) back when everyone said there were none.  They know differently now...even named their baseball team the "Bay Bears".

Have  a good day and thanks for the email.

Dianne in north Alabama