In the three weeks since a story by Bangor Daily News reporter Kevin Miller regarding the possibility of mountain lions in Maine ran on the front page of the newspaper, readers have responded with stories of personal sightings of what they believe to have been the fabled ghost of the Maine woods.
“Reports of mountain lions have come in from all around the state in recent years,” Miller reported. “But officially at least, self-sustaining populations of wild cougars, or mountain lions, exist only in Maine’s history books.”
Wildlife experts generally are skeptical of reports of sightings of the big cat, suggesting that most can be attributed partly to wishful thinking on the part of the alleged spotter and partly to simple misidentification. Still, the fraternity of citizens who believe they have seen a mountain lion in the wild continues to grow, despite the scientific community’s dismissive approach.
On a late summer morning in the mid-1960s, I was several miles into the storied Haynesville Woods south of Linneus headed for Bangor on Route 2A when a large, tawny-colored animal strolled gracefully across the highway some 50 yards in front of me. A feature that stood out even more than the animal’s distinct coloring and catlike walk was its long tail, which, at its end, curled back toward its body. I stopped my car near the point of the creature’s crossing, hoping to get another look at it, but by then, it had faded silently into the dense forest.
It occurred to me as I continued on my way that when I emerged from the bush, few were likely to believe my story — that I would be much like the guy who, while playing golf alone, scores a hole-in-one, and there’s no one there to witness the accomplishment. The sport of golf demands that the feat, to be considered legitimate, must be witnessed by another human. Perhaps the sighting of an animal that practically has “cougar” written all over it requires a corroborating witness to legitimize things as well.
No matter. I know what I believe I saw, and skeptics will have a hard sell to convince me that it was mere species misidentification garnished with a touch of wishful thinking on my part. From reading the accounts of other sightings, it is apparent that others who believe they have seen a cougar in the wild feel likewise.
When I happened to bump into former Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Commissioner Glenn Manuel at a social event some years ago, I told him my cougar story, prefacing it with, “You’re going to think I’m crazy, but …” To the contrary, he said the animal might well have been a cougar. Unlike some of his contemporaries, he believed it possible that the species exists in Maine.
This past summer, I had an up-close and personal encounter with another elusive critter. I was enjoying my daily walk o’er hill and dale when I crested a knoll and had an unsettling feeling that something was watching me. I looked to my left front, and standing about 150 feet off in a roadside broccoli field bordering a wooded area was a huge and handsome coyote at full alert, intensely eyeballing my every move.
Oh great, I thought, as I stood dead in my tracks, armed with nothing save a prayer — just what am I supposed to do if old Wile E. Coyote decides it might be a swell idea to have a piece of me for lunch? Punt?
We stared each other down for perhaps 15 seconds before this impressive first cousin to El Lobo, the wolf, made a sudden dash into a grain field on the opposite side of the road, quickly disappearing from sight in the denseness of the mature crop. The next day, I found an old broom handle in the garage and began following Teddy Roosevelt’s advice in respect to carrying a big stick should I wish to go far in my meanderings about the countryside.
Coyote sightings have not always been as common in Maine as they are today. The moose and the eagle have made dramatic comebacks. Wild turkeys flourish. What a magnificent gift to the state it would be should the mountain lion — presently on the endangered species list but considered extinct by the experts — one day becomes the state’s next comeback creature of note.
BDN columnist Kent Ward lives in Limestone. Readers may reach him by e-mail at olddawg@bangordailynews.com.