[at-l] cougar sighting (new topic)

[agaudet at TheWorld.com (agaudet@xxxxxxxxxxxx)]

Since the thread lacks a title I'm giving it one.

My sighting of a mountain lion was unexpected, as most are, in the early
morning while descending the dirt road from Tillie Wood's place, near
Pearisburg, VA. I was visiting Tillie at "Woods Hole" as an encore tour of
my 1997 thruhike. This was in 1998.

About 1/2 mile below Wood's Hole, about 6:30 AM I was heading towards the
sunrise so the view in front of me gave me the dark or shadow side of
animals. Coming from my right side an animal trotted out to the edge of
the dirt road, paused, looked in the direction of the car (I was traveling
very slow down a deeply rutted road) and then bounded across the road
disappearing into the woods on my left. The leap was impressive, touching
the road in the middle and then reaching the woods on the next leap. In
shadow the color was dark brown, uniform in color, with a tail that was
snakelike and seemingly long for it's body. By snakelike I mean the
tailwas the same diameter for nearly all of its length. The head also
appeared small for it's body.

Having sighted bobcats in the Whites, and a Lynx in Nova Scotia I'm quite
certain of my sighting. Standing on the side of the road the cougar didn't
have the "long legs" look that the Lynx has, and the size of a bobcat is
so much smaller than the animal I saw.

I drove to the tar road, then the bottom of the hill (va603?)and stopped
at the general store. I called Tillie to tell her of the sighting, then
got into a short conversation with 2 locals in the store. It sortof went
like this:
"I just saw a mountain lion"
"We don't have them around here, where are you from?"
"Boston"
"Oh..."

RockDancer

btw, there is almost certainly a family of mountain lions in the White
mountains, ranging from the AT crossing of Rt. 302 to Fryeburg, ME to the
east. Multiple sightings around North Conway for several years now,
including a confirmed video shot from a Fryeburg kitchen window.