[at-l] Wildcats Return To Adirondaks

[RoksnRoots at aol.com (RoksnRoots@aol.com)]

         An article in the NY Times spoke with an over 80 year old resident 
of the Adirondaks who has become the information center for mountain lion 
sightings there. He comments how locals are starting to see more mountain lions 
while driving. The article is long and detailed about the extinction of the 
eastern mountain lion by hunting. The man claims that the state is ignoring the 
increase in evidence because they would then have to take measures to protect the 
endangered animal. He says that officials are attributing the strays cats to 
domesticated pet mountain lions released into the wild once they become 
unmanageable. At eighty years, the man claimed that he has documented these 
sightings for the last 50 years and that period was too long to all be released pets. 
He argues that an official existing wild population of mountain lions should 
now be considered to exist in the NE mountains...

      The New York Adirondaks are a northern branch of the Appalachians not 
far from Killington on the AT...