Kansas lion!

[Emily]

[jst]

[Emily]

from
http://www.thekansan.com/stories/041208 ... 2022.shtml



Cougars are among us

Steve Gilliand: Exploring Kansas Outdoors

PUBLISHED: Saturday, April 12, 2008
In preparing this week’s column my mind naturally wandered to the recent disclosure (finally) of a cougar killed in Barber Coounty.
I found myself with two differing opinions as to whether I should write on this subject. The first being any outdoor writer worth his goose jerky and campfire beans needs to write about this, no questions asked; the second being this topic will probably be written into the ground, so I should just bury this dead horse. I don’t much care for horses dead or alive so I chose the first.

The next question was how to approach this delicate and emotional subject which has suddenly come to a head.

Hmm … maybe I should start by relating all the cougar encounters I’ve heard, told by local farmers and ranchers I know. Yes, that should be good for a paragraph or two. For years now I’ve heard stories such as a local woman spotting a cougar behind her as she walked near her home, or of a mother and son seeing a cougar cross ahead of them as they drove along a side road, and so on and so forth.

No, maybe that’s not the best way to go. Maybe I should start by telling how all those people described what they saw. Yes, I’ll try that. … I’m a born skeptic, and I know full well that in dim light, in the heat of the moment or from a distance, Ol’ Shep, the neighbor’s big, old, slobbery, BLOND Labrador retriever could look amazingly like a cougar.

But that tail; that darn, long, thin tail that curled down behind and then up again at the tip and trailed straight out behind those animals they saw. The people telling me about “cougar” sightings always talk about that tail, which never has or never will belong to Shep.

Or better yet, maybe I should describe how people feel after they have seen or had some kind of encounter with what they’re certain was a cougar, only to be told by Wildlife and Parks officials what they saw was probably something else because there was no “verifiable” evidence.

No, maybe that’s not the direction to take either. … I know; I’ll look at it from the Wildlife and Parks’ point of view. I’ll talk about the curious lack of real evidence that there is a thriving cougar population in Kansas; (road killed cougars, cougars killed by deer hunters, conclusive trail camera photos, etc.)

Then I’ll touch on all the “cougar sightings” which turned out to be bobcats or even Ol’ Shep, then about all the “cougar tracks” that in fact were made by someone’s big coonhound (or Ol’ Shep.) I could end the story by saying every conservation officer and biologist I’ve talked to one-on-one believes full well that cougars at least travel through the state on a regular basis, and they are as befuddled as the rest of us why more conclusive evidence has not been found.

No, I’m not sure that’s best either. Heck, now I don’t know what to say. I guess we’ll each just have to decide for ourselves what we believe. I’m almost disappointed about last week’s findings because now, for me, some of the mystery and mystique surrounding cougars in Kansas is gone, and I kind of liked it that way.

Steve Gilliland is a syndicated outdoors columnist, and can be contacted by e-mail at stevegilliland@embarqmail.com.