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Does the ‘Ghost Cat’ Prowl Connecticut? November 27, 2008 The return of winter has Connecticut’s seasonal affective disorder sufferers depressed. But to those of us who entertain the notion, however fanciful, that Puma concolor is back in the Nutmeg State, barren trees and falling snow are welcome sights. We’re looking to obtain irrefutable evidence that mountain lions have returned to a place they haven’t called home in over a century. With vegetation gone for a few months, the chance for credible “ghost cat” sightings -- perhaps photos -- rises. And snow means paw prints that wildlife professionals can examine for authenticity. How can an animal usually associated with the Rockies be prowling a state most of the nation thinks of as a bedroom community for New York City? The answer is simple: There’s a whole lot of nuthin’ in Connecticut. The myth of the state’s “overdevelopment” persists because most people live and work in densely populated corridors along I-95 and I-91. But there’s more to Connecticut than highways, subdivisions, and office parks. Over 80 percent of the state is undeveloped. Some suburbanites claim to have spotted the cats, but sightings are most common in sparsely populated areas -- particularly Litchfield and Windham Counties. According to the reference guide Wild Cats of the World, mountain lions “take full advantage of grass, bushes, rocks, cliffs, or any feature of the terrain to stalk as close to their prey as possible.” And Connecticut offers plenty of prey. Lions love to eat deer, and the state is overpopulated with Bambis. There’s plenty of other food, too, including moose, raccoons, turkeys, beavers, opossums, squirrels, and -- let’s face it -- pets. (Keep an eye on Fifi and Mr. Whiskers.) Wildlife bureaucrats insist, in lockstep fashion, that there’s no way the mountain lion -- which also goes by the names cougar, catamount, puma, and panther -- has returned to New England. Their skepticism is legitimate, to a point. For centuries, local, state, and federal authorities offered payments to those willing to shoot, trap, and poison the animal. (Between 1820 and 1845, an estimated 600 cats were killed in a single county in Pennsylvania.) And wariness is warranted when dealing with “eyewitnesses” whose experience with nature doesn’t extend much beyond watching documentaries on Animal Planet. Still, reliable sources (i.e., people who live in rural areas and are accustomed to seeing bobcats and coyotes) continue to file reports -- and occasionally, hard science weighs in. A decade ago, DNA testing confirmed cougar scat near the Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts. (Doubters say the poop was planted.) Assuming lions are here, how’d they make the return trip? One theory holds that a small population of cats remained in extreme eastern Canada. When New England stopped clear-cutting forests for agriculture, and the region rapidly reforested, cougars came back to once-again-accommodating habitat. Other big-cat believers think the puma population in the northern Midwest (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan) is growing, and spreading eastward, either above or below the Great Lakes, into the Northeast. Even scoffers admit that theoretically, the amazingly adaptable mountain lion could thrive in the New England of the 21st century. It’s foolish to question the cat’s ability to survive in widely varied environments. In the Rockies, it lives at high altitudes. (Hunting pumas is legal in most western states -- thousands are killed every year -- but California voters banned the practice in 1990.) In the Southwest, it lives in deserts. In Central and South America, it lives in jungles, where it competes for prey with the jaguar. If they are back, there’s not much cause for alarm. Yes, the cats are large -- adult males can weigh up to 200 pounds. But they’re also secretive and solitary. Wild Cats of the World calls pumas “gentle, retiring cats, more eager to flee than fight.” They prefer to attack the prey they’ve adapted to killing, and humans aren’t on the list. And it’s not as if other predators that have made Connecticut comebacks -- e.g., black bears, bobcats, and fishers -- have caused any significant problems. Neither has the widespread presence of coyotes, which unlike mountain lions, aren’t native to Connecticut. “No American beast has been the subject of so much loose writing or of such wild fables as the cougar,” Theodore Roosevelt wrote in 1901. Today, skeptics say it makes as much sense to talk about mountain lions in Connecticut as it does to discuss the presence of geckos, gorillas, or grizzly bears. Perhaps they’re right. But maybe this winter, cougar crackpots will finally get the proof we seek. D. Dowd Muska is a writer, commentator and lecturer. His website is www.dowdmuska.com. # # # # #
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