My neighbor shot a whitetail doe with her bow Sat morning and waited about 30 minutes to retrieve the animal at which time discovered something else had beat her to her trophy. Apparently some kind of predator had torn into and ate most of one hind quarter of the deer in only 30 minutes. It also left some distingushing claw marks across the back of the deer. There were four distinct claws about 2 inches apart and 6 inches across overall.

Now it is possible a black bear could have done this. I’m still optimistic thinking it was a mountain lion or a bear. Either way it’s hard to beleive with all the time I spend in the woods to not have seen any evidence of mountain lions and honestly hope I never do in Ky.

Big cats are the ultimate predator period. They are not afraid of humans. Very few people survive big cat encounters in the US or anywhere else. They are very stealthy and very fast. Imagine a house cat on steroids big enough to eat you. If you are not armed you stand no chance against the ultimate predator the “BIG CAT”.

I was headed home from an Academic Team meet (I’m not sure of the date) in November 2009 at around 8 or 9 in the evening. I turned off from US 23 in Lloyd, KY onto the AA, and I had only been driving for about a mile along the highway when my headlights flashed on a large, sand colored animal along the edge of the road, heading up into the woods. At first I thought it was a small deer, and then a large coyote, until I drove closer and noticed the animal had a long, thick tail that was hooked at the end, and I realized that the creature was a cougar. I didn’t stop my car because I was already late getting home, but I was a bit shocked by the sighting and posted about it on Facebook. The post received many comments from other residents of Greenup County who had also seen or heard of cougars in the area.

Before I saw for myself, I was skeptical about the existence of an ABC in Northern Kentucky. But I am absolutely sure of what I saw, since I am an avid viewer of the Discovery Channel’s nature programs and I am currently a pre-veterinary student at the University of Kentucky. I don’t believe I would mistake such a distinctive animal, especially since it is not native to the area.

Believe it or not a few years ago the phone rang late one evening and an aquaintance asked me to please take an African Lion that had out grown its welcome. I declined. I was the last person on the list so they were going to let it go South of Madisonville. People are nuts.

You’d think that the officials in those states would have sense enough to realize that wild wolves could be a tremenduous tourist attraction. The potential revenue from tourists on camera safaris would be much greater than the revenue from hunting permits to shoot wolves.

You can shoot the same animal with a camera thousands of times. You can only kill it once.

Sure there’s a lot more evidence in the case of the puma. But I’m willing to bet that it’s

(1) more numerous than the sas and

(2) not nearly so smart.

The East is better puma habitat than the West, and it’s more forested now than it was at the time of the Revolution. Many more deer too. What self-respecting predator wouldn’t come back, given the chance?