The latest chapter in Maine’s most endearing animal mystery was written recently in Dresden, when a passer-by claimed to have a spied a mountain lion along Route 27. The memory of the Big Cat’s long tail and rippling muscles is burned in Ken Petersen’s mind.

“It crossed the road directly in front of me,” Petersen said. “It was as if I saw it in slow motion. It was magnificent.” Unfortunately for Petersen, his memory doesn’t serve as either proof or corroboration that the cougar actually exists. We believe Petersen saw something there in Dresden, along that highway but the precious evidence to confirm the sighting is just not there.

This is the chronic problem with mountain lions in Maine. The last confirmed sighting was on the border between Somerset County and Canada in 1938. Since then, the cats have existed only as rumors, fleeting glimpses and stray hairs left behind.

State wildlife officials maintain there is no self-sustaining cougar population in Maine to their knowledge. And in March, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service moved to remove the Eastern Cougar from its endangered species list.

A species cannot be endangered, after all, if it is officially extinct.

While science is closing the book on the Big Cat, popular sentiment certainly does not. Mountain lion sightings in Maine remain prevalent. Hair consistent with mountain lions has been found, notably in Monmouth about a decade ago. The Maine woods contain many secrets and the continued life of these felines could be just another. Will we ever know for certain?

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Our guess is yes. We base this assertion on nothing scientific, but rather the theory that life finds a way, and everyone who’s claimed to have seen a cougar cannot be mistaken. Credible people have made these sightings; the odds they’re all apocryphal are long.

(Also, the argument that sightings are actually escaped pets seems shaky. While non-native species may prowl the Maine woods, it is counterintuitive to assume their survival while presuming the demise of the Eastern Cougar, in absence of proof.)

Yet while our faith in the Big Cat is unshaken, the thirst for confirmation must be slaked. In years past, mountain lions had an easier time hiding. Now, with the advent of mobile phones and digital cameras, many of us carry high-quality recording and broadcasting equipment in our pockets.

It’s only a matter of time, then, until somebody, somewhere, offers fresh video or photo evidence that mountain lions exist in Maine, contrary to current scientific belief. Maybe, as in a recent case in Bangor, a hunting camera will capture a slinking form that’s unnaturally large and unmistakably feline. (Though in this case, biologists believe this sighting is an out-of-scale house cat.) Or perhaps a hiker with an iPhone will click and send a photo of a cougar litter to followers on Twitter, creating a worldwide sensation.

Then the mountain lion debate — where the Big Cats live in perpetuity, regardless of proof — will begin anew.

 


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