HUFFINGTON
09.30.12
WILD KINGDOM
Ottmann’s quarry this night
is none of these. He’s after what
some people call puma and others
call cougars or panthers or catamount. He’s after mountain lions.
“I always loved mountain lions,
big cats, when I was a kid,” he tells
me as we sit around a campfire,
waiting for something to happen.
“You know, Marlin Perkins and
Mutual of Omaha’s ‘Wild Kingdom,’” — Ottmann continues, recalling the long-lived wildlife program. “That was the best TV show
on Sundays when I was a kid.”
By morning, the meat is still
dangling, untouched, and our
impromptu field study turns up
empty. That would come as no
surprise to most wildlife experts,
virtually all of whom say that,
with the exception of a small and
highly isolated population of big
cats in Florida, cougars were hunted or otherwise driven from virtually every state east of the Mississippi River nearly a century ago.
But Ottmann, who travels with
colleagues around the Northeast
to educate residents about mountain lions, clearly believes otherwise, and the bizarre appearance
last summer of a healthy, wild
cougar in suburban Connecticut
— killed by a car on the Wilbur
… if you have a camera,
and we’re out walking on a
trail right now, and a mountain
lion comes out in front of us,
you’re not going to take a
picture. You’re going to be
fucking frozen in fear.”
Cross Parkway near Milford —
only strengthened his convictions.
Cougars are, after all, unequivocally moving eastward again —
though perhaps not quite as far
as Ottmann believes. After being
thoroughly driven into pockets
of California and Montana and
other western redoubts, research
in the last 10 years has shown a
steady increase in documented
cases of cougars wandering into
places like Wisconsin, Michigan,
Missouri and even Illinois. South
Dakota and Nebraska now have
comparatively new resident populations of the big cats.
In 2008, a wild cougar turned
up in the streets of Chicago, where
it was ultimately gunned down by
police. But just how extensive —
and sustainable — this eastward
migration might be is a matter of