HUFFINGTON
09.30.12
WILD KINGDOM
referring to Nielsen’s research
group. “I mean, they’re probably
nice guys and everything. But listen, if I can’t bring you a truckload of dead mountain lions, that
doesn’t mean they’re not here,
and they just will not accept that.”
“It’s all about money and politics,” Ottmann offers. “And ego.”
In the dining room, the table is
strewn with maps and books and
documents and data accumulated
from years of research into the
topic. Betty takes me through some
of the slides that are part of his
show. One includes an image of a
man with his head stuffed firmly
up his ass. It is titled “Naysayers,
Skeptics and Doubting Thomas’s.”
Betty insists it is aimed at no
one in particular, but he has little
patience for the protestations of
experts like Rego, who Betty says
are merely beleaguered bureaucrats with neither the time nor the
budget to acknowledge that cougars are resident in the East — either through steady re-population
from Western or Canadian populations, or by dint of small, holdout
populations that never left.
In turns, Betty seems to favor
the latter explanation, though in
the end, he says, it doesn’t matter. The number of sightings —
credible sightings, he says — is
just too big to ignore, and he’s
taken it upon himself to inform
the public. Asked why there
aren’t more verifiable photos of
Connecticut or Rhode Island cats,
Betty again grows animated.
“It’s hard to get a photo of an
animal that’s not going to follow
the same route all the time,” he
explains. “And 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.
“And you don’t go back home and
say ‘Boy, you’re not going to believe
A motionsensitive
video camera
is placed on
a tree near
the location
of a reported
cougar
sighting
in Canton,
Connecticut.