I had to zig-zag across Northern California after driving up to Humboldt visit with my Mom for the long weekend, driving home to Silicon Valley, realized I left my two laptops on her couch while unpacking the car, drive all the way to Mom’s again, and back, the next day.
Temperature was in the mid-high 90s, I was clipping along quite quickly on a windy one-lane back road, about 10 miles away from my Mom’s place. At this point, the road was ambling across the top of a ridge and then down. When the cat broke cover on the passenger side about 50 feet ahead of me and started to run. It was running away from the car and to the left at an angle so I got a nice long look at it at a full run. It was a beautiful rich golden brown in color along the torso, and cleared the road in the span of one running leap.
It is only the second one I’ve seen on the road out in the sticks where I grew up, and was probably driven from its home territory by a nearby wildfire. S/he was heading back towards where the fire had been beaten to submission (though still only partially contained) so I hope s/he can either move back into the old territory or find a new one soon.
After a full day of skiing Taos, we were winding around Eagle’s Nest well after dark when for all of three seconds a large mountain lion ran right to left across the narrow road and up a steep, snow covered embankment. Although I can still see it vividly in my mind, it’s not enough. I want to see more, to observe one unspooked, wandering, meandering for hours.
I think I saw one one day in the Rockies - we were driving along the TransCanada highway, and I looked over to my left (across the lanes going the other direction) - I saw what appeared to be a large, tawny animal lounging in the sun in the grass next to the highway. I know how unusual it would be for a cougar to be lounging beside a busy highway, but it really didn’t look like anything else (and besides, they’re cats, and all cats are weird. ).
Wait until you get to see one, up close, from outside your car. Nothing between you and it but crisp mountain air. You’ll be able to really appreciate the power, grace and majesty- while urine fills your shoes.
I’ve only seen one like that, but it was here IN TOWN, so that was pretty much a freakshow.
I’ve been up to my elbows in a few dead specimens (an opportunity made possible by my Advanced Mammalogy class and a broken BLM freezer that had been full of previously frozen cats that were killed with depredation permits) but I much prefer to catch a glimpse of one in the wild every 15 years or so.
Was the one walking through town sick or injured or hungry and curious?
Mountain lions are very occassionally spotted on our campus at night, having come down from the mountains in search of freshmen. We make it a point to mention this every year, just as a deterrant against late-night senior pranks. It doesn’t seem to work too well. Guess we’ll just have to wait until someone gets mauled. That’ll learn them!
It vanished like a puff of smoke. It was in the middle of the day about 60 yards from Main St. It was the first day of spring break and eleventy million college kids had shown up. I think it had just gotten surprised and was looking to go to ground.
They are beautiful animals. I got to play with a young one once when I was in elementary school. I man got it from somewhere to keep as a pet and brought it as a demonstration.
The weirdest thing about them is their range. They used to be common almost everywhere in the U.S. but they mostly got killed off or forced out in the Midwest and East Coast. There is currently still a subspecies in Florida but sightings pop up all over the place even thousands of miles from their supposed habitat. There was a confirmed sighting of one a few years ago in Vermont. There have been unconfirmed sightings all over the East coast including one in the Boston suburbs. There were frequent sighting of one on my family’s land in rural Louisiana by experienced hunters when I was growing up.
They are very elusive but it is strange (and exciting) that they can just appear over such a wide area. They are doing well in the West and their habitat is supposedly expanding. It would be cool if a good sized population just started appearing on the East Coast.
4:30 AM today, and I’m driving to the Y for a good workout on my way to the office. I almost ran over a bobcat that jumped out of the roadside ditch at me. Big, but smaller than my Boxer, tan colored, pointed ears, no tail, and aggressive towards my car. Matches all the descriptions I know of.
Cool that I saw one, but the pucker factor got a little high. S/He’d have done some damage if I hit it.
I saw one on the median along Highway 71 just east of Bastrop, TX, one night in August 2001. It surprised me completely, and I was just glad I didn’t have a flat tire at that moment.
I saw one while hiking in the Grand Tetons about five years ago. It was running uphill and away from me. I see signs of them occasionally in the San Gabriels and Sierras, but I have yet to see a live cat. Bears on the other hand…
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