Wednesday, February 10, 2010

The Cat's Meow

The world's tiniest Cougar on the prowl in Rothbury, Michgian. (Photo by Chris Larson)


Ahh, western Michigan, land of tulips and right-wing politics, where Garfield lookalikes are magically transformed into vicious cougars.

Brian McVicar of the The Muskegon Chronicle reports:
Chris Larson was all but certain the animal with a large, lean body and sloping tail she recently saw prowling near her friend’s Rothbury home was a cougar.

Wildlife experts from The Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment have another name for the animal Larson spotted on Friday — a large house cat.

“I feel in my heart that this is definitely not a house cat,” Larson said, adding she knows what cougars look like and doesn’t have poor eyesight. “I know what I saw.”

Although this is the equivalent of someone in Flint mistaking a carp for a shark, I say keep fighting for what you believe in Chris Larson. Don't let the DNR steal your dreams.



5 comments:

  1. That sure looks like a house cat to me. I did see a cougar in Roscommon county Mi. back in the 70's. We were on a back road near Backus creek south-east of Prudenville. We came over a rise in the road and this cat (nose to tail) covered the whole road. My family had hunted this area for many years and seen the occasional black bear or Linx and bobcat but nothing like this. We went to the DNR in Houghton Heights to report it.I thought they would think we were crackpots or something but they were not surprised. they said they had been in Michigan for years because of our huge deer population.

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  2. Several years ago, a friend of mine had cat-like footprints in shallow fresh snow on her Flint Township garage roof, corresponding to a walking gait and roughly a 24 to 30 inch fore-to-hind paw spacing.

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  3. This Flint expat, now a minority person over here on the West side (not Dutch) ... enjoyed your poke at us. Did you know that Flint's gift to the world saved a Muskegon artsy-fartsy-theater with a five grand check? It'll cost big bucks to hobnob with Michael Moore when he visits that theater later this month. He's getting some criticism for trying to get a million dollar tax break from Michigan.

    Clif Martin

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  4. Clifton, this was the gentlest of jibes. I knew you could take it. As you know, when you're from Flint you have to take a few shots at the better off parts of the state once in a while.

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  5. My wife swears she saw a cougar behind our property in mundy township michigan about a month ago, could be the real thing!!

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Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.