About four years ago, while living in rural Madison County, Ark., I wrote about coming home late one evening and seeing something running across my land. I don’t know what it was. Still don’t. But I know what it wasn’t.
Coyotes were a dime a dozen there, and I’d probably seen tens of dollars worth of them. It was not a coyote. I have come across a few bobcats, too, and this was much too large for a bobcat. Besides, I’m pretty sure whatever it was had a long tail.
My driveway made a bend around the northern half of my land. There were often deer grazing alongside my drive in the evening, and this one was no exception. There were usually anywhere from four to eight, but I had counted 17 at one time. This time, as I approached the bend, something exploded out from the fence line. The deer did not dart away. This time, they completely freaked out. They just jumped. They looked like popcorn bouncing up and down as the animal sprinted between them.
I tried to get my headlights on the animal while trying to keep the truck under control on my gravel drive. Whatever it was soon disappeared into the darkness. I sat in my truck for a few minutes as I pulled in front of the house. How do I explain this? Heck, I couldn’t even explain it.
To my surprise, after writing a column about the event, several locals began telling me of their sightings of mountain lions. Even a sheriff’s deputy told me about a young mountain lion that had run across the road in plain sight. A hunter told me about one that had walked under his tree stand while deer hunting with his son. Still another told me about how he and his wife had on multiple occasions seen mountain lions down in their fields from the safety of their deck.
I was also presented a picture taken from a game camera on the bank of a pond. The article got the attention of a Fayetteville television station, which got even more witnesses claiming to have seen the mountain lions. Some even claimed they had livestock that had been preyed upon by the big cats.
When I first began questioning Arkansas Game & Fish about the mountain lions, the comment was basically, “No, they do not exist in Arkansas.” Later, it became, “Well, there are a few around, but they’ve been released here.”
There now appears to be numerous sightings in southwest Arkansas, even near Hot Springs. Not surprising, as the Ouachita Mountains and Ozark Mountains would seem to be ideal areas for the reclusive critters to hang out while feasting on an abundance of wildlife.
While you hear about mountain lion attacks on humans from time to time, they are rare. Only 20 people were killed in North America in a 121-year period (1890-2011) by the big cats, and the majority of those were in Canada. Six have been killed in California. The last reported mountain lion killing a human came in 2008 in New Mexico.
I love the mountain lion. It’s beautiful. However, I am more the Marlin Perkins to Jim Fowler. Remember Mutual of Omaha’s “Wild Kingdom,” where Perkins always stayed in the Jeep or behind a tree while Fowler battled hippos and lions and giant pythons?
Suffice to say, I’m not crazy about mountain lions returning to Arkansas. While on my land in Madison County, I pick blackberries with a machete tucked under one arm just in case a snake happens to be camping out around one of the berry bushes. I don’t see me fighting off a large – or small, for that matter – mountain lion with an old and somewhat dull machete.