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by Scottie Westfall

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« Oh no! There’s an alien in my bed!
Some thoughts on history, politics, and science »

A possible cougar attack in Calhoun County, West Virginia, in 1911

November 29, 2012 by SWestfall3

From The Hur Herald:

Nat Depue of Creston, who carries the mail between that place and Grantsville had a thrilling experience with a huge wild cat or some other animal of a like nature one day last week.

He had been delayed until late in the afternoon, waiting for the mail sacks which were on the Harry W. (a riverboat. It was dark when he crossed the Annamoriah flats, and he noticed something following him which he took to be a dog, but paid little attention to it until it darted past the horse and ran up a tree that leaned over the road.

From there the cat sprang, landing on the horse’s neck clawing and biting fiercely.

It hung on for a considerable distance until Nattie was enabled to kick it off. The horse became frightened and ran away, but was soon checked up and the game little mail carrier got a light and went back to look for his hat and the mail sacks which he had lost.

Nattie is still carrying the mail but it is a safe bet that he will always try to get across Annamoriah flats before dark.

Transcribed by Norma Knotts Shaffer from microfilm of the Calhoun Chronicle dated 1/24/1911.

It’s not really clear when the native cougar subspecies went extinct in West Virginia, but the state DNR mentions that cougar tracks were spotted in Pocahontas County– in the far reaches of the High Alleghenies– in 1936.

Now, this story may or may not be true, but if it is true, the culprit cannot be a bobcat.

I would be shocked if a bobcat would have the courage to attack a mounted rider in this fashion. Bobcats can kill deer. They don’t kill horses.

Cougars can kill horses, and it would make sense for a cougar to attack one, even if it happened to have a person riding it.

This animal would have been among the last of its kind in this part of the United States.

The true Eastern cougar has officially been declared extinct, but cougars from Western subspecies are definitely working their way into the East.

If any of the cougar sightings are true, then these animals have to be of one of the Western subspecies. The cougar is beginning to expand its range once again. In North America, its numbers are pretty secure, and in many areas, it’s on the rebound.

Maybe we will confirm the presence of the cougar in West Virginia once again.

Many people claim to have seen them.

But what they are seeing–if it’s a cougar at all– can’t be the old Eastern catamount.

It’s the Western variant working its way in the East.

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Posted in Carnivorans, wildlife | Tagged cougar, West Virginia | 7 Comments

7 Responses

  1. on November 29, 2012 at 8:10 pm kittenz

    I have to disagree on this. I don’t think that cougars were completely extirpated from the East; I believe that a small remnant population has always existed along the spine of the Appalachians. Now that the deer are back in record numbers, and with the return of elk and other large game, we’ll see an expansion of cougar numbers. That’s not to say that cougars are not migrating eastward and northward too; it’s clear that they are. There’s not been much hard evidence for the ongoing existence of eastern cougars, but then, an animal so rare, living in such secluded, inaccessible areas would not necessarily leave much evidence where people would be apt to find it.


    • on November 29, 2012 at 10:13 pm massugu

      I have to agree w/ that assessment K. I heard tales of Cougars bearing kits in the Appalachians (MD/VA/WV) back about 1970.


      • on November 29, 2012 at 11:06 pm kittenz

        There’s a very well-documented incident (photograph, eyewitness, actual body retrieved, DNA analyzed) in which a cougar kitten was killed on a highway in Floyd County, KY, I believe in 1995. The DNA evidence showed that one parent had some South American DNA, which in the USA is usually only found in captive-bred cougars. Whether that parent had been captive-bred, or whether it was a wild cougar with a remote captive-bred ancestor, is unknown. But the other parent was purely North American, and kitten itself showed no signs of ever having been captive, from its physical condition and stomach contents. The man whose truck hit the kitten said that the little one darted out in front of him – it was at night – as another little one and a big one faded into the brush. It was in a very rural part of Floyd County. Floyd County, like most of extreme eastern Kentucky, has some very rugged terrain, cut by deep rocky canyons and crowded in some areas with brush so dense that it’s nearly impenetrable.

        We border an area that has the deepest canyons east of the Mississippi (The Breaks Interstate Park on the Russell Fork of the Big Sandy River). Parts of this area were extremely isolated until quite recently; even the area where I live was without electrical service until the mid-1950s, and many areas in the mountains are still accessible only by dirt roads . There have been reports of sightings throughout the time since the last know cougars were killed in the mountains. Most of those are misidentifications, wishful thinking, or outright tall tales, of course, but some are from reliable people, game wardens, etc. The physical evidence is slim: some tracks, some scrapes, some deer and livestock kills.

        It used to be legal to keep cougars and other big cats in Kentucky and some of the people who kept them probably did turn them loose in the mountains, for whatever reason. With a native population reduced to a remnant, truly wild native cougars would not be too picky to mate with released former captive cats (which was apparently the situation with the Floyd County kitten). Cougars are so reclusive that most people who live even in areas where they are known to be common never see one, even people who spend serious time in the woods. I have no doubt that cougars are here, in small but growing numbers. It’s just a matter of time until irrefutable evidence will turn up.


    • on November 30, 2012 at 3:55 am retrieverman

      I don’t think the species is gone in the East. I just think that particular subspecies is gone. Remember there was a cougar that wandered from South Dakota to Connecticut last year, so there could be others.

      For decades, the state of WV didn’t think you could find them here, but now, it’s listed as a possibility.

      As wild as this part of the world is, it’s not like the West. Almost all of West Virginia is pretty densely populated, even if it is mostly rural.


  2. on November 29, 2012 at 8:36 pm Jen Robinson

    Good thing about cougars, at least judging from what you hear in the Santa Cruz Mountains, is that they don’t often bother dogs. Sheep, goats, calves…and of course, deer, are another matter.


  3. on November 30, 2012 at 3:51 pm Jessica

    Wow, the mail guy had some ball . . . after all, he promptly went back for his hat.


  4. on November 30, 2012 at 6:38 pm kittenz

    Kentucky is pretty well populated, , but in the mountainous areas, the great majority of people live along the creeks and other low-lying areas. There’s still a lot of very rugged terrain that is seldom if ever disturbed by human activity. I don’t believe that the eastern subspecies ever went completely extinct; a remnant population has held on in the most remote areas & I think that will eventually be shown by DNA analysis, as their numbers gradually increase. Of course, there will also be natural outcrossing to pumas of other subspecies as they continue to disperse into the East as well.



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