Wednesday April 1, 2009

Timothy Decatur-Luker is just like any seven year old boy.

When he gets home from school, he likes to play outside with his brother and go exploring. But last September, one afternoon of exploration turned into adventure.

"We were driving on the golf cart and then we saw the mountain lion sitting on the log," he remembers.

Little Timothy isn't the only one in Madison County to have a run-in with the cat. In November, neighbor Sandra Schwobel and her husband awoke to a startling sight.

"We went outside and my dog was laying on our porch with blood all over her," she recalled.

Schwobel's dog needed two rounds of surgery to patch up extensive wounds to her shoulders and back; damage, Schwobel believes, that came from that mountain lion.

Timothy's grandmother, Rita Decatur, says she saw the animal twice last fall, prompting her to call state wildlife officials and report it.

"They told me that I must be mistaken because there are no mountain lions up here, that I must have seen a large domestic cat," Decatur said. "I have never seen a domestic cat get up to a hundred pounds."

The Humphreys family went through a similar experience last spring, when what they believed to be a cougar stalked their backyard and terrorized their dogs.

Then they called John Lutz.

"I started my official investigations in 1965 and then they've just expanded across the eastern United States," said Lutz, who runs the West Virginia-based Eastern Puma Research Network.

One of Lutz's investigations happened last year, when he allowed a CBS19 camera crew to tag along as he interviewed residents and checked for signs of the "Crozet Cougar." After a day-long investigation, Lutz concluded that reports of a cougar in the area were likely legitimate.

He says many will dismiss these types of reports, simply for the fact that cougar sightings are extremely rare in central Virginia.

"There is no state east of the Mississippi River that doesn't have sightings," Lutz said, adding, "and I mean good sightings. They are a very sure, determined, and sly animal. They are the most adaptable cat on the North American continent."

He also says cougars typically do not pose a threat to children or pets.

"A cougar is not a wanton killer. It only kills to eat or to protect its young or to feed its young," Lutz explained. "Wild cougars prefer to chase down their prey and humans [are] not exactly on the menu."

Lutz has yet to fully investigate the sightings in Madison County, but he says from his preliminary findings, he believes there's a strong possibility that the "Crozet Cougar" migrated north once its food supply ran out and took up residence in Madison.

For his part, little Timothy says he's worried.

"If it like comes up in the yard I'd be scared," he said before announcing his plan to strike back. "I have a BB gun. I'm going to get that and find it and then shoot it a million times."

Perhaps that will be the end of the "Crozet Cougar" and the "Madison Mountain Lion."