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By JOEL ELLIOTT
Staff Writer Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Mountain lions, also referred to as "cougars," "catamounts," "pumas" and "panthers," disappeared from Maine in the 1800s, victims of indiscriminate hunting and trapping, habitat changes and declining deer, moose and caribou populations, according to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. The cats are listed on the federal endangered species list.

The last documented mountain lion seen in the wild in the state was killed in 1938, but reports of sightings still come in on occasion, according to department spokesman Mark Latti.

"It's hard to put a number on (the annual sighting reports), but many times," he said. "But in my eight years, it's always come back as something different than a mountain lion."

Adult male mountain lions weigh an average of 175-200 pounds and are about 8 feet long from nose to tail. Adult females weigh 75-175 pounds and average about 61/2 feet in length. More information about mountain lions can be found at www.maine.gov/ifw.

On Tuesday, Oakland resident Kelvin Higgins provided a sample of fur and possibly some skin to state biologists. He said the big cat shed the fur while grooming itself on a snowy rock in his wooded backyard in April.

"I'm not 100 percent sure it was a mountain lion, but it was a big cat, believe me," Higgins said, pacing across the mown grass and peering off into the nearby undergrowth.

Higgins' lawn extends a little more than 30 yards from his back porch, from which he said he spotted the cat at the edge of the woods. "He was just down there," he said. When the cat saw him on the porch it "just stood up and stretched really casually" before loping off into the woods.

The encounter lasted about 30 seconds, he said.

Higgins said the cat's body and tail each were about 4 feet long, and he estimated its weight at around 100 pounds.

Higgins later collected a pinch of fur from the rock, but didn't turn it in to biologists until reading a Morning Sentinel account last week about a possible sighting in Sidney.

In that incident, an anonymous resident had provided a grainy photograph of what appeared to be a large cat to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Latti said the photo was inconclusive, since it did not show the entire cat, and no tracks or scat samples were found on the scene.

The Oakland sighting is different, according to state biologist Keel Kemper, who said the sample appears to include both hair and flesh, and is large enough for DNA testing.

"This does not look like deer hair, to be honest with you," Kemper said. "This is some sort of fur."

Biologists at Southern Illinois University, the laboratory chosen by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, should be able to determine what species of animal left the sample, Latti said. "We'll be able to test it, no problem," he said. "It's a very good indicator, a DNA test."

Joel Elliott -- 861-9252

jelliott@centralmaine.com

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