We have a beautiful picture of a mountain lion that was treed in the area on our front page this week (Jan. 22 issue of the Tomahawk Leader). Wondering how many of you have seen a cougar in the days that were not being acknowledged? Give us a year/season/location and a bit of a description.

I do not live there anymore, but I have to admire the fact he or she looks healthy and I pray to God someone doesn't shoot him because he ate someone's goat or chicken. This is truly a wonderful cat who really needs to be admired, appreciated and protected. Finally the Leader has a "living" animal on the front page other than someone's kill. Thank you!

Back in the late 80's, (I don't remember the exact year) my wife saw one cross our back yard about 200 ft. from the house. We live west of town on the south side of the Spirit. I wasn't home at the time and was skeptical until about two days later when I got home from fishing and while I was putting the boat away I heard it scream out in the woods behind our house. Felt like I was in a jungle movie. This was in late May. The next day I was in town and stopped at the dnr and talked to a couple of the people there. They just brushed it off and said we were seeing thing as there were none in Wis. Typical for the dnr when they don't want to admit they might be wrong. Over the next few days I heard it again and saw tracks in the sand on the Spirit. The water was down and it was walking the shore line. We talked to our neighbors and one of them had also seen it.

A year or two later, we and a couple of our neighbors heard it and all were standing out in the yard listening to it. That is when we discovered that there were two of them calling back and forth to each other. We were not sure of what we were hearing until one of the neighbors brought a program up on the computer that had animal sounds on it and it was a perfect match. The sound was a mating call. So much for it being a lonesome male looking for a mate. He already had found her.

Another of our neighbors children also saw the cat and came running in the house and told their dad who went out and saw it before it went into the woods.

They have been around a lot longer than the dnr will admit.

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God and the Soldier we all adore,
In times of trouble and then no more
when war is over and all things righted
God is forgotten, the old soldier Slighted.

A reputable person I know from Tomahawk told me a friend of his caught photos of a mother and her offspring on trail camera in the New Wood a couple years ago, which isn't far from where Old Scout is talking about. I haven't seen any myself, but it seems just about everyone who has lived in the Northwoods for a while has seen a big cat at least once.

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Gone Fishin'

It wasn't to long ago that the "experts" from the DNR laughed off large cat sightings in our area. For several years people spotted one in the area East and North of Ingman's Service but that was put in the same file as UFO sightings. The trail-cams have made a difference in the "experts" opinions.

just look at how long it took them to acknowledge that there were wolves in the area.

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First the second.
Second the first.

But they are the experts...