Are there mountain lions in Advance?
Hi, folks!!
My very first blog deals with a wildlife issue which has been puzzling the Advance area for years --- Do we, or do we not, have mountain lions (alias "cougars," alias "pumas," alias "BIG CATS WITH SHARP, POINTY TEETH) in the hills of Crowley's Ridge, Missouri???
Sightings of these elusive creatures have been reported in the Tillman area of Crowley's Ridge (where I live) for more than 50 years. A year or so ago, Jim Rodgers, a neighbor of mine, was on KFVS TV relating the story of a mountain lion spotted on County Rd 322 near here. A Missouri Conservation rep came out to interview Jim and seemed to conclude that Jim's fiancee had probably seen a Golden Retriever - not a lion. Why are the Conservation people so reluctant to admit that the big lions are in the area? Are they afraid of widespread panic in the general population??
Well, it would appear that there is photographic proof now - in the form of a night shot, taken by another neighbor out here in the Tillman area. Even more shocking is a video filmed on a police camcorder by Sgt. David Garner of the Advance Police Department. The video shows a big cat prowling in the Semo Readimix lot just across Highway 25 from Town & Country Supermarket. That is in the Advance city limits, folks!!
I have the video on DVD, but, being technologically challenged, I have not found a way to convert it to a photograph. I also understand that I can't post the video on this site. Mmmmmmmmmm!!!
Maybe I should be carrying a shotgun when I take my dog pack walking on the lane? My neighbor's renter has planted corn next to the lane - and I never know what's gonna jump out at me! I keep expecting to see a big cat one of these dark evenings.. If you don't hear from me again, you'll know what happened.
From the Tillman OutBack, this is NSC reporter, Madeline DeJournett, signing off for Saturday, July 7, 2007
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I've enlisted some help on this project, since I'm so technologically challenged - and we've discovered that the original image is onlly 72 DPI (whatever that means) - so, since it was filmed at night and several hundred feet/yards? away from the subject, the image is really small. My assistant tried enlarging it 500% and it's far too blurry for me to use. I can see the vague outline of what appears to be a cat, but it's not clear enough for publishing either in the NSC or on this blog.
We'll keep trying!
And yet, when I see the video, the creature MOVES like a cat!