Massena man claims to have proof of mountain lions in area

MASSENA — The state Department of Environmental Conservation insists there is not a mountain lion population in New York.

Massena's Donald J. Lucas believes otherwise, and said he has hair and plaster paw prints to prove there are not one, but two in the Massena area.

On Thursday, Mr. Lucas said, he heard of a sighting of a mountain lion off Route 37 and within an hour he was in the woods. He carried a camera, a bottle of water and two quarts of plaster to make plaster casts of any tracks he could find.

"We had a foot of wet, packy snow and the tracks were not hard to find. I started to backtrack from where I found the tracks to determine where the cat had come from," Mr. Lucas said. "What surprised me was when I came to a spot where two cats had been walking together, but had gone in two different directions. I had been following a large set. The new ones were large but a little smaller, so I decided to follow them."

He said he followed the tracks for a quarter mile and they joined up with the other set of larger tracks. After following them for about an hour, he said, he came to a spot where he thought they had bedded down, adding that he also found where the animals had urinated several times.

He came upon a barbed-wire fence where the tracks went under and he found some hair.

"The hair was not coarse, but very fine and almost golden to light brown in color," he said. He continued to track the animals until he heard something running through the brush. He found more tracks, including those of where an animal had jumped a distance of 8 to 9 feet. He then gave up pursuit of the animals.

He took the plaster and made casts of several of the larger footprints, took photos of the tracks and collected the hair and the urine. He said he was told by DEC that it can't afford to have the specimens tested to prove they were from mountain lions.

"I don't know where to take the hair and urine to have it analyzed. If anyone knows where to take it, please let me know," Mr. Lucas said.

New York hasn't had a population of mountain lions, also called cougars, since the 1800s, according to DEC Region 6 spokesman Stephen W. Litwhiler.

He said there have been instances of mountain lions owned legally by residents with permits that have gotten loose or have been released illegally into the wild.

However, many cases of mountain lion sightings are actually of other animals, he said.

"Ninety-nine percent of reports we get are cases of mistaken identity," Mr. Litwhiler said.

On Friday, he said he had spoken to Mr. Lucas and was waiting to receive some photos of the tracks.

"We'll look at any information we get sent in," he said.