Big cats making a comeback

If you want to start a lively discussion with a hunter, farmer, rancher or anyone else who spends time in the great outdoors in Southwest Nebraska or Northwest Kansas, it takes only two words: Mountain lion.

State officials are slow to confirm mountain lion attacks, and they're usually right. Young livestock is more likely killed by coyotes, wild dogs, bob cats or other predators than by mountain lions. But don't tell that to a hog farmer who finds a dead pig with long, definite claw marks down the middle of its back.

That's when the lively debate begins.But there is mounting evidence that the big cats, known variously as cougars, pumas, panthers or silver lions, are moving back into the territory they all but abandoned by the end of the 1800s.

Possibly because there are more people there, eastern Nebraska has had an increasing number of mountain lion sightings, 50 of them within the Omaha city limits and Sarpy County, according to an Omaha World Herald report.

Receiving the most publicity was the killing by traffic of a young male on Interstate 80 near Gretna in November. A couple of years earlier, in October 2003, a male was captured in Omaha and ended up in the Henry Doorly Zoo.

Our neck of Nebraska should be popular to mountain lions, which hunt white-tail deer and require up to 200 square miles of territory for a male or 150 for a female.But how do you know you've encountered a mountain lion?

According the World-Herald's article, quoting Lindsey Rogers of the Fontenelle Nature Association, a mountain lion is seven to eight feet long, including the tail, moves like a cat, is solid tan in color and without spots or stripes, leaves tracks 3 to 4 1/4 inches long and 3 3/4 to 4 3/4 wide with two lobes in front and three lobes in back with no claw marks, leaves feces 3 to 6 inches long with pointed ends and possible remnants of fur or bone, and leaves animal carcasses, especially deer, surrounded by drag marks or covered by leaves or brush.

If you see one, do not approach. Leave the animal an avenue of escape. Back away -- don't turn your back. Raise your arms, backpack or anything else you have to make yourself appear larger, lift up children to keep them from running away. If attacked, fight back and try to remain on your feet. Never play dead.

And, we'll add, if you're safely out of danger and have a camera with a good telephoto lens, take a picture. We'd love to publish it.