Scarce cats
A proposed bill to adopt the cougar as the state cat of North Carolina combines wishful thinking and misinformation. ...
Introduced by Senators Andrew Brock and Tom Apodaca, the bill names cougar, panther, puma, catamount, bobcat and painter as "varieties of mountain lion" once prevalent in North Carolina.
Cougar, panther, puma, catamount and painter aren't varieties of mountain lion. They're just different names for the same animal. "Painter" was mountain people's pronunciation of "panther." "Catamount" was a contraction for "cat of the mountain." Scientifically, the mountain lion is part of the Puma concolor family.
The bobcat is not a variety of mountain lion at all.
The bill also states that in recent years only a few mountain lion sightings have been reported in North Carolina.
Although the article linked above from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park does note fairly recent reports of mountain lion sightings, it explains that they probably don't indicate a remnant of a native population but more likely were captive animals that were released. This article also gives a good summary of the current thinking about the mountain lion question and offers the judgment that most reported sightings have nothing to do with mountain lions.
When I worked at the Waynesville Mountaineer in the late 1970s, I became enthralled with the idea that native mountain lion populations still existed in the Great Smokies. I wished it were true then, and still do. But if it were shown to be true, it would be almost as big a story as the rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker in the swamps of Arkansas.
Unfortunately, mountain lions probably were hunted to extinction in North Carolina more than 50 years ago.
Designating the cougar as the state cat won't bring it back.
Comments (5)
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Doug: The bill in its current form has more to do with kissing up to the state big-time professional sports franchises (the Carolina Panthers and the Bobcats basketball team). It's really quite silly...not like the Venus Flytrap thing.
Posted on June 2, 2005 10:08 AM
Mark, when do you sleep? Those legislators are keeping you working around the clock.
So, would the state cat of Michigan be the lion or the tiger?
At least we still have some venus flytraps in North Carolina.
Posted on June 2, 2005 10:16 AM
Sleep? What is this sleep of which you speak?
I commend GS-144 (http://www.ncleg.net/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/HTML/ByChapter/Chapter_144.html) and GS-145 (http://www.ncleg.net/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/HTML/ByChapter/Chapter_145.html) to you for examination. With the exception of the most recent additions, they should contain all the state's symbols and what-not. Anyone know exactly what a plot hound is?
Posted on June 2, 2005 2:06 PM
Mark,
The question is "does anyone care what a plot hound is?"
Posted on June 2, 2005 4:15 PM
Well, I suppose the owner of a plot hound might.
There actually are a couple of larger points to make here, if anyone would bother to take it seriously.
One is a question of whether the GA can afford to spend it's time (and money -- now fewer than 300 copies of these bills would have had to be run off GA photo copiers) doing stuff like this when the state does have some real problems to sort through.
The other is whether adding all sorts of oddities to the official rolls of state symbology dilutes the meaning of the state's more historical symblos. Does it really say anything unique about North Carolina that the official red berry is the straw berry and the official blue berry is the blueberry? I would say probably not.
But I've been told I'm a bit of a grinch.
Posted on June 2, 2005 8:33 PM