Emily Paine Carter

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On a recent March morning two gentlemen met at Salem's Mill Mountain Coffee shop to swap stories. Not the usual stories, but Close-Enough Encounters of the Cougar Kind.

Longtime Salemites George Snead, 83, and the Rev. Bob Copenhaver (aka "Father Bob"), 74, came well-armed with relevant magazine and newspaper clippings, photos and their keen memories.

This month both Blue Ridge Outdoors magazine and this newspaper ran informative pieces on Puma concolor (cougars), aka mountain lions. Amid cover stories on running, the magazine featured Graham Averill's definitive "Here Kitty Kitty: Stalking the Eastern Cougar." Roanoke Times reporter John Cramer's March 4 story noted that the last confirmed sighting of a wild cougar in Virginia was in 1882.

But George and Bob join those claiming they have espied one of the supposedly extinct beasts -- and are notifying the authorities in search of such information. "I was born and raised in the mountains," George said; "there was no mistaking what I saw for a dog, a deer or a bobcat."

In 1995 George and his late wife Ann had been in The Homestead resort area, by a private stream he has fished with permission since age 15.

"We were easing over a small rise in the road, when Ann saw what she thought was a wounded turkey. I figured it was only acting wounded to draw attention away from its nest."

George said Ann then gasped, "Huge cat!" and pointed about 25 paces away. "For 11 minutes we watched that turkey luring the big cat away from its threatened poults [young turkeys]. Neither animal paid any attention to us humans.

"Watching this scene made me wonder how many beasts have watched me fishing, over all these years since boyhood," he said.

George observed the cat's rounded, lionlike ears -- distinguishing it from other creatures.

Ann had cut to the safety issue, telling George to get back in the car.

George said, "We almost always carried a camera, but not that time. ... Why, we could have been famous!"

He added that The Homestead management -- fearful of scaring away potential guests -- had requested he not publish his sighting at that time. "It's OK [to talk about it] now; the management has changed," he said. We three mused that these days a sighting might actually entice folks.

Later Father Bob, having heard of the Sneads' experience, found and framed a cougar photo from a craft show for them. Photographer John Eveland's caption states that the photo was taken in the eastern United States.

Bob's big-cat sighting happened in the mid-1960s, he recalled, when he was a priest at a Buena Vista church. "I was headed east on the Blue Ridge Parkway near the Peaks of Otter, when I saw a cat-form cross the road: not a bobcat, not a dog, etc.

"One or two years later I read an article: 'mountain lions' had been seen in the Peaks area."

Why aren't more reported? I wondered. Bob figured "they're too shy to go out in public."

"And there's all that forest food available -- no need to come out hunting," George added. "Not like our Hanging Rock area, where golfers are warned about bears scavenging."

So, keep an eye out -- and a camera ready.

Got cougars? Act quickly, and report any sightings to EasternCougar@fws.gov by today. For more information, see www.fws.gov/northeast/ECougar.