Animal control officer reports mountain lion sighting in East Haddam

East Haddam – Town Animal Control Officer Michael Olzacki says he knows what he saw Tuesday morning: a mountain lion crossing the road near the intersection of Route 148 and Creek Row Road.

“It was the most beautiful animal I’ve seen in a long time,” Olzacki said today. “I’ve been hunting all my life. Bobcats I’ve seen plenty of times. This wasn’t a bobcat.”

He called the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to report the sighting, which sent one of its environmental conservation officers to the area to look for evidence of the animal. According to DEEP, there is no resident population of mountain lions in the state. Connecticut’s last native mountain lion died around 1900, Dwayne Gardner, DEEP spokesman, said. Last spring, however, mountain lion sightings were reported in Greenwich, and in June, a mountain lion was struck and killed by an SUV on the Wilbur Cross Parkway in Milford. DEEP concluded after testing that the animal had traveled into the state from South Dakota.

Gardner said paw prints found in the area where Olzacki reported seeing the mountain lion were incomplete. Olzacki also was not able to provide a photograph. Scat, complete paw prints or a photograph would be needed to positively identify the animal Olzacki saw, Gardner said.

Olzacki said the area where he spotted the animal is near open land around power lines and forests. Throughout town, there are hundreds of acres of undeveloped land preserved by the East Haddam Land Trust, the Nature Conservancy and the state, in Devil’s Hopyard and Gillette Castle state parks. That and an ample deer population would make the town a welcoming habitat for mountain lions, Olzacki said. He said he knew the animal he saw was a mountain lion from its light brown color, long, black-tipped tail, large shoulders and distinctive walk. Mountain lions can weight 100 to 140 pounds, and be six to eight feet in length.

In March, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife serve declared the Eastern mountain lion, also called a cougar or puma, to be extinct. There is a population of mountain lions in western parts of the country.

First Selectman Mark Walter said he wasn’t surprised to hear the report, despite the official state position that there are no resident mountain lions in Connecticut. “They’re out there,” he said, noting that he has heard several unconfirmed reports of sightings over the years. “Just like any predator, people should treat them with respect.”

He advised residents not to go into the woods alone or, if they do, to carry pepper spray. If they do spot a mountain lion, “leave it alone.”

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “People just need to educate themselves.”

The biggest threat from a mountain lion, he said, would be to farm animals such as chickens, lambs, calves and goats. He advised livestock owners to keep their animals locked up at night.

Gardner said anyone who believes they have seen a mountain lion should call their town animal control officer and DEEP’s 24-hour hotline at (860) 424-3333.

The Lee Brothers were famous through out the west in the 40’s and 50’s for their cat hunting dogs and their technique of roping the cats. Their ranch was on the outskirts of SW Tucson, AZ. They went after problem
cougars from Montana south.

Their hounds were famous for never straying from the scent of a cat; they could cross bear, bobcat, deer, you name it and they never deviated from the cat trail. Once the hounds
had treed the cat, the Lee’s took the cat with lassos and pulled the cat down from the tree.

I got my first puppy from the Lee’s best bitch and I’ve been
told by some real old timers up here in Oregon that that dog
would be worth $20k right now. Blue and Red tick blood hound that could run for days. One time he took off after a bear and we got a call three days later from a rancher
30 miles up river asking if we were the folks who had a great, big blood hound. Yep, that was him.

The Lee’s treed a female catamount and then back tracked to her den where they got all the kittens. All of them were destined to a zoo back east.

So, being an intrepid youngster, I wanted to play with the
little kittens. While my father and the Lee’s watched, I
stretched out my hand to pet this one little bundle of fur and was introduced to the speed of light. I never saw the
young cat move, but all of a sudden I had blood running down the top of my hand to my finger tips, five razor cuts
evenly spaced.

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