Cat crossing

[ Originally published on: Thursday, May 10, 2007 ]

Just before 6 a.m. a week ago today, Amanda Gaffigan Steele of Plainfield was taking a circuitous route to work in Hatfield, traveling toward Greenfield on Route 2 near the overgrown Mohawk Mountain ski trails when she noticed something unusual crossing the road near Jed's Cider Mill. Of a grayish-brown hue, the large animal carried a long tail that curled gently toward the awaking sky. No doubt about it: big cat.

''You're not gonna put my name in the paper, are you?'' she asked, when called Monday night at home.

''That's the plan,'' I responded.

''Well, OK, but I hope people don't think I'm crazy.''

It's a fear cougar sightings stir in most witnesses' souls, that of being written off as some sort of lunatic. But still the reports keep coming, and coming, and coming.

You be the judge of the reporters' sanity.

Known to friends as Mandy, the pregnant, 34-year old Shelburne Falls native had just passed ''the moccasin place'' on the Mohawk Trail when the animal appeared in the road, crossing slowly from out of the brook hole near Jed's toward the old Schechterle place. In no great hurry, it reached the guardrail, walked gracefully over it and disappeared into the pastel-green, spring forest to Steele's right.

''I never got a look at its face because it was looking the other way, but I know what I saw and it wasn't a bobcat or a coy dog or a deer or a bear,'' Steele said. ''What I noticed most was the long tail, curved upward. It was a mountain lion. I couldn't believe my eyes.''

Overcome by excitement, Steele called her mother, Bunny Tirrell, waking her from a sound sleep at her Shelburne Falls home.

''She told me she was amazed by its powerful shoulders,'' Tirrell reported. ''Big, powerful shoulders. That's what I recall her telling me.''

Her mom wasn't the only person she phoned that morning. She also called her grandfather, Bill Gaffigan, who lives right there overlooking Cricket Field in Shelburne Falls, Buckland side. An experienced hunter of coons, bobcats and deer, you name it, Old Bill's probably hunted it.

''I was reluctant to call him because he's apt to give me a hard time,'' Steele admitted. ''But not this time. He believed me. Said people have been seeing mountain lions around here lately.''

She learned later that not only have there been many recent mountain lion sightings, there have been others right around where she saw hers. And that's a fact. Many reports have come from within a mile or two of hers; even a track in the mud in an old apple orchard a stone's throw from Jed's, one a veteran local outdoorsman identified as a cougar's, only to be overruled by state wildlife officials who identified it from photos as a dog track. Big dog.

The local outdoorsman still doesn't buy it.

''I say it was a cougar track,'' he says whenever asked.

Where the beast Steele encountered last week will show up next is anyone's guess. Could be Shelburne or Conway or Becket or Saratoga for that matter. Big cats cover a lot of territory. But if it happens to cross your path, don't bother alerting the authorities. They have a pat answer written in bold letters across their desktop calendar pads; it reads: ''Eastern cougars have been extinct for nearly a century.''

Call it ''the official stance.''

Go figure.

q

The anadromous fish run is under way in the Connecticut Valley. Started a week ago today, when the first American shad was lifted over the Holyoke dam. The count was up to 219 through Tuesday.

The first Atlantic salmon appeared in Holyoke Tuesday, when two were captured and brought to the Cronin National Salmon Station in Sunderland for safe keeping.

There's still a long way to go, with water temperatures low at 51.8 degrees Fahrenheit in Holyoke. The shad and salmon runs peak between 60 and 70 degrees.

Thus far, 176 shad have passed Holyoke and 43 have passed the DSI Dam on the Westfield River.

I was told by a weekend guest that anglers were fishing shad in Enfield, Conn., when he was staying there.

q

To reader Ruth E. Bassingthwaite, who wrote recently about a ''fisher cat'' sighting in her Petersham yard:

Don't be alarmed. Fishers are not known to attack humans unless, in rare cases, cornered. But watch your cats if you have any. Fishers love cats.

Recorder Sports Editor Gary Sanderson is an active member of the New England Outdoor Writers Association and the Outdoor Writers Association of America. His e-mail address is gary@oldtavernfarm.com.

 

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