American River Wildlife News

Fri 02 Feb 2007 10:23:46 AM PST - Wildlife

The American River Parkway stretches 23 miles along a narrow, 4,000-acre strip of land through an urban expanse of 1 million people.

An estimated 5 million visitors use the parkway to ride their bikes, run, stroll, fish, raft and picnic. Regulars are sure to encounter the abundant wildlife -- deer, coyotes, spawning salmon, the occasional owl and gaggles of wild turkeys.

Is it possible for a mountain lion to live in such a place?

Could it roam and hide in an area so blanketed by people, with so much open land separating the few thickly wooded areas?

It is a mystery teetering on mythology. In fact, the wily, wary and ferocious cat that seems to come and go in the parkway has much in common with the legendary Bigfoot.

Local sightings -- four and counting -- have been by people who were alone. And without cameras. They come only days after the mountain lion attack in which a 70-year-old Humboldt County man fought off, with his wife's help, a ferocious cat.

Sightings "skyrocket" after such attacks, according to Karen Cotton, director of outreach with the Sacramento-based Mountain Lion Foundation. "It hits the international news and they start seeing them in Boston and New Jersey and places mountain lions haven't been in a very long time," she said.

Nonetheless, Cotton and others believe there is a cougar in our confines.

More at The Sacramento Bee.

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