What did the eastern cougar say to the sasquatch?
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service declared the eastern cougar extinct back in March of 2011. Not six months later, a mountain lion was killed in my home state of Connecticut. Officials desperately tried to pass it off as a fluke, claiming that the animal must have escaped from captivity. That theory went to hell, however, when less than a week later, another mountain lion was spotted in Fairfield.
My dad and I had a good laugh over the eastern cougar’s magnificent “FU” to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, but it does serve as a reminder of the obstacles which bigfoot researchers are yet to face. If the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is so desperate to declare a known and frequently sighted animal extinct, what sort of treatment can sasquatch expect? I imagine it will go something like this:
- A carcass is found and positively identified, rocking our understanding of the world.
- Legislators and scientists work together to have the sasquatch placed on the endangered species list and its habitat protected. They braid each others hair and dance around the May Pole, resolve the budget crisis, and bring peace to the Middle East.
- The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service steps up and declares that because no other sightings could be verified and no other bodies produced, the animal must be extinct.
- Everyone goes back to hating each other.
(My original rant about the so-called extinction of the ghost cat, posted at the time of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s announcement, can be found after the cut.)
