Cougars Photographed in El Dorado

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Pictures Rekindle Cougar Memory

Bobby Ozment
Outdoors Writer

   Some say it is myth. Some say that there never was and never will be. Well, I got news for them: The cougar is very real and does inhabit Arkansas land. I got the proof to convince all you nonbelievers.

   Now, I've actually seen one face to face. About five years ago, I was living in Reader, Ark. My friend and I were fishing on the Little Moro river and I saw something moving in the woods to my left.

   I wasn't really scared then. Heck, I thought it was a deer. Plus, the bank of the river on that side is a 25 foot drop-off all the way down the riverside for a long ways. The drop-off ends at a creek bed. It was dried out at the time we were there.

   We were standing in middle of the river fishing for bass and whatever else would bite our hooks. My buddy was laughing and I was smiling; we were having a good time.

   That's when I saw the Cougar. He came up out of the woods, stopped at the river side and looked right at me; I froze. The hair on my neck stood straight up. All I could do was hit my buddy on the arm and point. But he wouldn't look because he was fishing.

   Finally, I grabbed him and told him to look up on the river bank. We both looked up and it was gone. He laughed and went back to fishing. I sat there puzzled. I knew in my heart that cat was real. I sat there for a moment, then something started moving again.

   Right at that instant the cougar come back up on the riverside, but this time he came up where the bank slopes into the creek bed. He stopped and looked at us sitting out in the river.

   I slapped my buddy this time so I would have his whole attention. He looked up and turned white as a ghost. He began to mumble. He asked me what we should do. I told him to wait a minute and the cougar would surely go down into the creek bed. It was the only way down unless the cougar was going to jump from 20 feet up into the river.

   That's when the Cougar screamed at us and began to go down into the creek bed. My heart was thumping, but I had my wits to me. I told my buddy to run.

   We took off like sprint racers. When we got to the truck, we threw our poles and tackle into the back and got in the truck shut the doors. That's when I smacked my buddy in the arm and told him that next time I tell him there's a cougar, he would listen.

Photo courtesy of Bobby Ozment

... and Surprise! --- These pictures were taken Jan. 16 about 10 miles from El Dorado with a motion detector camera. A fellow hunter used the cameras to keep up with the deer in the area. As you can clearly see, there really are cougars in Arkansas. Judging by the picture, this one is going after a midnight snack. The hunter said when he came to the stand he found a dead deer. So he decided to inspect the film and this is what he found.

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