Last week was spent camping in the remote mountains of northern Potter County, Pennsylvania where we were treated to the most spectacular of nature walks and sighted deer, many different reptiles and amphibians, including the sweet tempered red eft, many different birds, including purple martins, and we even heard a turkey (the day before and the day AFTER its season closed *smirk*).  When we weren’t on a nature walk, nature came to us, like in the form of this Mourning Cloak that flew in the driver’s side window and landed on my head as I turned off Route 49.   

Yes, I freaked…and knocked it to the floor mat, then pulled over to see what had caused such commotion and scooped up the stunned butterfly in the coffee cup that my husband left in my truck when fishing that morning.   But, this was not what unnerved our nature walks.  It was the fresh tracks on the old logging trail that rounds behind the cabin.  Just as we started off on our adventure I saw this:

It must be a bear track I thought and I began to be a little nervous since I was alone in the wilderness with 4 children under 8, one of whom was riding in the backpack.  I noticed nearby an identical track, only smaller.  Great.  Momma and cubs.   Then about 15 feet away, I noticed this track. 

Uh, wait this looks more like a bear, and it is wider, about 6" across.  What could the other have been? When we returned I consulted my best field guide, a 1950s that is written by a true naturalist and combines prose and poetry, his personal opinions, and scientific fact in one wonderfully written field guide.  (*whispers* sometimes I actually read this field guide…for fun.)  Well there was only one animal that makes a track this size and shape:  the mountain lion.  The problem here is the Commission denies their existence in PA.  The Commission claims that the last known pair of wild mountain lions was killed in Clinton County in 1871. Then a mountain lion was killed by a hunter in Potter County in 1967 and the Commission claimed that animal was an escaped pet.  You know how many pet mountain lions get out and roam the neighborhood, right?  I could email the commission and show them my track but then what?  They could claim it is a declawed bear with a missing toe, perhaps an escaped pet, walking up the trail with his friend the bobcat.