Alabama "big cat" attack (3 articles) (via Chad Arment)

Harmes: Cougar attacked

Health officials call for rabies shots

DAVID MOORE - The Arab Tribune

Frank Harmes thought it was bad enough getting clawed by what he says was a cougar last Wednesday. But that was just the start.

Since then, a combination of adrenalin ups and downs, excitement, media attention, an emergency room visit, doctor calls, personal business in Gadsden Saturday, a visit with game wardens Monday - who took the knife Harmes said he used to stab the attacking cougar for possible DNA testing - and facing his first in a series of rabies shots Tuesday has left the 29-year-old Union Grove man near exhaustion.

His mother, Viola Harmes, said he was experiencing delayed shock and was confined to rest under doctor's orders.

Maybe the biggest shock of them all, she said, is that so many people locally don't realize or accept that big cats - whether they're called cougars, mountain lions or panthers - roam the mountains and woods of Marshall and Morgan counties.

"We came from the foothills of southern Indiana and eastern Kentucky, and it was always common knowledge that the cats were in the Appalachians," she said.

This fall, she said, they've heard the big cats growling or screaming on the average of five nights a week.

Maybe, she said Monday, if the Alabama Department of Conservation finds conclusive evidence from the knife, more people will recognize there's a danger they need to be aware of in the area.

Harmes said her son's doctor at the emergency room at Marshall Medical Center North first advised against rabies shots without a recommendation from the health department, fearing a reaction might pose a bigger threat than the possibility of contracting rabies through a claw scratch as opposed to a bite.

However, Harmes said, an official at the Alabama Department of Public Health in Montgomery called Monday morning and said as a matter of public safety he would send the hospital a letter recommending the rabies shots.

While they are not as painful as they once were when given in the stomach, on Tuesday Frank was to start a series of five sets of two shots, one in the arm and one in the rump.

The Harmes family - which includes Frank, his wife, Sherry, Viola, her wheelchair-bound mother and a brother - moved from Guntersville to Royster Road, which is to the north of Union Grove Road near the intersection of U.S. 231. The three older family members live in a house there, while Frank and his wife live there in a 40-foot Coachman travel trailer.

The property is located near the bluffs that fall away into the woods that extend into Greenbriar Cove.

Though they heard plenty from the cats, the real trouble did not occur until last Wednesday. Frank walked a stray dog down the mountain, through the woods, to a woman who lives in the cove, and was on his way home when he suddenly found himself facing a tan panther about 10 feet away, he told reporters.

When it quickly moved to within 5 feet of him, Frank kicked at it, trying to scare it off. That, he said, is when the cat clawed his leg.

He was wearing insulated coveralls, and, underneath, a pair of jeans and flannel pajamas. Four holes were ripped through all three pair of pants, and Frank got three slashes in his right leg. The cat's paw would have been about 5 inches across, he said.

Though not very deep, Harmes said, the middle slash penetrated to her son's shin bone.

Frank was carrying a knife his wife had given him last month for their anniversary. He said he pulled it from a sheath on his thigh and stabbed the cougar in the front leg and then the hindquarter as it turned and ran off.

He said the cat was about three feet tall and, tail and all, about seven feet long. Down to its white whiskers, it looked like the Florida panthers he saw when they lived near Gainesville, he said, only this cat was either old or hungry and skinny.

Frank wondered if the cat had been looking at him as a meal. His mother agrees with the theory.

"If it had been healthy he would not be here," Harmes said. "When it was advancing on him, it was trying to get him to run. That's their MO, to jump on the back and break a victim's neck."

Besides the cuts in his leg, the power of the cat's paw left her son's leg bruised, she said.

"I didn't realize how powerful they are," Harmes added. "And this one was either sick or very old."

Other cats, other places
Harmes said she saw a black panther in the winter of 1982 in southern Indiana that was 6-7-feet long from "nose to butt." It was nighttime but showed up plainly in the outdoor lights against a field of fresh snow.

After Indiana, Harmes lived in Gainesville, Fla. She said she holds a degree in environmental engineering, specializing in biology, and worked at Payne's Prairie, a 21,000-acre state park reserve.

While Florida has tan panthers living in the southern part of the state, its officials say none live in the wilds at Payne's Prairie. Harmes disagrees.

"We heard them all the time back there," she said.

Because of her mother's failing health, the family moved to Guntersville, sort of halfway between the heat of Florida and the cold of Indiana. Two years ago, they moved to Royster Road and began to quietly hear about big cats.

"The people up here know they are here; it's always been whispered and hush-hush," Harmes said. "I've been trying to tell people there are panthers up here. They think I am crazy but they are. I'm here to tell you."

She hears them often, Harmes said. Some sound like younger cats calling for their mother. The mother sounds like a woman screaming.

Harmes said a black male panther recently climbed into their shed through a hole in the door where a board was missing. Frank saw it come out and boarded up the hole.

Recently, a male marking its territory sprayed Frank and Sherry's travel trailer.

Warnings
Now, Harmes said, her son has been attacked.

Frank does not work because he's disabled with orthopedic problems stemming from a 13-inch growth spurt as an early teen. Harmes said that also affected his circulation, which causes him to get cold easily - and which is why he, fortunately, was wearing so many layers of pants when he was attacked.

When he got home after the attack he was pumped with adrenalin, Harmes said. They called the ER but it was busy and did not take him until Thursday.

Saturday night, Frank returned to the ER, but this time it was because of a problem his mom was having. By then, his story had been on two Huntsville TV stations and in the Guntersville paper that day. People at the ER recognized his picture, and he eventually had to break away from the attention.

Harmes said that's when the exhaustion and shock began taking their effect.

"Sunday night he could not stand light or noise," she said. "The pants leg against his skin, he could not stand that."

Monday, his doctor sent him to bed for rest.

"It's stirred up a busy bee's nest," Harmes said. But maybe it will do some good.

"I want the people in North Alabama to know these cats have been and they are here," she said. "You make your children stay inside at night if you live next to a wooded area. If young couples go walking in the woods, don't do it at night. The hunters need to know - especially the hunters' wives.

"Black panthers were never eradicated from Alabama and the Appalachian foothills," she continued. "I don't care who says that. I have seen them with my eyes."

http://www.thearabtribune.com/articles/2010/12/08/news/news2.txt


Knife testing dead-ends without blood
DAVID MOORE - The Arab Tribune

It's a dead-end, as far as the Alabama Department of Conservation is concerned.

No traces of blood were found on the knife a Union Grove man said he used to stab a cougar that was attacking him, according a DOC biologist. But had there been something there to analyze, he added, it would have been interesting.

Frank Harmes, who got claw gashes in his leg last Wednesday, turned over his knife Monday to Marshall County game wardens Kevin Kirby and Lana Finney. They in turn had it delivered to Randy Liles, supervising biologist for DOC's Northeast Alabama office in Jacksonville.

Harmes told the game wardens he cleaned the knife several times after the incident with alcohol. He apparently did a good job.

Liles said Tuesday he tested the knife for blood and none was found.

"There probably could have been (DNA on the blade), but without any blood or anything there was nothing to test," said Liles, who learned about the alleged attack Monday. "It sure would have been interesting."

There had been hopes that the cotton cord grip on the knife might have contained some blood, but Liles said only dirt was found on it.

Had there been DNA, he said, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would likely have conducted the test because DOC does not do that.

Liles said that leaves nothing scientific to confirm a cougar, but he can't totally discard the story.

"From what all he told us, it would indicate that, if anything, it sounds like an escapee from a breeder or exotic game farm," he said. "I think a wild mountain lion or puma would probably have done a lot more damage than what I have seen, but we can't really confirm or deny anything."

He said DOC offices across the state get numerous calls about sightings, especially during hunting season.

"Everyone wants to call it 'black panther,' but there is no such thing," Liles said. "There are black pigmentations of leopards and jaguars.

"We are pretty certain we don't have a viable population in Alabama, but I think a lot of people would be really surprised - I think we might be surprised - at some of the animals people have in captivity."

Some people send in photos of what they think are cougars or mountain lions that are taken with game cameras, but the problem is, Liles said, most are poor quality or have no reference point to determine the size of the animal.

Some, he said, are passed off as recent photos but have been doctored in Photoshop and been around six or seven years.

"I'm not saying people are not seeing anything," Liles said. "I am not saying that at all. I do know that any kind of credible sighting we do get, we try to look into it, but we just don't have the people and the time to look at everything.

"If someone can get a really good picture or a really good track, put a bucket over it and protect it, and I would love to come out and look at it," he continued. "But you would think with all the sightings we get in a year, one of these cats would turn up somewhere."

http://www.thearabtribune.com/articles/2010/12/08/news/news3.txt

Bray, Masons say they don't need the state's acknowledgment to believe big cats in hills
DAVID MOORE - The Arab Tribune

Radford Bray doesn't have to wait until the Alabama Department of Conservation confirms mountain lions or cougars live in the rugged hills around Morgan City. He says he came face to face - or face to tail, as the case might be - with one in the woods, and that's all the proof he needs.

Others who say they have seen and heard them over the years agree with not needing official verification that big cats roam the mountains and woods in Marshall and Morgan County.

"Them cats has always been here," Bray said Monday. "They ain't just come around. I guess the truth of the matter is they never left."

Bray has lived 21 years near Morgan City on Ditto Circle, about 300 feet from the bluff that falls away into Greenbriar Cove. About four years ago, using a motion sensitive game camera, he got a photo that he said is more than enough proof of big cats for him, even without his live encounter.

That took place one evening, early in hunting season, about two years ago. Bray and his grandson, Gavin, 7 at the time, followed a rough trail to a place about 60 feet below the bluff and spent about 30 minutes setting up a surveillance camera.

Returning by the same route, they had just topped the bluff when a large cat jumped out of foot-tall grass beside the trail, Bray said. It was about 15 feet away.

"It was lying flat on the ground. I never seen him until he jumped up and ran the other way," he said.

Bray was especially concerned that his grandson was with him, and he did not have a gun or any other protection. They did, however, have a beagle with them, but it was no help at all.

"That dog would not chase him. He wouldn't even smell of him," Bray said.

He described the animal as definitely being a long-tailed cat about the tan color of a dark deer and larger than a German shepherd.

"It was pretty wide on the backend," Bray said. "It was pretty healthy, I'll put it that way."

Some people claim to have seen or heard black panthers in the local wilds, but the Alabama Department of Conservation maintains that's impossible. Those seen in zoos are a black phase of the jaguar from Central and South America.

"There has never been a black panther, ever, documented in this country," Mark Sasser, non-game wildlife coordinator for the conservation department told The Arab Tribune previously. "They have never been known to exist (in the United States)."

While the mountain lion Bray and Gavin saw was not black, Bray said it was dark enough that in the evening or at nighttime a person might mistake it for black.

While the state maintains that no one has ever proved that tan cougars like those in Florida or mountain lions exist in Alabama, Bray said he knows better.

"I know there are two different cats up here," he said. "One is an old one with a white tip on its tail. My daddy has seen it from a tree stand. It's been here ever since we've been here."

The other is the one he saw himself, Bray said.

He said he knows several people who have seen a big cat, including his son, who probably saw the cat he and Gavin saw. His son lives near Nada Flack, who talked to the Tribune in October 2009 about mountain lions she said she's seen in her backyard on Hughes Circle.

"The cat she's seeing is probably the same one I've been seeing," Bray said. "He comes and stays about a month, then leaves for a couple of months. Whenever it's around, it makes itself known.

Eating cats' food
Bray's sister and brother-in-law, Delphia and Doug Mason, are no strangers to hearing and seeing - at least in Doug's case - big cats. They live on Royster Road and are neighbors to Frank Harmes, who said he was clawed by a mountain lion last week. (Please see related story starting on Page 1.)

Delphia has lived in the Morgan City neighborhood near the bluffs overlooking Greenbriar Cove since 1979.

"They have been here ever since I have been here," she said this week of the big cats, which she refers to as cougars.

"We have woods on three sides of us and hear one growling out in the woods," she said. "It's close. It's real, real close."

She and Doug returned from the grocery store one night after church and heard a racket as they were getting out of their vehicle.

"It's the cougar coming around the bluff," she told Doug.

"It stayed outside of the lights we had on, but it went on through our backyard. It was probably going to the spring for a drink of water. We stayed in the car until it was gone then grabbed the groceries and hurried to the porch."

One morning about three years ago, Delphia said, Doug looked out a window and saw two cougars were on their back porch, helping themselves to their four pet cats' food. One, she said, was black, the other tan.

"The black one was not nearly as big as the tan one," she said. "Doug scared them, and they left."

Numerous sightings
Delphia said sightings and hearings of cougars are common in the area. While they sleep with their windows closed, her daughter used to live where the Harmeses now live and slept with her windows open.

"She heard cougars screaming all the time," Delphia said.

Then there's the neighbor who shoots his gun to scare cougars away from his horses. And one night a few years ago a woman in the area came home one night to find two cougars in her yard.

"She had to wait until they left. She was afraid to get out," Delphia said. "I know cougars are here."

http://www.thearabtribune.com/articles/2010/12/08/news/news4.txt