It’s not a myth! Cougar seen in Glen Arbor

By Jane Greiner
Sun staff writer
GLEN ARBOR (June 24) — A family stopping for pastries at Barb’s Bakery in Glen Arbor this morning spotted a cougar walking behind the bakery. It was moving toward the rear of the Post Office, according to Joyce Long at the Philip Heart Visitor Center.
Gregory and Joanne Newman and their two sons of Grand Ledge, came to the visitor center afterwards to fill out a report. They said they were eating pastries in the car parked behind the bakery and facing toward the woods when they saw movement in the underbrush in front of them. When they realized it was a cougar, they tried to follow it in the car, but it turned left down into the woods and they lost sight of it.

Gregory said that at first he thought it was a deer. But then he saw “that rolling gate” and “that big, long tail and real muscular chest,” he realized it was a cougar.
“It was really incredible,” he said. The cougar looked just like pictures he had seen, a sandy color, with a “thick, thick tail.”
“The tail must have been three feet long!” he said. It was so long, in fact, that the end was hidden down in the grass.
Gregory estimated they were only about 20 feet away from the animal when they first saw it.
Gregory mentioned it was a coincidence because on the previous morning while riding his bike around Glen Lake he thought he had heard a cougar. He was on 616 and it was very quiet, with no cars passing. He stopped to listen and heard it again. He described the sound as a “screaming growl.”
There have been a number of cougar sightings reported recently at the Visitor Center. Chief Ranger Larry Johnson reported seeing one around June 9. His sighting was on Indian Hill Road just south of Fowler at around 6 p.m.
He and his wife were in the car. He said the big cat crossed the road some ways in front of him. The thing that impressed him most was the way the cat walked. It “just glided,” with a “very smooth and fluid motion.”
It had the tawny color and long tail, just like in the pictures.
Johnson said he had gone back to the location two or three times trying to figure out just how far away it had been when he saw it. He estimates it was about 0.2 miles away. It was right by a mailbox and it struck him how close it had been to some houses in that area.
Because of the presence of cougars in the National Park, Johnson says that all trail headings are now posted with information on what to do should you encounter a cougar while hiking. “You should make yourself look big,” he said. If you have a jacket, open it and spread it out. Keep your eyes down, don’t make eye contact. And back away.”
Johnson said this is the advice given out west where there is a larger cougar population and more frequent encounters.
Johnson, the new Chief Ranger, has been at the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore only about three months. His last posting was at the Ozark National Scenic Riverways in southern Missouri. He said it was interesting because they have been having cougar sightings there too.
In another recent incident in the Park, a volunteer at the Visitor Center, Eleanor Commings, of Frankfurt, nearly walked into a cougar while hiking a park trail. Apparently she was looking back over her shoulder and when she turned forward again she was only a few feet away from a cougar. She told Joyce Long at the Visitor Center that, “If she hadn’t looked around, she would have stepped on it.” We don’t know whether Commings had the presence of mind to “make herself big,” but in any case, the cougar walked off with no harm done.