The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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    Cougar

October 1, 2009

Cougar reported; DNR official skeptical

Others say they've seen cougars

By Tim Krohn

St. Clair — Melissa Enter and Nathan Bartell are sure the cat they saw near St. Clair Tuesday was a cougar, even if the photo Enter took is unclear.

A Department of Natural Resources officer is a bit skeptical, having heard of and seen photos of other purported cougars that turned out to be something else.

Enter, a longtime Mankato resident and non-traditional student at MSU, went with classmate Bartell to take photos of St. Clair for a brochure her urban studies class is doing for the town.

They went to the north side of the Le Sueur River near the edge of town to get a photo of the water tower in the background.

“We heard a bunch of birds squawking and saw this cougar walking along the other side on the bank, as calm and cool as could be,” Enter said.

She said she fumbled to get her short lens off the camera and a longer lens on before snapping a quick photo. “I wish I’d of focused on the cougar; the camera focused on the tree in front.”

Enter said they saw the cougar clearly twice before it was obscured by brush. “We got such a good look at it. It just looked at us.”

“There are homes not far from there,” Enter said.

Ken Varland, wildlife manager at the DNR office in New Ulm, was skeptical when he viewed the photo.

“The body seems a bit too short. And there seems to be white up its rear left leg,” Varland said. “It’s hard to judge the size. I can’t tell for sure what it is.”

Enter said she has no doubt, and was shocked to see it here. She said she, her husband and their four children went to Yellowstone this summer. “We didn’t see a cougar out there, and I see one in St. Clair.”

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