WILD ANIMALS Experts to discuss cougars' return to eastern U.S.

Few people have evidence of having seen a mountain lion.
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) -- For the true believer, spotting a cougar in the eastern United States is like seeing a UFO: Convincing the rest of the world can become an obsession.
At a three-day conference in West Virginia, those believers may find the tools to prove what they know.
Scientists and amateurs alike will hear national experts and authors make the case that cougars are returning to native lands in the East.
The Eastern Cougar Foundation conference includes a tracking seminar, a field trip to the Coopers Rock Mountain Lion Sanctuary and talks from authors David Baron and Chris Bolgiano.
More than half of the 90 people registered are amateurs, and many claim to have seen the big cats in the wild, organizer Helen McGinnis said Tuesday.
"Some people are driven," McGinnis said. "They're certain they've seen one at one time or another, and they're trying to prove it. They're driven by it."
Witnesses
McGinnis, who lives near the Dolly Sods Wilderness Area in Canaan Valley, said many West Virginians and outdoor enthusiasts say they have seen a cougar, also known as a mountain lion, panther or puma. Many witnesses are credible, she said, including a retired official with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
But hardly anyone has evidence to prove it.
"They're almost like bogeymen -- bogeycats, or whatever you want to call them," she said.
Wyoming County coal miner Todd Lester was able to cast tracks of a cougar he saw in 1996; he then founded the Eastern Cougar Foundation. Before that, the last verified cougar in West Virginia was one captured and killed in 1976 in Pocahontas County.
Thousands of cougars still roam the western United States. Cougars were once the top predators in the forests of eastern North America, but they were hunted with dogs and virtually wiped out by about 1900 and are now protected under the federal Endangered Species Act.