State of Existentialism

Sartre, Camus and Kafka were spot-on: to paraphrase and simplify their reasoning, we are constantly in a state of denial despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

What prompts this latest assessment in Great Thinking?

Here's a couple of good ones: there have been a few panther sightings down in Connecticut.

Several folks have reported panthers -- or if you prefer, mountain lions - transiting through the wilds of Greenwich, the bastion of the ultra-wealthy and home of Ivana Trump located about a nine-iron, geographically speaking, from New York City.

Panther sighting reports, primarily from the town's rocky and heavily-forested northern tier, started to trickle in over a week ago to the Greenwich Police Department.

"Whatever," said the cops in their Finest Fairfield County Cool  -- that is until a fine, upstanding citizen (no doubt an executive with Goldman Sachs) told the PD that he had seen a panther cross over from property managed by the Audubon Society into the grounds of an exclusive All-Boys Prep School.

That did it!

This particular sighting inspired the Greenwich Police  to "lock down" an entire neighborhood. The Town Fathers even got into the act and called in experts from the state Department of Environmental Protection to investigate matters.

Biologists in search of wandering mountain lions usually look for evidence such as paw prints, fur swatches, half-eaten carcasses, and spoor (otherwise known as "Panther "Poop") to determine whether or not these magnificent creatures are in the neighborhood.

During their first go-round, experts found nothing in the neighborhood by way of evidence.

By now, however, the Media was sniffing around for a story.

A PR type from the state DEP issued forth the following proclamation: any panther roaming around any part of Greenwich -- or for that matter, in any part of Connecticut, was an impossibility. Mountain lions have been extinct in the state for more than two centuries.

Besides which, Greenwich and the neighboring communities on either side of the CT/NY Border are heavily urbanized / suburbanized and it makes no sense for a large animal such as a panther, which prides itself in its solitary seclusion, to be wandering around in such places.

And so it came to pass that, less than 12 hours later, a member of the hoi polloi, while tooling along in the wee hours in an SUV at 60 mph along the Merritt Parkway 30 miles northeast of Greenwich, smacked into a mountain lion crossing the parkway.

The big cat, sadly and tragically, suffered fatal injury.

So the State Police awakened the same DEP team which investigated the Greenwich panther sitings. DEP experts drove to Milford to use their arts and skills over a quite Unique- for -Connecticut form of road kill.

The dearly-departed Cat weighed in at 145 pounds. It measured more than seven feet from whiskers to tail-tip. The experts noted the animal appeared to have been well-nourished and that its teeth -- particularly its fang-like incisors -- were in nearly perfect shape.

Best guess: the panther was a three-year old, an Unfortunate Tom when it met its demise.

I don't know whether or not the experts were finished with their first, or their second Cafe Mochas when it must have occurred to them that they had a problem on their hands, to wit:

If mountain lions are extinct in the Land of Steady Habits, where the Hell did this one come from?

They also were presented with a Riddle: the carcass they were just about to place into a Body Bag, and return to their lab for further research, was found a significant distance away from Greenwich.

Was it possible for this particular panther to have wandered about plus/minus 30 miles in 12 hours' time?

By the time the PR person hooked up with them, the DEP experts began to formulate a Theory: the animal had either (a) escaped from a Game Preserve; or (b) it had been abandoned by someone with a pastiche for Exotic Pets.

Then their lives became even more complicated: As the PR Type stood before TV cameras to advance these hypothesises, another panther sighting was being reported back in Greenwich!

Obviously, whoever alerted the Greenwich PD wasn't looking at the same cat!

Given all of the mounting evidence, the DEP clings to its Theories. Meanwhile, a new Wall emerged over on Facebook devoted to the "Connecticut Mountain Lion."

At last check-in, the Wall contained more than 1,600 posts about first-hand panther sighting from folks all over Connecticut -- and the Northeast, and as far away as Iowa and Michigan.

I have my own theories: (a) there are more White Tail Deer in Connecticut, the preferred "food" of the mountain lion, than Registered Voters; and (b) in the absence of predators (other than the "automobile"), panthers are working their way down the Adirondacks and the Berkshires, propagating and therefore re-establishing themselves in their natural, territorial habitats.

If this is the case, we should all rejoice!

The best news is that folks should have nothing to fear. A quick check on this matter shows that there have been no panther attacks on humans in many years. Those that have taken place occurred when humans startled the animals -- especially females with cubs.

We just aren't on their menu, what with the abundance of White Tail Deer throughout the entire Northeast.

Even if one is overly-nervous and will lose sleep that mountain lions will initiate attacks on household pets and livestock, rest assured experts will advise us how to manage these issues.

The re-emergence of the Eastern Mountain Lion, or Panther, or Catamount, or Puma -- take your pick and enjoy! -- into the environment should not be feared.

It should be celebrated.

So the questions become:

What can the states do?

Wildlife experts can -- with Gusto -- undertake a comprehensive study and begin to formulate necessary regulations to protect the Big Cats while they re-establish themselves in more rugged terrains.

To minimize car/mountain lion encounters, highway experts, working in conjunction with the game experts, can designate lower-speed, 40 mph corridors across their highways by posting "Caution-Panther Crossing" signs. Hey kids! How cool is that!

Furthermore, what can we do?

We can encourage aggressive research and development into creating panther habitats. These magnificent animals have been here for millenia -- we drove them to the point of extinction and now bear (no pun intended) a responsibility to help them recover within their natural and traditional habitat.

All humans need do is: stand back, give them space, and enjoy!

So, Connecticut et. al: what more evidence will you require?

Should a Mountain Lion jump into the passenger seat of a state DEP experts' car and order up a Triple Latte?