Cougar camera says…?

A motion-sensitive camera mounted by game officials at the Crozet home of Susie Humphreys showed plenty of wildlife after four days including a cat. Just not that cat.

"We had some crows in one picture, some turkey vultures, a rabbit," says Fredericksburg-based wildlife biologist Mike Dye, "and we had two pictures of a pretty little house cat. That's all we had critterwise."

The failure to capture the cougar on film is "frustrating," says Humphreys, who has appeared on CBS 19 and in this week's Hook reporting numerous sightings of a cougar in her backyard. On one occasion, she says, the cat scratched

at her granddaughter's bedroom window, leaving paw prints outside.

Dye says the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries hasn't given up on snapping a picture of the cougar just yet; the camera will be remounted in the near future in a different location near Humphreys' home. If the big cat is caught on film, he says, the Department's next step would be to set a trap for the cougar, which, if captured, would then be relocated to a less populated area. The expense of setting and checking a trap daily as would be required, says Dye, is an expensive measure. Therefore, the option won't be exercised without harder evidence than Humphrey's statements.

Humphreys says she hasn't seen the cougar in the past week, but she notes she's been keeping her dogs inside at night for their protection, depriving herself of the "cougar warning" their barking provided. She's hesitant to put them back outside, even though doing so could help her capture the cat on film with her own camera.

"I don't want my dogs hurt," she says, "so I really don't know what to do about the situation."

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