Letter: Lee Waterbury-Chappell: Spotting a lion on the back roads of Rhode Island

No mountain lions in Little Rhody? Ha!

 Several years ago, I took a back road to Peter Pots Pottery in Usquepaug. Straddling Glen Rock Road was a huge, tan, sinewy lion with a smallish head and a ridiculously long tail. The magnificent creature stared at me, then bounded off into a field.

 Driving 500 feet, to the intersection of Dugway and Glen Rock Road, I saw a yard filled with colorful toys. At the door, I explained my concern for the little ones. The woman’s husband was a police officer; he had come across deer carcasses that indicated they had been eaten by a cougar in a very particular way.

 My daughter’s neighbors in Douglas, Massachusetts, similarly told of coming across a deer carcass high in a tree. The neighbors knew this was how a lion protects its food from other predators.

 Employees at Peter Pots were not surprised at my find; they had heard about sightings before.

 I called the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management several times, to no avail. When I shared my experience with a guy from the DEM recently, he insisted that what I saw was a bobcat. I’ve seen lots of bobcats and, believe me, I know the difference.

 Maybe the lions are too smart to be seen by DEM officers, but chance meetings by ordinary citizens might be more frequent. Perhaps the Dec. 7 story (“Do pumas prowl R.I.?”) will shake out more stories.

 Lee Waterbury-Chappell, Wakefield