A cougar on the Eastern Shore? At least 3 people say yes.

EASTERN SHORE

At least three people say they've spotted a mountain lion on the southern end of the Eastern Shore.

And no, they weren't drunk.

Which leads to the next question: How could a mountain lion - a species long considered extinct in Virginia - wind up in a place as hard to reach as the Eastern Shore?

To the north, development in Maryland and Delaware form an urban barrier. Miles of ocean and bay do the same on the Shore's other sides.

"None of it makes any sense," said Glen Askins, a regional wildlife manager with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. "There hasn't been a mountain lion in that part of the world in well over 100 years."

Not officially, anyway. The cats - known to biologists as the eastern cougar - once roamed every state this side of the Mississippi, but were stamped out long ago by hunting and loss of habitat.

Still, sightings have persisted, even increased in recent years, leading some folks to believe that pockets of the reclusive cats have managed to survive - a suggestion that's hotly debated in wildlife circles.

Ernie Coalter, a dentist and outdoorsman, says he only knows what he has seen - twice now - near his home outside Capeville, a tiny settlement surrounded by farmland just a few miles from the foot of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.

On Dec. 30, Coalter says, he saw the cat crossing a field just after dawn. Two weeks later, he and his wife gasped as it leapt across the road in front of their headlights.

Coalter's description: "About 120 to 125 pounds. Tan. Chest almost touching the ground. Big head. Long tail. The full nine yards. I said to myself, 'This can't be.' "

His neighbors had the same reaction: "You get about the same looks as if you said you saw a UFO," Coalter said.

Virginia Beach resident Randall Treadwell hunts on the Shore and says he has seen the cougar, too - once in late December in a field near Melfa, and again in late January near Coalter's property.

"I lived in Maine for 30 years," Treadwell said. "I've seen plenty of coyotes and bobcats and you-name-it. This wasn't any of those. It was a big cat like thing with a long tail. I've never heard of anything like that around here."

Askins, the wildlife manager, says he doesn't "dispute that people are seeing these things. I'd never rule it out. But you've got to understand. I've been chasing mountain lion reports for nearly 26 years, and I have yet to find any physical evidence that they still exist in the wild in Virginia. No bodies. No fresh kills. No hair. No scat. Nothing."

If a big cat really is out there on the Shore, Askins said, "it's very unlikely that it's a true wild mountain lion. It's somebody's captive that got away or they let it go."

Biologists say that's been the case with the few cougars that have turned up in recent decades in Virginia. DNA tests have shown them to be of South American origin - which points to the exotic pet trade.

Soon, the feds hope to settle the cougar question once and for all. U.S. Fish and Wildlife has been conducting a review of the cat's status and plans to release a report in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, cougars are assumed to be "extinct" in Virginia, even as they occupy a spot on the state's endangered species list.

Irene Morris is relieved to hear that the cat is protected by law. She's an office assistant at the Shore's 1,400-acre national wildlife refuge. She says she got a good look at the cougar a year and a half ago when she was leaving work one summer evening.

"I was fearful from the beginning that someone was going to just haul off and shoot him," Morris said. "It's a natural thing, like shooting a mad dog or anything that you think would endanger you."

Cougar attacks have occurred in other states, but they're rare. And any cat loose on the Shore would not go hungry. White-tailed deer, the cougar's prime prey, are plentiful.

Morris says she's relieved about a few other things as well:

"For a long time, I stopped talking about it because nobody believed me. I'm kind of glad that somebody else has seen it now. And that my cougar is still alive."

Joanne Kimberlin, (757) 446-2338, joanne.kimberlin@pilotonline.com