From Beaver to Bradford counties and scattered locales between, have come recent reports of mountain lion sightings. Though the Pennsylvania Game Commission does not acknowledge the existence of wild free-ranging lions in Pennsylvania, the state has yielded more panther reports since 1990 than any other state in the East. Not far behind are the reports from West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina. It does seem that some kind of feline phenomenon is unfolding in the eastern mountains.

Mountain lions, also known at different times and in different places as panthers, cougars and painters, were once common in eastern forests. Hunter and author Meshach Browning wrote of shooting dozens of panthers in western Maryland and southwestern Pennsylvania in the early 19th century, and more scientifically grounded sources establish panthers persisting in the Appalachians until the early 1900s. Without question a population remains in southern Florida and evidence exists for resident lions in New Brunswick, Canada.

Not unexpectedly, wildlife agencies from New England to the southeast have chosen to attribute all sightings in recent years to escaped or abandoned panther pets. And so far they have reason for that position -- all the dead or captured cougars in the east have shown signs of living in captivity, including an adult female shot in Pennsylvania in Crawford County in 1967.

It's easy to understand why eastern states are less than enthusiastic about embracing the possibility of naturally reproducing eastern panther populations. As a listed endangered species, the return of the eastern panther could complicate public land management, recreational development and even private land use in the areas where cats were deemed to occur.

Still, people keep seeing things they think, believe or know are mountain lions. A friend once sincerely believed he had recorded a Pennsylvania mountain lion on video. When we viewed the tape together, a slender brown animal with a long tail could be seen emerging from nearby woods. It could have been taken for a small mountain lion, but as it approached the camera proved it to be a red fox with a serious case of mange so that its normally robust coat and tail appeared almost "cat-like."

Many sightings, though, are much more credible.

According to Chris Bolgiano, a professor at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va., and author of "Mountain Lion; An unnatural history of pumas and people," lions acting like natural predators at home in the wild have been seen in the east by "prominent hunters and naturalists, respected biologists, a superintendent of Shenandoah National Park and a retired director of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service."

Recent events in the western states, where cougars were never exterminated, suggest these sightings should be taken more seriously. There, a spike in cougar attacks on humans in residential suburban areas refutes the most conventional argument against the existence of wild panthers in Pennsylvania -- that our state is too intensely developed and populated by humans to support such a large predator.

Boulder, Colo.; Sacramento, Cal.; Spokane, Wash., and several other western cities find cougars within their borders on a regular basis. And maps of those areas where confrontations between cougars and humans have occurred indicate a far more urbanized landscape than parts of northern, central and western Pennsylvania where lions have been reported.

The mountain lion is a secretive, mostly nocturnal, predominantly silent and solitary hunter. It is not inconceivable that it could live off the abundant deer herd in more remote parts of our state and avoid detection. It is often argued that since a dead lion has never been produced by a hunter in deer season, the cats do not exist in the state. But we cannot know that this has never happened. What incentive would a hunter have for reporting the killing of a protected animal? Furthermore, recent research of hunter movement patterns suggest that even deer hunters rarely penetrate the most remote parts of north-central forests, where cougars might live unmolested.

Perhaps the mountain lion's existence here should not be dismissed so easily. Bolgiano concludes her book on the eastern panther this way: "I wonder how it would be to know a panther crouches there again, yellow eyes gleaming, muscles taut, utterly focused. How it would be to accept the risks with understanding and respect, in return for the rightness. A dank breeze slides down Cross Mountain and a chill rises up my back. It would feel, I think, like freedom."