Beast of Never, Cat of God: The Search for the Eastern Puma - Hardcover

Butz, Bob

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1592284469 ISBN 13: 9781592284467

Publisher: The Lyons Press, 2005

Synopsis

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About this title

Review:

"BEAST OF NEVER, CAT OF GOD is a wonderfully engaging book on the cougar controversy and the pathetically warring factions of believers and cynics who demand a level of proof rarely available to criminal prosecutors."--Jim Harrison, author of True North"This is a journey into wilderness and the imagination as serendipitous as The Orchid Thief. Butz's lyricism is matched by his relentless honesty, giving a taut portrait of vivid sinew and rich heart, a beast whose shadows cut across our lives in ways we don't always understand. Butz's soul searching and naturalist's vivid grasp, tooth and nail, breathe the beast to life."--Doug Stanton, author of In Harm's Way"The eastern mountain lion haunts our domesticated dreams, infusing our too-tame world with hope and excitement. In BEAST OF NEVER, CAT OF GOD, Bob Butz follows this ghost cat through the woods of Michigan and the thickets of science, politics and the human heart, wrestling with his own skepticism and a belief that the great predator is still out there. Just like the enigmatic animal at its core, BEAST OF NEVER, CAT OF GOD holds and does not let go."--Scott Weidensaul, author of The Ghost with Trebling Wings: Science, Wishful Thinking and the Search for Lost Species "[a] fascinating report..."--"Grand Rapids Press"

From the Back Cover:

For the last one hundred years, the puma-also known as catamount, panther, cougar, and mountain lion-has been extinct east of the Mississippi River. Or has it? In the early 1970s, an endangered handful of these 150-pound wildcats was discovered living deep in the palmetto jungle of the Florida Everglades. But elsewhere, and despite a long litany of sightings, tracks, and more recently photographs and video footage, most wildlife biologists and game department officials from New England to the Great Lakes flatly dismiss any notion that the "eastern puma" survives anywhere else in this increasingly fragmented and suburbanized country.
When the most compelling body of evidence yet surfaces to suggest that the government's experts might be wrong, Bob Butz sets out to discover the truth behind what is perhaps the most mythic and misunderstood predator in North America. The result is a weird and wacky glimpse at the people and politics surrounding the so-called "eastern puma." Why do state and federal biologists so often dismiss evidence that pumas are here? Is that denial leaving people at risk? Who are the characters out there looking for pumas-and at what cost to the cat and, ultimately, themselves? The answers reveal a mystery greater and far more complex than anyone ever imagined. It will also leave readers examining their own beliefs.
A journey into the woods, a road trip, a meditation, and an expose, Beast of Never, Cat of God chronicles the search for cougar, while exploring the implications, the myths, and the reality of the creature. It's one man's hunt for truth and wilderness in a place-the East-where true wilderness is thought not to exist.

About this edition

• Publisher: The Lyons Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1592284469
• ISBN 13: 9781592284467
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 243