What also seems to be a mystery is how long the Parkway is, which, according to the Parkway Foundation map, rather than the 23 miles reported, is actually 30 miles from Discovery Park to the 30 mile marker below Folsom Dam and 31 if you go to Beals Point, which the Jedediah Smith Memorial Trail does.
This is a common error as sometimes just the county-owned part of it is reported as being the Parkway but you also have to include the state-owned part, both of which comprise the Parkway.
Mountain lion a mystery along parkway
By Blair Anthony Robertson - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PST Friday, February 2, 2007
The American River Parkway stretches 23 miles along a narrow, 4,000-acre strip of land through an urban expanse of 1 million people.
An estimated 5 million visitors use the parkway to ride their bikes, run, stroll, fish, raft and picnic. Regulars are sure to encounter the abundant wildlife -- deer, coyotes, spawning salmon, the occasional owl and gaggles of wild turkeys.
Is it possible for a mountain lion to live in such a place? Could it roam and hide in an area so blanketed by people, with so much open land separating the few thickly wooded areas?
It is a mystery teetering on mythology. In fact, the wily, wary and ferocious cat that seems to come and go in the parkway has much in common with the legendary Bigfoot.
Local sightings -- four and counting -- have been by people who were alone. And without cameras. They come only days after the mountain lion attack in which a 70-year-old Humboldt County man fought off, with his wife's help, a ferocious cat.
Sightings "skyrocket" after such attacks, according to Karen Cotton, director of outreach with the Sacramento-based Mountain Lion Foundation. "It hits the international news and they start seeing them in Boston and New Jersey and places mountain lions haven't been in a very long time," she said.
Nonetheless, Cotton and others believe there is a cougar in our confines.
