Norman Haigh has probably forgotten more about nature than most of us will ever know — and he hasn’t forgotten much.

Haigh, a longtime fixture in this part of the world for his expertise, has been a land and wildlife developer for decades.

He developed Sibley Farms in the 1980s and 1990s, before the land was transferred to the federal government for inclusion in the St. Catherine Creek National Wildlife Refuge in the mid-1990s.

Now living in Vidalia, Haigh has been following the recent news reports of big cat sightings in the area with interest.

He’s no stranger to seeing big cats in the wild, but like many other people who have seen the elusive, but majestic creatures roaming the Louisiana and Mississippi countryside, he didn’t say too much about it beyond friends and family.

Who could blame him?

No one likes to be told by the “authorities” that what they saw didn’t exist.

For years, Mississippi and Louisiana state wildlife officials have denied the existence of the cats, commonly referred to as cougars, pumas, panthers or mountain lions.

In his years spent outside studying the land and the wildlife inhabiting it, Haigh said he’s had a number of close encounters with the large cats.

He even took casts of several large cat tracks, but found the “officials” were not receptive to his sightings.

“I gave them to the wildlife folks and they said, ‘Well a Great Dane must have come through there,’” he said, with a slight chuckle at the notion that he couldn’t tell a dog print for a cat print.

“The difference between (a cougar) and a dog, is it’s wider and they don’t have any toenail marks (because cat claws retract),” Haigh said. “They will not admit that they are in this area.

“I hate for people to be belittled by the wildlife folks,” he said, adding that he felt sorry for the two women who spotted what they believed to be a cougar in downtown Natchez in June.

Since then several other residents have spotted large cats near the Natchez Trace. Wildlife officials discounted the sightings as extremely unlikely since there hasn’t been a confirmed (at least by them) sighting in Mississippi in more than 100 years.

“I thought about writing an article and apologizing that they haven’t had the great experience of seeing (the big cats),” Haigh said.

Interestingly, Haigh disagrees with a number of people who have speculated that any cougar sighted in the area would likely be passing through.

“When a panther comes into town, they’re looking for food,” he said. “They’ll stay in that area until they run out of food.”

An abundance of deer makes the Miss-Lou an all-you-can-eat buffet for any cougar.

Haigh doesn’t think there’s only one cougar.

He estimates three or four are probably living in the area.

For all of his amazement in the big cats, Haigh says people would be wise to stay clear of them and please, he says, don’t shoot the cats.

“You know, they’re wild animals, you don’t know what they’re going to do,” he said.

Lots of people are trying to document the existence of big cats in the area, but Haigh knows they’re here; he’s seen them with his own two eyes.

And his word is all the proof I need.

Kevin Cooper is publisher of The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3539 or kevin.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com.