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Schrödinger's Cougar

The Eastern cougar (or mountain lion) is considered by most wildlife experts to have been extinct in Virginia for a long time.  But lots of people swear they’ve seen one.

Have they?  What did they really see?  And what does the gap between reported sightings, and the science, say about what we know about the world?

In this special feature, WMRA’s Andrew Jenner and Brent Finnegan take us deep into Virginia’s back country, and into a mind-bending discussion of perceived reality, all generated by an animal that may, or may not, exist.

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Andrew Jenner is a freelance reporter based in Harrisonburg. After working as a journalist in the Shenandoah Valley for a decade, he spent three years living and reporting in Brazil, returning to Harrisonburg in the summer of 2018. Andrew has reported for TheAtlantic.com, The Washington Post, Deutsche Welle, Discover, Modern Farmer, and many others. He is a graduate of Eastern Mennonite University, has a MFA in creative nonfiction writing from Goucher College, and almost made it onto Jeopardy! a few years ago.