GRAY – Thanks to the fundraising efforts of the Friends of the Maine Wildlife Park, the two cougars at the park now live in a modern, new enclosure meant to improve both the cougars’ and visitors’ experience.

The 3,500-square-foot exhibit offers visitors to the Maine Wildlife Park, on Route 26 in Gray, an unobstructed view, with thick glass separating the cougars from the viewing area. Steel I-beams arching the enclosure meant there was no need for supporting columns inside the exhibit, so visitors can be assured a glimpse of the 100-pound cats.

Work on the exhibit, built by B&S Construction of New Gloucester, started last July and continued through this spring. A grand-opening ceremony Friday, May 4, features a ribbon cutting performed by Chandler Woodcock, commissioner of Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife, as well as Ray Clark, a Gray resident and president of the Friends of the Maine Wildlife Park, which boasts more than 100 members and volunteers.

As with nearly all of the park’s exhibits, Clark said the group not only gave countless hours for construction, but also raised the lion’s share of the cost for the cougar exhibit.

“The Friends contributed over $100,000 to the cougar exhibit, which is amazing. People are extremely supportive of the park. People really do respond,” Clark said. “We get contributions, everything from two crumpled up dollar bills in an envelope from a couple of kids who I think were 6 years old, to $1,000 or more from some donors.”

The exhibit, as well as the park, wouldn’t be in existence without the group’s support. Clark says the park does not get “direct financial support from the state, so the park has to be entirely self-sufficient. So it runs on its gate receipts and what it sells at the nature store,” he said. The park gets more than 100,000 visitors annually.

Involved through the years in many projects as a member of the Friends of the Maine Wildlife Park, Clark is particularly proud of the cougar exhibit.

“It’s something that’s been in the works for a couple of years now. And it’s extremely rewarding to work on something and see it get built,” Clark said. “We also feel like we’re doing something good for our visitors and the state of Maine.”

Plus, it was a needed project, since the previous cougar pen was small and surrounded with unappealing chain link fence. It often didn’t allow visitors a view of the animals because there were caves where the cougar could slink out of sight.

“It’s a huge improvement. It’s the best exhibit I’ve seen anywhere that allows you to see the animal because there’s no wire in front of you. It’s a huge glass wall. But the best thing is, we have two cougars and they just seem to love it,” Clark said.

The two residents of the exhibit, according to park Superintendent Curt Johnson, are a 19-year-old male and a 12- to 14-year-old female. The male was born at the park after its mother was rescued. (All animals at the park are either born into captivity or rescued from the wild due to injury or some other reason.) However, the two cougars don’t get along and were kept separate in the previous pen, as they are in the new exhibit. Each cougar will get 12 hours in the open-air section of the exhibit at a time.

“The exhibit is over 3,500 square feet, which, as far as we know, is the biggest enclosure of its kind in New England, so it does provide them with a lot space,” Johnson said. “They’re big animals. That’s what they need is a lot of space, and we tried to put a lot of natural habitat components in there that are representative of Maine’s outdoors and what cougars would likely interact with if they were here in the Maine woods.”

Among those features are a rocky, tri-chambered cave where the cougars can seek shelter, large trees placed in a fallen position, as well as two upright tree trunks they can amble up. Grass and several small firs complete the natural features.

While the wildlife park usually only features animals and birds that can be found in Maine, Johnson said, cougars – which also go by the interchangeable names of mountain lions, panthers, pumas and catamounts – are considered an extirpated species in Maine, “meaning we used to have them, they are native to Maine, but they no longer naturally occur here. There is no breeding population of mountain lions in Maine,” he said.

The builder, Bill Hotham of B&S Construction, is likewise proud of the end result. Hotham said it was “a very interesting project, unique to work on with lots of angles.”

Hotham worked on the enclosure, setting posts 8 to 10 feet into the ground with the large I-beams forming the ceiling, with his two sons, William Hotham III and Vean Hotham. The beams, he added, were fabricated in Auburn by Tri-State Steel. The 36-foot beams weigh about 1,600 pounds apiece and were lifted into place with a crane.

A 19-year-old cougar enters his new enclosure at the Maine Wildlife Park. The cougar exhibit has been open since construction finished earlier this spring and will celebrate a grand opening Friday, May 4. (Staff photo by John Balentine)