When the Maine Coon was not famous newspaper reporting was hilarious!

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I'm thankful for Marilis Hornidge's book That Yankee Cat for these stories. 

Deaf cat - Fabulous White Maine Coon at Show Cat. Photo: copyright Helmi Flick
Deaf cat - Fabulous White Maine Coon at Show Cat. Photo: copyright Helmi Flick. This coat type features in one of the stories below!

  • In September 1973, Newsday, a Long Island, New York daily replied to a question on the Maine Coon with the flat statement: "There isn't any such animal."
  • In September 1976 in The Asbury Park Press, Asbury Park, New Jersey, USA in a column on pets, Dr. Michael Fox was asked by a reader about the family tree of the Maine Coon. I guess they were asking about the origins of the breed and the good Dr.'s response was that the Maine Coon "is merely a large variety of domestic cat that has reverted to the wild." That makes me laugh. I think Dr. Fox is still giving advice on the internet. He is much respected.
  • In July 1977 the Kennebec Journal of Augusta, Maine - where the editors and journalists should have a good knowledge about the Maine Coon - replied to a request for information about a white Maine Coon in their "Ask Us" column. Their statement was: "There are no all-white Maine Coons, as their distinctive markings are a dark mask and a ringed tail". Comment: I don't think you could be further off the mark. I presume that the reference to a "ringed tail" concerns the fact that this is often a tabby cat with dark rings on the tail. Incidentally, you see quite a few all-white Maine Coons and they are amazing! See above.
  • In August 1988, the Daily Mirror in the UK, ran a story about "a large domestic breed of cat called the 'Coonmain'. They said that it was rampaging through the suburbs of Edgware, north London! This is a tabloid newspaper of questionable quality.
  • And finally, in April 1990, the national tabloid Examiner ran an article on monster cats which were supposedly mutant Maine Coons bred for size and ferocity by "unscrupulous breeders, terrorising lonely farms and towns in New England".

The world has come a long way in quite a short time. This is probably thanks to the Internet and websites such as Instagram and Facebook et cetera where the word has spread rapidly that the Maine Coon is a top-quality purebred cat and probably today the most popular purebred, beating the Persian to that position.

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