And he said, This is where the mountain lion crossed. We walked in and there were fresh bobcat tracks in there. If theres a middle ground in the cougar debate, it belongs to John Harrigan, a veteran outdoorsman, newspaper reporter, and widely read syndicated columnist. Based on this blurry photo and pawprints, DEEP confirmed it was likely a mountain lion. Sometimes people feared fishers (erroneously attributing the blood-curdling screams of foxes to these hard-to-spot creatures), and in the late 1930s, after several animals were slain under strange circumstances in Glastonbury, the Hartford Courant dubbed the lion-like creature supposedly responsible, the Glawackus. They are most definitely here. My heart was saying, Maybe this is it,. The regions top predator, the coyote, is classified by biologists as a mesopredator (a type that in New England includes skunks and raccoons), which feeds primarily on smaller animals. The last confirmed mountain lion sighting in Connecticut occurred in 2011. Harold Davis just bought a new snowplow. Mountain Lion Weight: 80-160 pounds Length: About 7-8 feet long Tail: 2-3 feet long (up to half of the total length) Identification The mountain lion is a large, slender cat, with a long rope-like tail. Dont forget, south Texas also used to home to two other species of cats ocelots and jaguarundis. This assessment is echoed by the aforementioned Christopher Spatz, who has been studying cougars for better than 20 years. Lizzie Post Would Like Your Attention. DEEP believes their numbers have increased in recent years. 2012). Guns n' Gear), whose first name is Mike, is a United States Air Force and Army Veteran who uses his "experience on a . Wild Turkey Brood Survey A witness captured the terrifying moment when a deputy escaped the jaws of a mountain lion in Colorado. He can be reached by phone at 860-275-7297 or by email: pskahill@ctpublic.org. To learn more about "lion country" in Colorado check here. I also had the vague notion that when it comes to cougars, people tend to sort themselves into one of three camps. hen I accepted the assignment to write about my quest to uncover the truth regarding the existence of cougars in New England, I had little idea what I was agreeing to. There is also something appealing about the idea that there is an animal out there so cunning that it has escaped our notice and the eyes of our cameras. 60-108 inches. His mentor, Aldo Leopold, a prominent wildlife biologist, also believed this, but felt if people learned about these populations, they would be hunted to extinction. Stay Connected Sign up. They were also reluctant to certify that turkey and moose had returned the Quabin reservoir lands for many years after locals reported seeing them. Still, Spatz acknowledged that the word hope is very different from the word believe. vital part of this countries ecosystem. Indeed! Working in the 1980s in southern California, where there are cougars, biologist Paul Beier said that 95 percent of cougar sightings they investigated turned out to be misidentifications. Were getting more and more home entries every year. However, the National Wildlife Federation notes that the mountain lions range spreads all across the Americas, from the Canadian Yukon to The Strait of Magellan, making it the greatest range of any living mammal in the Americas.. I started to get nervous so I was scanning the area low and high in the trees. Kim Royar, a biologist at the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, told me she receives 40 to 50 reports annually, and although she believes that few, if any, are actual cougar sightings, she doesnt dismiss the possibility that someday someone will happen upon the real deal. LINCOLN, Neb. It was definitely a cougar. Spatz and Sue dont want to go where were going.. He was a dark butterscotch color, very tall and lanky (taller and thinner than a really big German Shepard) and that tail. Hey, I know what I saw. The map from that publication is shown below, with the current mountain lion range in green and confirmed mountain lion locations as black dots. I had been the first vehicle in a line held up by one lane traffic on a bridge reconstruction. Then saw him a few more times from further away across the road and along the edge sometimes of the woods. Im not an expert on human psychology, but if youre looking for something, you have a greater chance of actually seeing it. One summer I saw what I assumed was the same cougar several different times in my neighborhood which was near a long strip of woods along I 91 and used to be a large open field across the road from our home. Growing up in northern Vermont, Id heard stories of sightings, though always a few steps removed from the tellersomebodys cousin had seen a cougar cross the road on their way home from deer camp up in Canaan (or was it Coventry? It is also the most common wild cat found in North America. Jason. For anyone stuck with using Mountain Lion, I can recommend without hesitation Waterfox Classic web browser. They can be found in several different ecosystems including mountains, forests, wetlands, and deserts. The average annual population estimate from 2004-2020 of 2,876 total mountain lions, based on the statistical population . With all the thousands of trail cameras in the woods of New England, one would think that there would be at least one picture taken of a catamount. And were one of the most densely populated states as far as humans. I knew it was a cat track because the tracks were in a straight line and no signs of claws like you would see with a coyote track. It is hard for me to believe that the big cats havent found plenty of space to roam without regular detection. Mountain Lions: cougars, pumas, panthers and catamounts. If these animals are not in the habitat, what we see is an overabundance of herbivores., The ecologist John Laundre, who has spent 35 years studying cougars, concurs. After 20 minutes or so, we turned and stumbled our way back to the parking lot. We need cougars and we need wolves back in the Northeast, because a landscape of fear is a well-balanced landscape.. In 2011, the U.S. I have heard several accounts from sober, sane, intelligent people who have seen them (especially a latre, good friend who was a very competent spokesman and hunter.). A threat to livestock, they were hunted out of the state and driven to parts more wild. This is the second mountain lion sighting in North Texas in less than a month. There are no mountain lions in Connecticut, so why do we keep seeing them? At least once a year thered be a story from somewhere, but I only ran the absolute best, he told me. Learn More . Weve got a growing bear population. Mountain Lion Sightings in CT Was the animal a pet set free? ), or someones coworkers mother had seen one from the back porch of a summer camp back in 07 or maybe 08, and shed tried to get a picture but this was before she got her first iPhone, and by the time shed retrieved her camera from the living room, the cat was long gone. Jason Hawley says his office gets lots of calls about mountain lions each year. She adds, I think its because a lot of people are fascinated by wild cats; they are the embodiment of the wild.. Defenders of Wildlife developed funding to support wolf predation on cattle which I believe worked. As a carnivore biologist, Hawley says he would love it if mountain lions were here. About six years ago, my mother and step-father were traveling some back roads down to New Boston, NH to visit my sister where she lived in an extended care facility. As a I started asking a lot of questions, and realized theres only one explanation for the answers I was getting: They are here., You could have 30 in Connecticut alone. Neither resemble a cougar! The mountain lion is believed to have had an encounter with a family on their lawn. LOS ANGELES (AP) A mountain lion that was part of a National Park Service study was fatally struck by a vehicle on a highway near Southern California's Santa Monica Mountains. There was the vaguest of trails, crisscrossed by deadfalls and a sharp-thorned bush that soon drew blood from Ottmanns right hand. They usually either don't disperse at all or they'll kind of overlap their mother's home range, or they'll disperse very short distances.. In Florida, where mountain lions are known as panthers, dozens are killed each year by cars. The department has said it receives reports every year of. They have been absent from this state since the late 1800s; however, there have been a few isolated sightings. Newspaperman John Harrigan has long covered the New England outdoors, including writing the New Hampshire Sunday News column Woods, Water & Wildlife which ran for almost 40 years. So all the other states in the Northeast that have bear populations have a harvest on their bears. That had to be a mountain lion. Im not an expert on human psychology, but if youre looking for something, you have a greater chance of actually seeing it. For decades, wildlife experts should have been seeing occasional scat and paw prints in the winter. Adult males can be around 8 feet in length and weigh between 130 and 150 pounds, while adult females can be 7 feet long and weigh between 65 and 90 pounds. Nearby grocery stores include Food Lion, Star Food. Genetic testing placed the animal in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and the cat had been sighted at several different points during its long journey east. The cat is dead. You wouldnt shake hands with a man like that, she said, and though she was smiling I could tell she was serious. There were pine cones on window sills, a well-used hatchet and a variety of animal figurines on display, and, near the television, a stack of videos including. Saw one on old mountain rd Peterborough N.H. a few years ago on my property followed it and ran to get my camera have a photo but in distance by time got it was amazing animal t Metcalf. The last catamount in Vermont is finally, officially, certainly dead. It may not surprise you to learn that I was quite intrigued by this third group. They denied it until a cougar was hit as it tried to cross the very busy Merritt Parkway. Not long after, what was believed to be the same mountain lion was struck and killed on Route 15 in Milford. At the time, a specialist from the Iowa Department of Natural. Then in June 2011, there were reports of a mountain lion in Greenwich and, for the first time, a photo. Mountain Lion Update - May 8, 2020, by Sam Wilson, Furbearer and Carnivore Program Manager. By mid-19th century, forests made up only about 30 percent of New England (its notable that today that number stands at approximately 80 percent, nearer to what it was when cougars thrived here). Mountain lions (commonly called cougar or puma) vary in size and weight. I think they never left, Ottmann piped in. On the other side, there are those (as represented here by Bill Betty and Bo Ottmann, along with a number of others I spoke with) who say the overwhelming quantity of anecdotal evidence suggests otherwise. After all, if one mountain lion had wandered here, didnt that mean that others could have? We need [an apex] predator back on the land, Sue Morse told me. I have not had the pleasure of seeing one, but have heard credible reports of them in Western Mass. In 2011, genetic testing confirmed that a mountain lion originated in South Dakota and traveled more than 1,500 miles before being struck by a car on the Merritt Parkway, according to Reuters. He is a consummate storyteller, and he wears on his sleeve his affection for the region and the hard-working, commonsense people who inhabit it. . Responding to complaints about a predator eating a local farmers sheep, Crowell and a small group of fellow hunters had tracked the big cat through the snow. Yes, of course they are here, transients. These powerful cats can weigh between 70-220 pounds, with males weighing more. He drove me out to the spot. Instead, people should remain facing the cat and not turn their back on it, make noise and make themselves appear as large as possible by raising their arms over their heads with a jacket. You know, weve had so many home entries this year. I was driving to work in Greenfield heading south on 10 and had just taken a right hand turn at the junction when the big cat crossed the road in front of me. What would motivate DEEP officials to do this isnt clear. Bobcats are found across Connecticut, but even fully grown they are much smaller than what she was describing, only weighing between 18 and 35 pounds. But honest misidentifications are more common. The journey is chronicled in the 2016 book, Abbott, of the Housatonic Valley Association, is equally skeptical of the vast majority of mountain lion sightings. More recently, unexplained animal sightings in Connecticut and other states became more and more associated with mountain lions. It has a long, black-tipped tail and black . The next week, on June 11, the cat was hit and killed by an SUV on the Wilbur Cross Parkway in Milford. P.O. But no. ALSO KNOWN AS Bobcats: Though technically a type of lynx, they are distinct from other species of lynx such as the Canadian lynx. Yet I also remembered something Sue Morse had told me months before, as we sat in her living room drinking beer and chatting cats. Today, instead of focusing on cougar sightings in Eastern states, many cougar enthusiasts want to protect the animal from being hunted in the regions in which they are currently found. Weve got a growing bear population. Distinguished by a boxy head, big paws and a VERY long tail. On a mountain lion that died on a Connecticut highway. It was fast as hell but there was no mistaking its not only long,but THICK tail as it disappeared into the woods. Beautiful creature. When he suggested we retrace our route, past lion, to see a sow bear with cubs, we headed in the opposite direction. September 16, 2020. in Bethlehem, Environment, News, Towns. However, the Department of Energy and. In the first, there are those such as myself, whove maybe heard a few second- or third- or fourth-hand stories as well as official denials from state agencies or professional biologists, and therefore find themselves betwixt and between, neither believing nor disbelieving. And even the home entries are kind of changing. I saw an adult cougar/catamount twice within a two week period. Because he lives among them, Harrigan understands that no one knows the woods better. Photo of a mountain lion taken by a game camera. In the 1930s, Bruce Wright, an influential wildlife manager from New Brunswick, Canada, began gathering reports of sightings of mountain lions in the East and searching for their tracks. Also known as cougars, panthers or pumas, mountain lions range in color from tan to grey, according to the U.S. Department of Agricultures Forest Service. My daughter and I were driving north in West Granby, near the Simsbury, Ct. line just after lunch one summer day a few years ago. And there are different schools of thought about that. Dogos have been DOCUMENTED killing mountain lion / wolf. It used to be that a bear would go into a house when someone wasnt home. . There are an estimated 3,000 - 7,000 Mountain lions in Colorado. It was a 140-pound male mountain lion, the first confirmed in Connecticut in more than 100 years. And yet there I was, on a Saturday in early November, crammed into a booth with Bo Ottmann, 48, and Bill Betty, 72, of Cougars of the Valley, the organization that Ottmann founded in 2007 to gather evidence of and alert the public to the big cats living among us. My wife is not a wildlife expert, but is not prone to flights of fancy. The range of a Mountain Lion may cover 25 to 785 square miles. They are named for their short (bobbed) tail which is often about six inches in length. community-supported public media service, Connecticut Public has relied on donor support for more than 50 years. You dont even have to go out and look for it.. But perhaps an even larger portion is the product of his enduring faith in the men and womanloggers, hunters, trapperswhose vocations and avocations have instilled in them a deep familiarity with wild places and the creatures who inhabit them. And he said, This is where the mountain lion crossed. We walked in and there were fresh bobcat tracks in there. But, yes, thats exactly what it was. Below are some of the first-hand. By 1825, only 25% of Connecticut was forested due to deforestation from agricultural activities and other uses of timber. Harrigan nodded. Hawley: That animal was documented. Mountain lions are carnivores (meat eaters) and prey mostly on deer. Osage County leads the list with seven, followed by Cimarron County with six. This guy was very intelligent, he had abandoned a professional career to pursue his dream of guiding. We even had a sighting someone here at DEEP, in my office, was convinced they saw a mountain lion. Rego says that if there were many other animals like the 2011 cat that died in Milford, there would be more visual or physical evidence. I appreciated Ottmann and Bettys confidence and commitment, but here I was, poking through thorny thickets behind a bar, trailing a bleeding man whose devotion to proving the presence of cougars was beginning to seem like a quixotic quest with no end. The restrictions/regulations surrounding management of an endangered species is incredibly cumbersome, and would be difficult to manage. It lowers the population in a way thats not going to affect the long-term population. Stephen Gencarella, professor of folklore studies at the University of Massachusetts and a Connecticut resident, says, The government coverup is only the latest version of something that could stretch back in the oral tradition to precolonial times. He notes that supposed mountain lion sightings spiked in the late 1800s and early 1900s shortly after the animals disappeared from New Englands woods. We have people eating dinner in their kitchen, they hear a noise, all of a sudden a bear walks in, so they run into their bedroom to get away from the bear, while the bears out ransacking their refrigerator. Even in areas of high cougar density, the there are far more attacks on humans by domesticated dogs or deer/car collision fatalities than those due to cougar attack. Megafauna mania: our obsession with mountain lions and other large predators., Megafauna mania: our obsession with mountain lions and other large predators. But what about the sightings in Connecticut that are made by experienced outdoorsmen and women, people who know the difference between bobcats and mountain lions? Give today at any amount and join the 50,000 members who are And were one of the most densely populated states as far as humans. So why does the conspiracy theory that theyre here in significant numbers persist? Weve done a lot of work over the years investigating sightings. For a solid four seconds, Marchibroda watched as a large, sleek cat standing about three feet tall with a long, curled tail crossed Skyline Drive near Gavel Springs Gap less than 100 feet in front of them. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate. Before I departed the Old Well Tavern, Bo Ottmann offered to lead me on a walk into an adjacent stretch of woods, where, he assured me, cougars might be found. We clearly have migratory male cougars coming through. Zillow has 20 photos of this $299,000 3 beds, 2 baths, -- sqft single family home located at 2439 Adams Farm Ct, Snow Camp, NC 27349 built in 1999. The first time was in the yard which was surrounded by woods. There have been 40 confirmed mountain lion sightings since 2002 in the state, according to the Wildlife Department. Snowy winter AM just before us neighbor kids were heading to catch the bus, we (myself, my dad and neighbor) all watched a large cat cross the yard and leave huge prints and a distinct tail drag mark in the snow! The discussion of whether federal lands should be a place to subsidize cattle ranching is another question. Mountain Lions in New York. Perhaps, then, the ultimate question isnt whether cougars are among us, but rather how we can encourage them to settle here. The Cougar, also known as mountain lion and puma, is Canada's largest and most powerful wildcat. I think of Aldo Leopolds Thinking Like a Mountain essay about how deer decimated the forests and died of starvation because of humans incessant desire to kill. Its distinctive featurethe one that sets it apart from other North American wild catsis its tail, which is thick and often as long as its body. Mountain lion facts. There also should have been evidence of animals killed by the predators and roadkill. I must have looked doubtfulwe were within spitting distance of a heavily trafficked road and only 12 miles from downtown Hartfordbut both Ottmann and Betty told me that cougars actually prefer more populated areas, since thats where deer tend to congregate. But sometimes, instead of mountain lions, people thought they saw other creatures in the Connecticut woods, of which authorities were supposedly aware. Even though the experts say there arent any mountain lions in CT, there are. But its also a great story that lays out how an animal this large, at 150 pounds, traveling through even rural areas, leaves signs and is detected. There was one photographed on a porch in Greenwich, CT, looking in the patio window that made national news a decade ago. Weve had coyotes misidentified. Ask people who spend time outside Connecticut cities and you will hear firsthand or secondhand accounts of mountain lions. We witnessed a mountain lion stalking a herd of deer. Abbott, of the Housatonic Valley Association, is equally skeptical of the vast majority of mountain lion sightings. The journey is chronicled in the 2016 book Heart of a Lion: A Lone Cats Walk Across America by William Stolzenburg. An Arkansas woman captured a big cat on her doorbell camera that she believes is a mountain lion or cougar. Bobcats and a possible mountain lion have been mentioned within the past few weeks. It was his great coolness and daring (either that, or fear) that enabled Crowell to shoot the animal at a distance of one rod only (roughly 16 feet), first hitting it in the leg with his shotgun, then dispatching it with a bullet to the head from a borrowed rifle. We strolled across the tavern parking lot and ducked into the forest, where Ottmann maintains a portion of his $15,000 worth of wildlife recording equipment (hes had no luck capturing a cougar on camera, though, despite more than a decade of trying). Wright, however, didnt agree with his mentor and began writing publicly about mountain lions in the East. Even so, for decades, skeptics dismissed mountain lion sightings in Connecticut out of hand, pointing out that if the cats were here in anywhere close to the number of reported sightings, there would be DNA and physical evidence of their presence, not to mention photos and videos. Bill Betty of Matunuck, a mountain lion expert who spoke at the South Kingstown Land Trust barn Oct. 30, thinks there is ample evidence pointing to the existence of a mountain lion in Matunuck. Because they are.. Records suggest that cash bounties for cougar kills were relatively common in the late 1700s and early 1800s; in the Adirondacks, a trapper named Thomas Meacham was credited with 77 cougar kills. July 20, 2022. Vermont-based naturalist SueMorse has spent decades studying, tracking, andphotographing cougars outwest. Could UConn women's basketball be back to 'square one' with seven available players at Seton Hall? Ive seen bobcats before, this wasnt a bobcat. And its a lose-lose situation, because theres really not a whole lot you can tell them in most cases thats going to change their mind.. And its not just Vermont. Mountain lions are nocturnal hunters, mostly going after deer. Finally, in the third camp, there are the true believersthe cougar truthers, if you willthe men and women for whom the only logical conclusion (often reached after a significant investment of time, thought, and sometimes money) is that right here, right now, cougars live among us, feeding and breeding and rearing their young, and that suggesting otherwise is sheer ignorance, willful denial, or part of a mosaic of conspiracy. But other hard evidence of the big cats presence is elusive. He knew it was only a matter of time. She still produces shows with Colin and the team when her schedule allows. Once at dusk driving in the Berkshires, he saw what he initially thought was a cat-like creature that was far bigger than a bobcat leap across the road. Harrigan is 72 and lives just outside the northern New Hampshire town of Colebrook; he has a long, craggy face that seems almost to have molded itself after the mountainous landscape of his home state. Based on this blurry photo and pawprints, confirmed it was likely a mountain lion. Stupid me grabbed my camera and a stick as to protect myself ( yes stupid idea as I could stop this thing from attacking me lol. Officially, the last mountain lions were hunted to extinction here in the late 1800s. If a young male Cougar disperses East, instead of West, they're going to keep walking because they're going tokeep looking for an area where they can find a mate, he said. There is no shortage of deer for all apex predators whether they are canine, feline, or human. 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