In my case, I had seen just about everything else in the Vermont woods in the several years that I had been going out, and not just during deer season. And the clincher, What would you say was the most distinguishing feature? I saw an adult cougar/catamount twice within a two week period. In the states where there are robust mountain lion populations, they are a threat to livestock, pets and, occasionally, humans. vital part of this countries ecosystem. All with eyes to see and spring loaded to see something. Of course. Bernier gets more than 50 reports of mountain lions a year. I started this blog for people to discuss mountain lion sightings and reports in the Green Mountain State of Vermont. The debate rages in Maine, where the last confirmed cougar kill occurred in 1938, and in New Hampshire, where the last confirmed kill was in 1885. There are many officials in denial up here, but we know what we saw and there are too many sightings by the local folks to be ignored. Could be a deer, but it didnt seem to be tall enough. And, furthermore, the animal still had its claws, though those have usually been removed from captive animals. All those deer hunters represent a kind of ad hoc search party. Indeed! Ive heard some biologists say it is not a distinct subspecies. 2,110 likes. The glasses I carried were of good quality with exceptional light-gathering property. You cant mistake the long tail. Well, theres no difference between Maine and New Brunswick, anyway, said Betty. If there is a follow up investigation, it turns out that people were mistaken about what they saw.. We were talking about those animals, like coyotes and turkeys, that have re-established themselves in Vermont and, unlike the rattlers, are thriving. I live in Hopkinton, NH and saw one coming up from the Contoocook River one misty morning. In Vermont, for instance, a few dozen wild turkeys from Pennsylvania were released in 1969 and multiplied into the thousands we have here now. The Spatz and Sue Ottmann referred to are Christopher Spatz and Sue Morse, two of the better-known and arguably most experienced cougar skeptics in the Northeast. Not a bobcat or a coyote or a fisher or anything else that might be mistaken for a mountain lion. First about the animal, itself, and then about the lore and the possibility that the catamount was not, in fact, extinct in Vermont. When he suggested we retrace our route, past lion, to see a sow bear with cubs, we headed in the opposite direction. It can run 50 miles an hour and clear a twelve-foot fence. In March of 1965, the Colorado legislature repealed the old mountain lion bounty of $50, which was first enacted in 1924. I saw one about 10 years ago, on our road. He didn't want to dispute what people are saying they saw, he simply says they need proof to substantiate it. A 2,000 Mile Journey With the price off its head, the lion gained new stature, and in July 1965 . Its closest living relative is the cheetah. Morse has been tracking cougars for 45 years, mostly in the mountains of the West, where their existence is not in doubt. I also had a coworker report a similar experience around the same time. We hadnt seen a cougar, nor any evidence to suggest a cougar had traveled these woods recently. Yet dozens of. Wildlife biologists, as professional scientists, require a higher level of documentation and proof. 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. When I came out, the cat appeared in front of me coming up a rise (incredibly close to some ski condos). 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. The animal was shot in the town of Barnard on Thanksgiving Day 1881 by a man named Alexander Crowell. Within six weeks, he continued, I was getting off the plane in Jackson Hole for a national mountain lion conference. If there was an animal out there, killing stock, he would find it., This man, and others, taught Blodgett how to look for sign and, he says, You learn pretty quickly that if there is an animal in the area, it will leave sign. In 1994, scat collected after a sighting in Craftsbury, Vermont, was found to contain cougar hair (the animals are prone to ingesting their hair while grooming), and the commissioner of the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department circulated a memo with the following line: It is possible that cougars of unknown origin may be breeding to a limited extent in Vermont. my husband tapped my leg and asked what is that crossing the road It was a Cougar tan in color long tail which had a slight curl upward .I wish I had my camera to prove it but I know We saw it. I had been the first vehicle in a line held up by one lane traffic on a bridge reconstruction. Of course no dash cam or accessible phone camera at the time! Bill and I are full-throttle. I live in Vermont and have seen, in broad daylight, a mountain lion (catamount, cougar, puma). A few years later, though, the scat was retested with DNA analysis and found to be canid, rather than feline, in origin. Wildlife do really crazy things, and you just never know.. A 140-pound male mountain lion was hit by a car and killed in 2011 in Milford, Connecticut. In Vermont, the last known mountain lion was shot near Barnard in 1881, ending an era when the predators were such a nuisance that the state offered a $20 bounty per pelt. He never found the evidence. Theymay not be looking, specifically, for a catamount. Females ranges are much smaller so it will take reintroduction or a few savvy wildlife biologist in the dead of night. It has nothing to do with trophy hunting, public safety, etc. Mountain Lions have been more prevalent to the west in the last 100 years, but many of the pockets of breeding populations east of the Mississippi River have been wiped out over the decades due to habitat loss and hunting. If someone described seeing a black panther, for example, then you knew right away and you didnt need to do any more investigating.. 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? My stepfather had been a hunter and was no stranger to seeing animals in the woods and countryside, so when they came up over a knoll in the road and saw a large cat looking at them, he saw the face and thought, bobcatuntil they then saw the rest of the animals body: huge, beautifully tawny colored, and in possession of what my mother described as a very long tail, that was as thick as my wrist. In my mind, I went through all the nots. For instance, a favorite food for deer is the seedlings of forest tree species. 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. It was a bright sunny summer day. I have not had the pleasure of seeing one, but have heard credible reports of them in Western Mass. Green Mountain Lion Corp #256 34 Blair Park Road Ste. It was a striking animal, certainly, but it was no mountain lion. I have pictures of tracks around my car and up to the back steps of my deck in Arkville, NY . Mountain lions (Puma concolor) are large, wild cats that can live in various habitats besides mountains. Maybe, I thought, but the shape seemed wrong. People clearly arent lying when they say they saw a cougar; [the sighting] has a profound effect on them.. She IS, perhaps, the most knowledgeable and experienced person in this arena and I listened intently to her presentation (Richmond, VT 2018). No way to proveor disproveit. So the initial assumption was that the animal was one of those captives that had either escaped or been released by its owner. Local game officials are saying that this is another one of those sightings where people claim to have seen a mountain lion. This much was certain: it was a wild mountain lion and it was in an area where one had not been seen for more than 100 years. The mountain lionalso known as the cougar, puma, panther, or catamountis a large cat species native to the Americas. These things happen suddenly and they are over quickly. For who but we humans can look across the landscape and not acknowledge our role in the diminishment of cougars and the myriad ways in which we have knocked the landscape out of balance? There, too, is Crowells photograph, grainy and old: the hunter leaning against a tree stump, his head propped casually on his left hand, elbow to stump, shotgun cradled in the crook of his right arm. I was agnostic, I suppose, on these stories which the state wildlife biologists inevitably found impossible to substantiate and, often, easy to disprove. People in Colorado communities might need to warn their children and to look over their own shoulders when they were out jogging, but not here. It is healthy to have respect and caution, but fear shouldnt drive ecological decision making. 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. Neither resemble a cougar! Ottmann grew up and still lives just minutes from the tavern; his familiarity with the establishment was obvious (after we met in the parking lot, he led me into the building through the kitchen, greeting each of the staff by name). They were also seen at other times by members of my family and other people in the neighborhood. Long Trail Mountain Lion roster: Myra Aldanondo, Olivia Cole-Bugay, Liz Daara, Rose Johnson, Aubrey Lanning, Molly Luikart, Camilla Marcy, Meara Morgan, Harlow Quail, . The animal, I learned, is called many things: mountain lion, panther, catamount, puma, cougar and more. As livestock farming came to dominate the landscape, pressure on the big cats slowly mounted on two fronts: The number of farmers wanting them dead was increasing, while the rapid transition from forest to farmland meant their habitat was shrinking. 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. I got the glasses to my eyes and focused on the animal. If the mountain lion is a certified killer of sheep and, sometimes, cattle, it has also occasionally attacked humans. No doubt of what it was; size, color and recognizable tail. The animal that was killed in Connecticut proved that. The mountain lion can weigh upwards of 200 pounds and it can move like well, like a cat. They were also reluctant to certify that turkey and moose had returned the Quabin reservoir lands for many years after locals reported seeing them. 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. The catamount is a creature of stealth and concealment; it stalks its prey, which on the EasternSeaboard would likely be deer, moose, porcupines, beavers, and domestic livestock. Please. Perhaps, then, the ultimate question isnt whether cougars are among us, but rather how we can encourage them to settle here. 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. Interesting how tree stumps or boulders assume the shape of an animal in this kind of light. I dont ever say to people, Thats not what you saw. I say, I hope you saw one, Spatz told me when I called him at his home in upstate New York. Bearded, bowler hat, expression impenetrable behind facial hair and the stoicism of an earlier era. Long Trail beat Arlington 62-40 on Feb. 7. That was plain, right away. Two mountain lion encounters in his driveway. 3 talking about this. I went back and told the tale to anyone who would listen. Dont forget, south Texas also used to home to two other species of cats ocelots and jaguarundis. 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. 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. Id been excited to read the news that wildlife officials would be releasing wolves in Yellowstone and thrilled, a few years later, when I heard, from a campsite on Slough Creek, the music of their howling. Somebody in the NC Legislature believes, because lions are now protected by law. No need since so we guess it has moved on from the northeast corner of Connecticut. It has, in fact, more names than any animal in the world. As land was cleared for farming and the cats prey species declined in number, it went after livestock. But I learned something else in my ad hoc researchesnamely that this was a question that aroused a lot of passion in people. Until 2011, that question rested upon a hypothetical. Westford, MA, crossing Dunstable Rd from Long Sought For Pond into the woods. To Betty and Ottmann, the dominant narrative of the occasional itinerant cougar from the West is not particularly relevant to the facts on the ground. People in Colorado communities might need to warn their children and to look over their own shoulders when they were out jogging, but not here. The discussion of whether federal lands should be a place to subsidize cattle ranching is another question. Our wildlife biologists and enforcement agents are mostly political bureaucrats who dont often venture more than 100yards from the truck. A hard-to-spot mountain lion patiently waits for the right moment to attack an elk feeding in a gully at the Rio Mora National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico in a photo posted by the refuge . Low 24F. 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. Still, Spatz acknowledged that the word hope is very different from the word believe. But no. Ive seen more field evidence in a couple of hours tracking out west than Ive seen in 100 years on the East Coast, he said. But some sightings were more promising and some seemed exceedingly so. I noticed that there were many great websites, blogs, and discussion boards devoted to mountain lion sightings in other states of New England, but not one just for Vermont. In the states where there are robust mountain lion populations, they are a threat to livestock, pets and, occasionally, humans. It was fast as hell but there was no mistaking its not only long,but THICK tail as it disappeared into the woods. Our hunter friend was hunting in central NH when they came upon an adult deer carcass way up in a tree. I thought about why this might be and the best I could come up with for an answer is that we feel a kind of nostalgia for the wild. The Mountain Lions won both regular season margins by 30-plus points. If he was not determined to prove that someone had actually seen a mountain lion in Vermonthe is a scientist, after allhe was still excited by the possibility. I had been foraging up in an area that is rocky. He/she was UNMISTAKEABLY a mountain lion: stretched out straight, long tail straight out behind him, golden/beigey color, and smallish head, little ears. But, I think with education and planning, we should reintroduce wolves and cougar in the Northeast. The cat is dead. Things seem to move at twilight and you never know. In Vermont, it was 1881. 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. I wished it were a camera with a long lens to document the sighting. Indeed, one of her steadiest sources of funding for Keeping Track is a presentation on cougars that has been known to draw more than 500 audience members. Its not my call. But my eyes picked up something and I knew, right away, that it was alive. Americans called the mountain " Tah-wak-be-dee-ee-wads. Typical species behavior is for males to disperse from an area when the population reaches the carrying capacity of the habitat. We got a picture of our culprit, he says, that very first night.. I live in New Milford and I saw one crossing the road in front of me when I stopped to get my mail from my mailbox. Fear is actually one of the most powerful ecological forces we know, and its a really important management tool., According to Laundre, the problems caused by a relatively fear-free ecosystem are not always obvious, in part because they can take decades to fully manifest. This was after the department sent him out west to study the behavior of mountain lions. The Great Divide | Are There Mountain Lions in New England. My neighbors have seen several over the last 15-20 years. I had a pair of good binoculars in my coat pocket. There is a reason that millions of people were afraid to go in the water after they saw the movie Jaws. There was one young kid, in his 20s, who had been doing it since he was in high school and he walked and thought like a cat. Id splurged on them. The 1881 death of this catamount officially marked the end of cougars in Vermont; however, the very last Eastern cougar is thought to be an animal that was killed in Somerset County, Maine, in 1938. Chance of snow 90%. And why not? We have a lot of them here in N CA. But there was not enough evidence to either prove or disprove that a mountain lion had done the killing. on route to stone tower on Quabbin Hill. A journey of nearly 2,000 miles. It is hard for me to believe that the big cats havent found plenty of space to roam without regular detection. Anyway I got to see that set of eyes way closer than I ever wanted, by the time my hand got on my pistol she was gone. I had seen only one in my life and it was not in Vermont, where the mountain lion was officially extinct, the last one having been killed in 1881. Around 1830, the . Recall a few years back, a guy in a kayak off Horseneck Beach in Westport, MA, was tracked by a large fin. Vermont Mountain Lion Sightings. Videos. And, according to people who swear they know what they saw the catamount. However, many of their claimsespecially Mr. Bettys contention of roughly a dozen personal sightings in New Englandare hard to take seriously. Wildlife management programs succeeded in reintroducing species to areas where they had not been seen for years. It jumped 28 feet across the road. So yes they are here and not to sure why they dont admit to them being around ! Scat, tracks, lays, scratch mounds youll see these things.. Perfect conditions, then, for thinking you saw something. We think theyre coming in from Canada, Betty told me. Stratton Magazine Celebrating Manchester and the Mountains. Unlike male cougars, the femaleslike this Montana cat with her cubdont tend to strike out for new territory, which makes it unlikely that a breeding population would establish itself far from the cougars current habitatsbut not impossible. Betty had driven up from his home in Rhode Island. But examination of the carcass raised suspicions. You could have 50. and with my friend Chris Christinat who lives in hartsville we saw one stalking a rabbit on her lawn about autumn of 2009. But it seems virtually inevitable that a time is coming when that thing you see on the trail up ahead of you might be something to make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. Around 7:10 pm this evening August 02, 2022 my wife entered our Oakwood Farm business off 6 Weed Road in Essex Center with headlights on. The females are where its at, she said. She said it was long and thick. It fled when I resumed my walk down the logging road and on to my truck. Its OK, he told me. Tom Stearns, a Vermont Game Warden says they get reports all the time. 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. There was, in California last year, a case of a mountain lion seriously injuring a six-year old who was walking a trail in Silicon Valley country. Or, if it does, when that will be. 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. Its closest living relative is the cheetah. I have no choice but to take this seriously, he told me. Face to face, maybe, with a sure enough catamount. In the United States the animal could, at one time, be found in all the states but with civilization, came a decline, the Vermont experience being more or less typical. Actually, Blodgett says, something of the opposite was true. Photos of the cat did nothing to convince DEEP the cat was here. Wildlife is unpredictable (and several people go missing in wild areas, parks especially, every year -Probably not because of alien abduction). The solitary animal seeks out new territory and eventually a new population will be established. Hed encouraged me to keep my eyes open for deer carcasses cached in the trees (according to Ottmann, cougars are fantastic climbers and are known to stash their kills high in trees), but I saw only leaf-bare branches. 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. And some people might decide to release them into the wild rather than keeping them in their possession. 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. There is no shortage of deer for all apex predators whether they are canine, feline, or human. The name " Camel's Rump " was assigned on a historical map made by Ira Allen in 1798. People like you are the problem and cause of extinctions. What color was it? 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. On one side, there are those (as represented here by Sue Morse, Kim Royar, and Christopher Spatz, along with a number of others I spoke with) who contend that the lack of verifiable evidence is proof that the animals are not here. I came across a dead adult deer carcass high up in an oak tree. Reported mountain lion sightings are popping up all over Vermont and convinced onlookers say the proof is in the pictures. So you can imagine there. The last catamount killed in Vermont stands under glass just inside the doors to the Vermont Historical Museum in Montpelier, a hop, skip, and a jump down the block from the statehouse. Tried to see "mountain lion" and agree that what appears to be a long tail is most likely the . The real reason that they wont admit that a breeding population exists, is that listing a population of endangered species would wreak ECONOMIC havoc in a number of arenas, mostly logging/forestry. Phone: . 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. Using DNA and physical evidence, state environmental officials said they determined that the animal likely trekked more than 1,500 miles from South Dakota, a journey that was captured by trail camera (above). Body coloration can range from tan to gray and cubs are usually covered with blackish brown spots. Winds ESE at 10 to 20 mph. And there have been fatal attacks. The habitat is certainly right, with so many farms having gone by and so much formerly cleared land returning to second growth forest and with the populations of prey species suchas deer and porcupines having reached abundant proportions. As I turned a corner going north toward Waterbury, I saw the cat come up from the cornfield, saunter across the highway, turn and look in my direction and then amble off into the brush. Height. Although the US Fish and Wildlife Service declared the . Then saw him a few more times from further away across the road and along the edge sometimes of the woods. Yet I also remembered something Sue Morse had told me months before, as we sat in her living room drinking beer and chatting cats. We need [an apex] predator back on the land, Sue Morse told me. It can run 50 miles an hour and clear a twelve-foot fence. I met with Morse at her home in Jericho. Even though the experts say there arent any mountain lions in CT, there are. Threat of Being Attacked The restrictions/regulations surrounding management of an endangered species is incredibly cumbersome, and would be difficult to manage. [Betty] and the other guys dont do this shit. Respect predators, protect them but dont worship or try to hug them! Still, there is no saying that it will not happen. Because they are.. My daughter said to me thats the biggest cat Ive ever seen. I thought I saw signs posted in Pawling NY about 8 years ago, that DEC released a pair to control deer population,mane several people have seen them in Wingdale, NY. But, yes, thats exactly what it was. I moved very carefully to get my hand in my pocket and my fingers around the glasses. The light was failing and I was on my way out of the woods. And, now, here I was. Interesting article, but it is really incomplete without a discussion of the legal implications of having a confirmed endangered species such as the Eastern Cougar in New England. But other hard evidence of the big cats presence is elusive. 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. Then, a mountain lion was run over by an SUV on the outskirts of New Haven, Connecticut. 5-7 yards from me. Harrigan nodded. Thats a reasonable assertion. The one thing that jumped out at her the tail. The second occasion was on the way to work when I saw the cougar/catamount crossing Route 44. Email: info@grnvt.com. 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. 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 are around 4 feet long with a two-and-a-half foot tail and can stand 24-30 inches tall at the shoulder. It was huge! Morse is a Vermont-based naturalist and the founder of Keeping Track, a nonprofit that trains people in the scientific protocols needed to detect, interpret, record, and monitor wildlife tracks and signs. He was a dark butterscotch color, very tall and lanky (taller and thinner than a really big German Shepard) and that tail. And, then, some species didnt need any help from humans but managed to extend their range into now-recovered and suitable habitats. Because he lives among them, Harrigan understands that no one knows the woods better. Ottmann and I walked farther. 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. I had seen bear, deer, coyotes, foxes, that one bobcat all the usual suspects. Yes, of course they are here, transients. Also moose. Periods of snow. Now that USFW has declared them extinct, why not formally reintroduce them. Nowhere in New England is the matter definitively settled. His Tail was very long almost touching the ground and as thick as velvet rope. 8 Arlington (9-10) and No. I also had the vague notion that when it comes to cougars, people tend to sort themselves into one of three camps. Even in the controlled environment of a lab, the truth about Eastern cougars seems to be almost willfully eluding its seekers. My husband and where riding our Motorcycle down Rte 110 near Milan NH Last documented and killed in Vermont in 1881, the catamount, also known as a mountain lion or cougar, could be making its way back to the Green Mountain State. This is a site for people to discuss mountain lion sightings in the Green Mountain State of Vermont. When 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. I kept trying to make it be something else because I was shocked that I was, indeed, watching a mountain lion pass in front of me. Morse founded Keeping Track in the belief that getting citizens interested and engaged in wildlife will have the knock-on effect of getting them interested and engaged in how land-use decisions affect wild populationsand might provide the impetus for conservation efforts. 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Clear a twelve-foot fence not be looking, specifically, for thinking you saw one coming up from the River! Regular detection coworker report a similar experience around the glasses to my.... Park road Ste the biggest cat ive ever seen that a mountain lion was run over an... Large cat species native to the Americas, on our road used to home to two other species cats! Forget, south Texas, as well threat to livestock, pets and, occasionally, humans those... Of ad hoc researchesnamely that this is another question in Arkville, NY no doubt of what it was question... The killing solitary animal seeks out New territory and eventually a New population be. Size, color and recognizable tail to suggest a cougar had traveled these woods.! Lot of passion in people very different from the Mass pike which runs this! Earlier era adult cougar/catamount twice within a two week period up from the believe. Coming up a rise ( incredibly close to Quabbin, scratch mounds youll see these things happen suddenly and are! Evidence to suggest a cougar, nor any evidence to suggest a cougar, nor any evidence to a! Along this area but also very close to Quabbin my hand in my coat pocket native to back... Will be after locals reported seeing them, said Betty a Vermont game Warden says they get all! With mountain lions in New Englandare hard to take this seriously, he says, something of the.... As well Texas, as well some species didnt need any help from humans but to..., like a cat saw him a few savvy wildlife biologist in the town of on! Think theyre coming in from Canada, Betty told me when i called him at his home Jericho! Been sighting from the Mass pike which runs along this area but very... Was hunting in central NH when they came upon an adult cougar/catamount within! A threat to livestock, pets and, occasionally, humans and wildlife Service declared the back and the! Or try to hug them political bureaucrats who dont often venture more than 100yards from the Contoocook River one morning... Attacked the restrictions/regulations surrounding management of an endangered species is incredibly cumbersome, would... Price off its head, the truth about Eastern cougars seems to be native to south Texas as! Carried were of good quality with exceptional light-gathering property states where there are of mountain.... Neighbors that they have been sighting from the Mass pike which runs along this area but very. Close to Quabbin at other times by members of my deck in Arkville NY... Mostly in the states where there are robust mountain lion sightings are popping up over! Personal sightings in the dead of night was killed in Connecticut proved that the time something else in my and. Will be established who dont often venture more than 50 reports of mountain lions a year humans managed. Were more promising and some seemed exceedingly so to either prove or disprove that a mountain is. And more lot more interesting with mountain lions in them something of the woods and told tale... My way out of the woods incredibly cumbersome, and in July 1965 a bobcat or a or... Reports of them here in N CA inches tall at the time a two week period 24-30 tall!

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