Long Trail Mountain Lion roster: Myra Aldanondo, Olivia Cole-Bugay, Liz Daara, Rose Johnson, Aubrey Lanning, Molly Luikart, Camilla Marcy, Meara Morgan, Harlow Quail, . 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. Im gonna get hammered for it, he sighed. 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. Height. Some might mistake the bobcat, which still lives in New England, for a cougareven though its tail is about 6 inches long andthe bigger cats is 3 feet or more. The key to Morses assertion can be found in the term breeding population. Although the fact that cougars have traveled through New England is irrefutable (a DNA-confirmed roadkill is hard to deny), Morse believes its unlikely that they have settled here and created a self-sustaining population. Geoffrey Norman is a Dorset author and a frequent contributor to Stratton Magazine. This is always been a debate however as someone who is an avid Outdoorsman I can say with certainty I know of at least 12 people that have personal accounts of seeing mountain lion in Central and Western Massachusetts. 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. As land was cleared for farming and the cats prey species declined in number, it went after livestock. It had moved a little and was standing unconcealed, now, in the middle of the logging road. When a cats around, its not hard to find evidence. I lived in great Barrington mass and I took photos of tracks in a field in April of 2009 (and of course lost them). Beautiful animal. She favors plaid shirts, green Dickies work pants, and hiking boots, and she chided me for shaking her hand too gently. Having retired from a career at General Dynamics, he devotes many of his waking hours to cougar research, a passion hes cultivated for nearly twodecades. Several years ago, I was bicycling with a buddy up Quabbin Reservoirs Administration Rd. o" which translates to " the mountain like a seat." Samuel de Champlain's exploration party in the 1630's called the mountain " lion couchant " or resting lion. Betty was quiet, and I wondered if even he, a man who does not doubt the presence of these cats in our midst and who himself claims multiple sightings, thought Ottmann was exaggerating. 8 Arlington (9-10) and No. I also had a coworker report a similar experience around the same time. In this case, there was the carcass of a deer, recently killed in the area where a couple had reported seeing what looked like a mountain lion on land they owned. Tom Stearns, a Vermont Game Warden says they get reports all the time. Whatever it was, it was standing motionless and, I thought, looking back at me as intently as I was staring at it. The name " Camel's Rump " was assigned on a historical map made by Ira Allen in 1798. Our wildlife biologists and enforcement agents are mostly political bureaucrats who dont often venture more than 100yards from the truck. A mountain lion was responsible for that too. 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. Among the mountain lions typical behaviors is the way it will revisit, for several days, the carcass of an animal it has killed, moving it and cacheing it until there is nothing left to eat or the flesh has turned. 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. And, according to people who swear they know what they saw the catamount. When he suggested we retrace our route, past lion, to see a sow bear with cubs, we headed in the opposite direction. So if coyotes could return and establish robust populations, why not a few catamounts? They set the stage for the exotics to move in, and this has a huge impact on our ecology, he said. My assumption is it was the same animal. Videos - Industry Stories; Find Candidates; The mountain lionalso known as the cougar, puma, panther, or catamountis a large cat species native to the Americas. I saw one yesterday in Windsor Cty Vermont. Matthew Johnson/Vermont Historical Society. Dont forget, south Texas also used to home to two other species of cats ocelots and jaguarundis. Scat, tracks, lays, scratch mounds youll see these things.. We got a picture of our culprit, he says, that very first night.. Everglades Panther Mid Vermont Christian School (MVCS) was set to play the Long Tail Mountain Lions last Tuesday before the former decided not to compete based on concerns for player safety and fairness. You need to understand that every biologist that works for the state has a duty to deny mountain lions. The Mountain Lions won both regular season margins by 30-plus points. 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. There was no tracking microchip implanted in the animals body, which is usually the case with captives. I mentioned this to a neighbor who spotted one a few miles away. People clearly arent lying when they say they saw a cougar; [the sighting] has a profound effect on them.. Still, I wanted to believe those sightings were real. But I learned something else in my ad hoc researchesnamely that this was a question that aroused a lot of passion in people. An expert said it was probably a basking shark. The police and everyone else just shook their heads but she to her dying breath said she saw a mountain lion in Lexington MA. There are so many great sites out there devoted to. According to official estimates, as many as 1,000 people own, in spite of legal prohibitions, captive animals. 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. She IS, perhaps, the most knowledgeable and experienced person in this arena and I listened intently to her presentation (Richmond, VT 2018). It is also known as cougar, panther, mountain lion, and puma, though catamount is the preferred regional vernacular. Tried to see "mountain lion" and agree that what appears to be a long tail is most likely the . Several years of doing the follow-ups, then, convinced Blodgett that there were no catamounts in Vermont. Prior to the mid-1990s, the late Wildlife Professor Harold Hitchcock of Middlebury College, became Vermont's Official Big Cat 'hunter', who sought evidence of the Big Cats across the Maple State. The first European settlers arrived in the Texas Hill country in the early 1800s and viewed mountain lions as a dangerous threat to their own survival as well as a predator threat to their livestock. And so we come to the great divide over cougars in New England. Predator removal was steady and unforgiving from the early 1800s . With the price off its head, the lion gained new stature, and in July 1965 . If this habitat can support them, it should. Blodgett and I were returning from a day spent looking forand finding timber rattlesnakes, a species that is endangered in Vermont. All those deer hunters represent a kind of ad hoc search party. 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. 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. THAT is a mountain lion! I saw a cougar in Wolfeboro NH crossing / running across 28 ; close call between myself and a car traveling in the opposite direction over 12 years ago . Especially among those who did believe. Was INCREDIBLE! I was curious enough at the time to do a little research. Others have seen cougar in neighboring towns . Local game officials are saying that this is another one of those sightings where people claim to have seen a mountain lion. There was no mistake. Mountain lions (Puma concolor) are large, wild cats that can live in various habitats besides mountains. 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). Of course. Probably because of all the hunters that would be out trying to get their trophy and endangering others. There is a lot of good habitat between here and the places where there are established populations of mountain lions, he said. Now, ocelots are critically endangered and jaguarundis might be completely gone. It was definitely a cougar. Ive never forgotten that and told it to many folks over the years, most of whom, I must say, thought I was hallucinating I guess but, it/he/she was a fact in Longmeadow, MA that summer long ago. But it was also a male. The evidence, he says, just wasnt there., Mountain Lions Revisit Kill Sites We hadnt seen a cougar, nor any evidence to suggest a cougar had traveled these woods recently. They have a right to exist here and they contribute to healthier prey species. The tail, I said. And, he says, if they were here, wouldnt one have been killed on one of the states highways where cars and trucks travel some 9 million miles every year? [Betty] and the other guys dont do this shit. 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. A 140-pound male mountain lion was hit by a car and killed in 2011 in Milford, Connecticut. Cougars, Lynx, Bobcats, Wolves, Bears etc were and are a It was too far away and the light was too poor for me to know exactly what I was looking at. This, said Vermont Fish and Wildlife fur-bearer project leader Chris Bernier, is why he takes reports of mountain lion sightings seriously. Now that USFW has declared them extinct, why not formally reintroduce them. Then saw him a few more times from further away across the road and along the edge sometimes of the woods. Friends that go backcountry skiing in Vermont have reported seeing tracks to me many times and I have seen pictures of the pawprints myself that look overwheming like a mountain lion. In the 37 years Ive been working, things have changed in ways Id never have predicted. 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. Big kitty. We hadnt seen a cougar, nor any evidence to suggest a cougar had traveled these woods recently. It can run 50 miles an hour and clear a twelve-foot fence. But that was OK. Bo Ottmann knew they were out there. If its not, you just thank the person and say good-bye.. Stratton Magazine Celebrating Manchester and the Mountains. I was agnostic, I suppose, on these stories which the state wildlife biologists inevitably found impossible to substantiate and, often, easy to disprove. In my mind, I went through all the nots. Something I had not expected ever to experience. 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. I think I may have pissed her off since I was up in that area X2 this week. There was one possibility that might account for some of these sightings, he says. Maybe, I thought, but the shape seemed wrong. 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. Wildlife is unpredictable (and several people go missing in wild areas, parks especially, every year -Probably not because of alien abduction). Still, sightings are common. So Blodgett brought what he had learned in Wyoming and Arizona back to Vermont with him and began following up on catamount sightings. Videos. 2,110 likes. One wonders just how tolerant Vermonters would be of a healthy population of mountain lions after one attacked a child waiting for the school bus. Id splurged on them. A 2,000 Mile Journey When I came out, the cat appeared in front of me coming up a rise (incredibly close to some ski condos). 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. 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. But some sightings were more promising and some seemed exceedingly so. In their estimation, the presence of a breeding cougar population in New England would likely stem from our proximity to Canada, where, as they rightly point out, DNA analysis has resulted in 19 positive identifications across Quebec and New Brunswick since 2001 (although some of these were shown to be of South American lineage, suggesting escaped pets). A wildlife camera snapped the image in late 2019 and the refuge shared it on Facebook this month, challenging followers to find the hidden mountain lion. They denied it until a cougar was hit as it tried to cross the very busy Merritt Parkway. That animal in Connecticut makes for a pretty fantastic story but it takes more than one dispersing male. Some people thought that the Fish and Wildlife professionals went into these investigations determined to debunk the sightings. I started this blog for people to discuss mountain lion sightings and reports in the Green Mountain State of Vermont. Until 2011, that question rested upon a hypothetical. I had been the first vehicle in a line held up by one lane traffic on a bridge reconstruction. We really must establish first that these beautiful animals SHOULD be in every state that was once THEIR habitat. He never found the evidence. For instance, a favorite food for deer is the seedlings of forest tree species. Green Mountain Lion Corp #256 34 Blair Park Road Ste. The one thing that jumped out at her the tail. 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. But, yes, thats exactly what it was. 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. Humans and wildlife MUST learn to live along side each other and we MUST learn to respect nature. Morse has been tracking cougars for 45 years, mostly in the mountains of the West, where their existence is not in doubt. Its closest living relative is the cheetah. This is part of the cougar business. My own inclination, for the little it matters, is to side with the professionals like Blodgett. No way to proveor disproveit. As they watched in amazement, the cat casually moved off and disappeared into the surrounding woods. Maybe you've seen the UVM(University of Vermont) catamount at a basketball game, or the catamount at the Vermont History Museum. But, I think with education and planning, we should reintroduce wolves and cougar in the Northeast. Success stories being more fun to talk about than the other kind. And, now, here I was. 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. 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? Could be a deer, but it didnt seem to be tall enough. These sightings usually took place at night or in fading light, like that of my bobcat encounter. I had a pair of good binoculars in my coat pocket. and with my friend Chris Christinat who lives in hartsville we saw one stalking a rabbit on her lawn about autumn of 2009. The truth is, I was by this point dubious. Reported mountain lion sightings are popping up all over Vermont and convinced onlookers say the proof is in the pictures. And some people might decide to release them into the wild rather than keeping them in their possession. This isnt to say she believes none of these animals has stepped foot on New England soil over the past century. Whenever I drive up and through my home state of Vermont, I look into the hills that surround me that have no sign of development for miles and miles. Still, there is no saying that it will not happen. They are there and thriving!!!! And the clincher, What would you say was the most distinguishing feature? This is a site for people to discuss mountain lion sightings in the Green Mountain State of Vermont. There was one photographed on a porch in Greenwich, CT, looking in the patio window that made national news a decade ago. 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. You could have 50. 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. I was aware, too, of how a certain mythology surrounding the animal had taken root in Vermonts culture and even its identity: The University of Vermonts athletic teams, for instance, are known as the Vermont Catamounts, and their logo features a snarling cat lunging through the cleft of a V.. These were old growth woods and the canopy had kept the ground cover down, so I could see three or four hundred yards ahead of me but not clearly, because of the gloom. 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: Harrigans interest in cougars was sparked in the late 70s, after he took ownership of, Perhaps, then, the ultimate question isnt whether cougars are among us, but rather how we can encourage them to settle here, After 20 minutes or so, we turned and stumbled our way back to the parking lot. There were caribou antlers mounted above the front doors, and the interior walls were covered in row upon row of books; a long table was piled high with still more books in seemingly random arrangements. Wildlife biologists, as professional scientists, require a higher level of documentation and proof. They are much larger than bobcat and lynx, young adults can still have spots too. But never a catamount. 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. 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. But I dont think it will happen any time soon.. It was huge! We also had bobcats that we saw quite often but I am positive that these were mountain lions! So the initial assumption was that the animal was one of those captives that had either escaped or been released by its owner. So you can imagine there. Hes also unafraid to take unpopular positions when he deems it necessary: Shortly before our meeting, hed signed a petition in favor of keeping ATVs off public roads. ), 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. I wondered why he didnt just stop & cuff that pesky dog up side of his head surely he couldve held his own, tho they were about the same size. These things happen suddenly and they are over quickly. Yet dozens of. It kills to eat but does not necessarily practice any sort of conservation ethic. No need since so we guess it has moved on from the northeast corner of Connecticut. Winds ESE at 10 to 20 mph. Bennington, VT (05201) Today. 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. The solitary animal seeks out new territory and eventually a new population will be established. My daughter said to me thats the biggest cat Ive ever seen. Instead, the responsne I heard were nonchalant, Oh, yes, lots of people have seen that mountain lion around here; pretty isnt it?. , young adults can still have spots too own, in spite of legal prohibitions, captive animals shape wrong. Live along side each other and we MUST learn to live along side other. Another one of those captives that had either escaped or been released by owner. Been tracking cougars for 45 years, mostly mountain lion vermont the animals body which... 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