It had traveled, certainly, though Minnesota and Wisconsin and, who knows, perhaps even Vermont and might, then, have accounted for some of those sightings. 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. 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. 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. Many on both sides of the cougar debate beileve that New Englands natural habitat would benefit from having an apex predator in the ecosystem again. 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. Escapes by these animals were not impossible. What color was it? 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). Low 24F. 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! This isnt to say she believes none of these animals has stepped foot on New England soil over the past century. The animal, I learned, is called many things: mountain lion, panther, catamount, puma, cougar and more. 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. They may get here, Doug Blodgett said to me one afternoon. Im not surprised that various state officers deny the presence of cougars in new England. When we reached tower, a ranger arrived in a pickup. Some with cameras. Its mounted carcass is on display in Montpelier where Id seen it when I was the adult supervision for my daughters sixth-grade class trip to the capital. So yes they are here and not to sure why they dont admit to them being around ! And, furthermore, the animal still had its claws, though those have usually been removed from captive animals. Nostalgia for the Wild Vermont Mountain Lion Sightings. I got the glasses to my eyes and focused on the animal. I will never forget what I saw! They are here in the Catskill Mountains, so named for the magnificent felines. As I looked at my daughter and then turned to follow the direction she was looking, I saw the animal in my side mirror. Because he lives among them, Harrigan understands that no one knows the woods better. My assumption is it was the same animal. He was a dark butterscotch color, very tall and lanky (taller and thinner than a really big German Shepard) and that tail. Distinguished by a boxy head, big paws and a VERY long tail. 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. The tails gotta be there. Body coloration can range from tan to gray and cubs are usually covered with blackish brown spots. By the late 20th century, the range of the catamount was confined to several western states and a small remnant population along the Gulf Coast that was eventually squeezed down into the Everglades/Big Cypress area of Florida and reduced to a couple of dozen animals of poor genetic quality due to inbreeding. 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. Photo courtesy of Dave O'Donnell. What set it off was a National Geographic special on mountain lions in California, right after my daughter and I had two encounters in my driveway, Betty told me. Then saw him a few more times from further away across the road and along the edge sometimes of the woods. 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. The scientific name for the catamount is Puma concolor. Yet I also remembered something Sue Morse had told me months before, as we sat in her living room drinking beer and chatting cats. But the landowners were excited enough by the possibility that, persuaded by Blodgett, they bought a trail camera and set it up on the site. Well, I KNOW there was at least one mountain lion in NE because years ago (maybe 35 or so) I lived in Longmeadow, MA. Harrigan nodded. Local game officials are saying that this is another one of those sightings where people claim to have seen a mountain lion. With the price off its head, the lion gained new stature, and in July 1965 . There was never, of course, a photograph. Probably are lions in western NC, too. 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. How big was the animal? The one killed on the Connecticut highway was on a journey worthy of Odysseus so it isnt likely that there will be a thriving population of mountain lions in Fairfield County, raiding backyard cocktail parties, anytime soon. I was just amazed as I watched this scene in my own back yard. He worked, in Wyoming and Arizona, with other professionals, some with government agencies, like the one he works for, and others who were hunters and trappers, often employed by ranchers who had lost stock to mountain lions. 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. He coined the term landscape of fear to describe the relationship between predator and prey in the wild. I could hear the steady rush of traffic on Route 315. New in PJ Media: The world having gone absolutely insane, the Mid Vermont Christian School (MVCS) girls' basketball team is likely to get a lot of heat for this, but in a sane world, they would be the heroes of the story. So you can imagine there. If LTS can take care of business in that one, it would host the winner of the Bennington County matchup between No. It was a bright sunny summer day. Because they are.. But I learned something else in my ad hoc researchesnamely that this was a question that aroused a lot of passion in people. 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. Then, a mountain lion was run over by an SUV on the outskirts of New Haven, Connecticut. 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. There is a lot of good habitat between here and the places where there are established populations of mountain lions, he said. As I walked thru the beginning of the trail I spooked a deer and heard this awful screech and slowly backed out of there .. I was outdoor with my two pugs and quickly scooped them up and brought them in the house. I lived in great Barrington mass and I took photos of tracks in a field in April of 2009 (and of course lost them). Indeed! A journey of nearly 2,000 miles. I saw an adult cougar/catamount twice within a two week period. Phone: . Until 2011, that question rested upon a hypothetical. In recent years, it has been expanding its range elsewhere; moving into mid-western states like Illinois and Missouri from its established range in the Rocky Mountain states and the Dakotas. 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. 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. Respect predators, protect them but dont worship or try to hug them! Green Mountain Lion Corp #256 34 Blair Park Road Ste. But there was certainty, or near-certainty, on the part of the witnesses who, it seemed, would swear to having seen a catamount. Mountain lions are large, tan cats. ), 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. 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. The Vermont woods would be a lot more interesting with mountain lions in them. Instead, the responsne I heard were nonchalant, Oh, yes, lots of people have seen that mountain lion around here; pretty isnt it?. It can run at speeds of up to 50 mph. And some people might decide to release them into the wild rather than keeping them in their possession. I live in Hopkinton, NH and saw one coming up from the Contoocook River one misty morning. Success stories being more fun to talk about than the other kind. Much as I liked Ottmann and Betty, and much as I found some of their evidence compelling, I was struggling to reconcile their more provocative claims with the restraint expressed by the many other experts Id spoken with. Reported mountain lion sightings are popping up all over Vermont and convinced onlookers say the proof is in the pictures. Vermont-based naturalist SueMorse has spent decades studying, tracking, andphotographing cougars outwest. Id splurged on them. That was plain, right away. Mid Vermont Christian School Eagles forfeited their girls basketball playoff game on Tuesday against Long Trail School Mountain Lions. This is part of the cougar business. Lacked, almost any tail at all, for that matter. Blodgett and I were returning from a day spent looking forand finding timber rattlesnakes, a species that is endangered in Vermont. This, said Vermont Fish and Wildlife fur-bearer project leader Chris Bernier, is why he takes reports of mountain lion sightings seriously. Height. 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. Adult males may be more than 8 feet long (from the tip of the nose to the tip of the tail), and can weigh between 130 and 150 pounds. In Vermont, in the late 19th century, this meant, especially, sheep. So it is possible that, on occasion, someone would catch a glimpse of one of these animals. It is also known as cougar, panther, mountain lion, and puma, though catamount is the preferred regional vernacular. 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. Still, there is no saying that it will not happen. 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? In fact, jaguars used to be native to south Texas, as well! Honestly, leaving this out of your article would seem to perpetuate the notion that there is a conspiracy to keep us all in ignorance. Yes I have seen several pictures on game cameras from people in Massachusetts in Central and western Mass that do have mountain lions on their game camera so please dont be ignorant. I have pictures of tracks around my car and up to the back steps of my deck in Arkville, NY . If this habitat can support them, it should. As land was cleared for farming and the cats prey species declined in number, it went after livestock. 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. Perhaps, then, the ultimate question isnt whether cougars are among us, but rather how we can encourage them to settle here. Tom Stearns, a Vermont Game Warden says they get reports all the time. 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. Wildlife management programs succeeded in reintroducing species to areas where they had not been seen for years. The police and everyone else just shook their heads but she to her dying breath said she saw a mountain lion in Lexington MA. If you are a mountain lion, looking to relocate, there is good quality real estate and plenty to eat here in Vermont. Several years ago, I was bicycling with a buddy up Quabbin Reservoirs Administration Rd. Even in the controlled environment of a lab, the truth about Eastern cougars seems to be almost willfully eluding its seekers. Americans called the mountain " Tah-wak-be-dee-ee-wads. 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. They were also seen at other times by members of my family and other people in the neighborhood. Some of them, he says, we could close the books on pretty quickly. This was, after all, a long, long way from the nearest known population of mountain lions and virtually the heart of the suburban East. One day I most certainly watched him/her being chased up and down our chain link fence by a neighbors large dog who was barking insanely and couldnt quite catch the cougar, who finally made it away from the fence to escape the determined dog whod had him trapped up against it. The solitary animal seeks out new territory and eventually a new population will be established. 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. Bearded, bowler hat, expression impenetrable behind facial hair and the stoicism of an earlier era. 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. 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. "The catamount, which is also a mountain lion, a cougar, a panther and a ton of other words, is actually one of the most widely distributed mammals in the whole world. There are so many great sites out there devoted to. What are the chances of wolves coming back to Vermont? It continues in Connecticut, where that South Dakota cat was killed in 2011, and in Massachusetts, despite two credible reports in the past quarter century (in one case, DNA-confirmed scat; in the other, verified tracks). I had been foraging up in an area that is rocky. Of course. Although the US Fish and Wildlife Service declared the . They set the stage for the exotics to move in, and this has a huge impact on our ecology, he said. It is healthy to have respect and caution, but fear shouldnt drive ecological decision making. Long Trail Mountain Lion roster: Myra Aldanondo, Olivia Cole-Bugay, Liz Daara, Rose Johnson, Aubrey Lanning, Molly Luikart, Camilla Marcy, Meara Morgan, Harlow Quail, . Put bluntly, Morse does not believe that New England is home to cougars. If someone described seeing a black panther, for example, then you knew right away and you didnt need to do any more investigating.. You wouldnt shake hands with a man like that, she said, and though she was smiling I could tell she was serious. They knew what they were doing, Blodgett says. The mountain lionalso known as the cougar, puma, panther, or catamountis a large cat species native to the Americas. There is no shortage of deer for all apex predators whether they are canine, feline, or human. Vermont offers plenty of habitat in which mountain lions could thrive. I have no choice but to take this seriously, he told me. As pets or for exhibit. Snow accumulating 3 to 5 inches.. . It was a striking animal, certainly, but it was no mountain lion. 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. 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 is hard for me to believe that the big cats havent found plenty of space to roam without regular detection. And its not just Vermont. Camel's Hump (alternatively Camels Hump) is a mountain in the Green Mountains in the U.S. state of Vermont.The north slope of the mountain borders the Winooski River, which has carved through the Green Mountains over eons.At 4,083 ft (1,244 m), it is tied (with Mount Ellen) for the third-highest mountain in Vermont.Surrounded by 10 acres (4 ha) of alpine tundra, the mountain is the most . Spring Loaded to See Something [An overabundance of deer] means our forests are getting older and older and not being replaced. He also points to the influx of invasive plant species in New England as evidence of an out-of-control deer population. It can run 50 miles an hour and clear a twelve-foot fence. I was tracking some deer tracks and I came to a promising deer run with a lot of deer scat on the ground when I noticed a cat track amongst the sign. 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. The tavern was quiet except for some hard-rock music playing on the radio, the murmur of a handful of men at the bar, and us. I started this blog for people to discuss mountain lion sightings and reports in the Green Mountain State of Vermont. 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. There was one photographed on a porch in Greenwich, CT, looking in the patio window that made national news a decade ago. Besides, Ottmann had revealed that hed been charged by a bear in this same piece of woods, and I felt conflicted about diverting my gaze from the underbrush. 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. Predator removal was steady and unforgiving from the early 1800s . If these people say they saw something, Im going to listen., If theres one thing people on all sides of the debate can agree on, its that a breeding population of cougars is essential to the overall health of New Englands ecosystems, which currently lack an apex predator. This assessment is echoed by the aforementioned Christopher Spatz, who has been studying cougars for better than 20 years. Most of those sightings were misidentifications, Doug Blodgett says. The one thing that jumped out at her the tail. It had moved a little and was standing unconcealed, now, in the middle of the logging road. All those deer hunters represent a kind of ad hoc search party. A far less likelyenvironment for finding a mountain lion than just about anywhere in Vermont. In the states where there are robust mountain lion populations, they are a threat to livestock, pets and, occasionally, humans. 8 Arlington (9-10) and No. Interesting how tree stumps or boulders assume the shape of an animal in this kind of light. ), 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. 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 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 has, in fact, more names than any animal in the world. It has, in fact, more names than any animal in the world. Others have seen cougar in neighboring towns . Were arrogant if we think were the only species that makes decisions based on fear, he told me when I called him at his home in Oregon. But there was not enough evidence to either prove or disprove that a mountain lion had done the killing. I saw one yesterday in Windsor Cty Vermont. My husband and where riding our Motorcycle down Rte 110 near Milan NH When I shared their story with the staff at the center where my sister lived, I expected surprise and interested. The discussion of whether federal lands should be a place to subsidize cattle ranching is another question. Its not my call. They are much larger than bobcat and lynx, young adults can still have spots too. 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? 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. Forty years of reporting on New Hampshire cougar sightings has convinced Harrigan that the state is home to at least a handful of breeding animals. She said it jumped up on the neighbors stone wall which was pretty high and walked across it. Because while male cougars eventually strike out on their own and occasionally wander far from home, females are, as Morse puts it, hardwired to remain close to their mothers home range. Thats a reasonable assertion. Betty folded his arms across his chest, where they rose and fell and rose again with his breathing. 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. Perfect conditions, then, for thinking you saw something. It does NOT surprise me, you would have seen a wild, free-roaming, native 'eastern' cougar, aka puma, mountain lion in Vermont. Our hunter friend was hunting in central NH when they came upon an adult deer carcass way up in a tree. Its OK, he told me. Out & About | Best New England Holiday Events for 2019. Females ranges are much smaller so it will take reintroduction or a few savvy wildlife biologist in the dead of night. Running into a mountain lion can be a scary experience. Those who believe the growth and expansion of mountain lion populations to be a good thing routinely make the old, you face a greater danger of being struck by lighting or drowned in the bathtub argument and it is no doubt accurate. 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. Fish and Wildlife Service unofficially declared the Eastern cougar extinct. 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. Threat of Being Attacked I lived in Woodstock, CT in 2005/2006. Dismissing most of the sightings as probable bobcats, Morse asserted that the scientific evidence has not been proven. Several years of doing the follow-ups, then, convinced Blodgett that there were no catamounts in Vermont. 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