mountain lion vermont

And thats a surprisingly complex question, because it hinges on numerous factors: policy and politics, culture and conditioning, habitat and, frankly, hubris. Length of body. As pets or for exhibit. 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. 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. Check out 4 Seconds Until Impact by Bruce Hemming, or Cat Urbigkits books about predator attacks in unlikely places . And, in the real world, a black bears fatal attack on a hiker in New Jersey last year made many people reconsider their warm feelings for that animal. Even though the experts say there arent any mountain lions in CT, there are. Our wildlife biologists and enforcement agents are mostly political bureaucrats who dont often venture more than 100yards from the truck. My mother always said she saw one across the street from our house one night in the late 50s early 60s. The tail, I said. In fact, jaguars used to be native to south Texas, as well! The combined scoring differential in those matchups was 158-77. 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. 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. If there is a follow up investigation, it turns out that people were mistaken about what they saw.. If theyre in one, theyre in the other.. In the 37 years Ive been working, things have changed in ways Id never have predicted. 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). How did I know? And it was this curiosity that led me to the Old Well Tavern in Simsbury, Connecticut, at a time of day (11:30 a.m.) that does not normally find me ensconced in the dim confines of a drinking establishment. Cougars, Lynx, Bobcats, Wolves, Bears etc were and are a 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. And consider, for a moment, the concern and outright fear an official acknowledgment of such a carnivorous and predatory creature might evoke. Betty had driven up from his home in Rhode Island. There are no breeding cougars in New England and we do not need any. I was outdoor with my two pugs and quickly scooped them up and brought them in the house. I saw one about 10 years ago, on our road. Perfect conditions, then, for thinking you saw something. However, when I asked the room of 200 or so people how many believe they had seen a mountain lion/cougar/puma/catamount, hands shot up all around the room about 25% of those present. Its not a bear, not a dog, not a deer, not a bobcat. Indeed! This was, after all, a long, long way from the nearest known population of mountain lions and virtually the heart of the suburban East. Success stories being more fun to talk about than the other kind. When that last catamount was killed by a deer hunter, the state was paying a $20 bounty for pelts or carcasses. Its range was once similarly vast; from the high north regions of the Yukon to the Straits of Magellan. 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. But my eyes picked up something and I knew, right away, that it was alive. The name " Camel's Rump " was assigned on a historical map made by Ira Allen in 1798. They may get here, Doug Blodgett said to me one afternoon. There is no shortage of deer for all apex predators whether they are canine, feline, or human. Wildlife management programs succeeded in reintroducing species to areas where they had not been seen for years. 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. 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. But, yes, thats exactly what it was. 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. Mountain lions are large, tan cats. Coyotes, for instance, found their way into Vermont with no help. My own inclination, for the little it matters, is to side with the professionals like Blodgett. They have a right to exist here and they contribute to healthier prey species. I lived in Woodstock, CT in 2005/2006. 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 husband and where riding our Motorcycle down Rte 110 near Milan NH Maybe you've seen the UVM(University of Vermont) catamount at a basketball game, or the catamount at the Vermont History Museum. 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. 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. She IS, perhaps, the most knowledgeable and experienced person in this arena and I listened intently to her presentation (Richmond, VT 2018). It was definitely a cougar. The animal, I learned, is called many things: mountain lion, panther, catamount, puma, cougar and more. There are also many unconfirmed sightings. A 140-pound male mountain lion was hit by a car and killed in 2011 in Milford, Connecticut. One cat will leave more than 10,000 tracks per day. Dismissing most of the sightings as probable bobcats, Morse asserted that the scientific evidence has not been proven. They are much larger than bobcat and lynx, young adults can still have spots too. You need breeding pairs and theyd probably settle down long before they got here.. Running into a mountain lion can be a scary experience. Local game officials are saying that this is another one of those sightings where people claim to have seen a mountain lion. The mountain lion can weigh upwards of 200 pounds and it can move like well, like a cat. Yet I also remembered something Sue Morse had told me months before, as we sat in her living room drinking beer and chatting cats. The animal was shot in the town of Barnard on Thanksgiving Day 1881 by a man named Alexander Crowell. And some people might decide to release them into the wild rather than keeping them in their possession. He was a dark butterscotch color, very tall and lanky (taller and thinner than a really big German Shepard) and that tail. 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. 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. 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). 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. As they watched in amazement, the cat casually moved off and disappeared into the surrounding woods. 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. "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. Vermont Mountain Lion Sightings There is a reason that millions of people were afraid to go in the water after they saw the movie Jaws. The discussion of whether federal lands should be a place to subsidize cattle ranching is another question. They have the same stealthy movements as a house cat but are significantly larger. If we end up with a population, it will be the result of a colonizer female who gets here somehow, some way, and the rest will be history.. 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. If someone described seeing a black panther, for example, then you knew right away and you didnt need to do any more investigating.. The animal was too small and it lacked the long, sinuous tail of the catamount. I have learned one thing in my career, and thats to never say never, she said. Snow accumulating 3 to 5 inches.. . 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. As I looked at my daughter and then turned to follow the direction she was looking, I saw the animal in my side mirror. 8 Arlington (9-10) and No. At the head of the driveway is a flower sales table in front of a modest size greenhouse. There was no denying that the carcass, which was examined by experts, was that of a mountain lion. Morse, 70, comports herself in a friendly and no-nonsense manner. I saw an adult cougar/catamount twice within a two week period. Vermont Mountain Lion Sightings. The cougar and the states refusal to admit it was here made the local paper. Americans called the mountain " Tah-wak-be-dee-ee-wads. There is a lot of good habitat between here and the places where there are established populations of mountain lions, he said. It was huge! She lives near the end of a gravel road in a modest, low-slung house tucked into the flanks of the Green Mountains. With the price off its head, the lion gained new stature, and in July 1965 . If LTS can take care of business in that one, it would host the winner of the Bennington County matchup between No. In 2011, the U.S. 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.. One one occasion she had two little ones with her so their den must have been sort of closeby. We told him what we saw, and he confirmed other sightings on the property. I now live in Boulder, CO where we have regular sightings.same animal as 35 yrs agohands down, Warren ,Ma early morning having my coffee on my front steps and noticed about 50 feet across the Road something coming out of the trail as it did it looked out at the road and turned around as it did I could see that it was a mountain lion ! Email: info@grnvt.com. Yes, of course they are here, transients. You dont even have to go out and look for it.. This guy was very intelligent, he had abandoned a professional career to pursue his dream of guiding. Im not surprised that various state officers deny the presence of cougars in new England. 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. Chance of snow 90%. my father was recently trout fishing in central Mass. 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. 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. And, now, here I was. 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). Others have seen cougar in neighboring towns . Jason. All with eyes to see and spring loaded to see something. So the initial assumption was that the animal was one of those captives that had either escaped or been released by its owner. Whatever it was, it was standing motionless and, I thought, looking back at me as intently as I was staring at it. If its not, you just thank the person and say good-bye.. 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. Bernier gets more than 50 reports of mountain lions a year. I had been foraging up in an area that is rocky. Blodgett and I were returning from a day spent looking forand finding timber rattlesnakes, a species that is endangered in Vermont. She said it jumped up on the neighbors stone wall which was pretty high and walked across it. Video - Trade Show Recaps; Videos - Can We Find a Time to Talk? This is part of the cougar business. But examination of the carcass raised suspicions. It was too far away and the light was too poor for me to know exactly what I was looking at. But that was OK. Bo Ottmann knew they were out there. 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. After 20 minutes or so, we turned and stumbled our way back to the parking lot. This isnt to say she believes none of these animals has stepped foot on New England soil over the past century. All of which is to say that if Alexander Crowell wasnt afraid on that long-ago Thanksgiving Day, he probably should have been. It can run at speeds of up to 50 mph. near Greenfield with an experienced guide that hed worked with several times. And, if those people who said they were seeing catamounts were wrong, and not just making it up, then what were they seeing? I live in Vermont and have seen, in broad daylight, a mountain lion (catamount, cougar, puma). No way to proveor disproveit. These things happen suddenly and they are over quickly. People clearly arent lying when they say they saw a cougar; [the sighting] has a profound effect on them.. In my mind, I went through all the nots. But no. Our county. Actually, Blodgett says, something of the opposite was true. Maybe, I thought, but the shape seemed wrong. There was one possibility that might account for some of these sightings, he says. 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. So I asked him about the catamount and if the animal in Connecticut was some sort of advance scout for a coming wave of resident lions. Some of these sightings, he said, Connecticut mountain lion vermont catamount, cougar, puma ) in. Pounds and it lacked the long, sinuous tail of the catamount my father was trout... Head, the cat casually moved off and disappeared into the flanks of Yukon! 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