mountain lion vermont

So yes they are here and not to sure why they dont admit to them being around ! 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. 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. 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 . Chance of snow 90%. I have learned one thing in my career, and thats to never say never, she said. This guy was very intelligent, he had abandoned a professional career to pursue his dream of guiding. Somebody in the NC Legislature believes, because lions are now protected by law. Some people thought that the Fish and Wildlife professionals went into these investigations determined to debunk the sightings. At least once a year thered be a story from somewhere, but I only ran the absolute best, he told me. 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. My daughter said to me thats the biggest cat Ive ever seen. 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. You dont even have to go out and look for it.. 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. There was one photographed on a porch in Greenwich, CT, looking in the patio window that made national news a decade ago. Defenders of Wildlife developed funding to support wolf predation on cattle which I believe worked. 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. Yes, of course they are here, transients. As I looked at my daughter and then turned to follow the direction she was looking, I saw the animal in my side mirror. As land was cleared for farming and the cats prey species declined in number, it went after livestock. We also had bobcats that we saw quite often but I am positive that these were mountain lions! I saw a Mountain Lion in 2007 in Northfield, MA at the junctions of Rtes 10 and 63. In Vermont, it was 1881. I will never forget what I saw! In the states where there are robust mountain lion populations, they are a threat to livestock, pets and, occasionally, humans. We got a picture of our culprit, he says, that very first night.. Fish and Wildlife Service unofficially declared the Eastern cougar extinct. The old logging road was easy enough to navigate and I let my feet follow it while I kept my eyes up and scanning. [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. An expert said it was probably a basking shark. Its closest living relative is the cheetah. The scientific name for the catamount is Puma concolor. The big cat on the ground before him, motionless, yet somehow still embodying that particular feline litheness, as if, with the flick of its tail, it might bound to its feet and disappear into the woods. The last catamount in Vermont is finally, officially, certainly dead. Nostalgia for the Wild COLCHESTER, Vt. Catamounts are. It has nothing to do with trophy hunting, public safety, etc. It jumped 28 feet across the road. The animal was too small and it lacked the long, sinuous tail of the catamount. Harrigans interest in cougars was sparked in the late 70s, after he took ownership of The Coos County Democrat and began noticing the steady influx of reported sightings. 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. Im gonna get hammered for it, he sighed. The mountain lion can weigh upwards of 200 pounds and it can move like well, like a cat. And, furthermore, the animal still had its claws, though those have usually been removed from captive animals. 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. And, according to people who swear they know what they saw the catamount. 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. 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. Even in the controlled environment of a lab, the truth about Eastern cougars seems to be almost willfully eluding its seekers. 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. All with eyes to see and spring loaded to see something. Obviously, this is the reason why the experts are loathe to admit that the species is here. I met with Morse at her home in Jericho. Yet dozens of. Most of those sightings were misidentifications, Doug Blodgett says. But other hard evidence of the big cats presence is elusive. When that last catamount was killed by a deer hunter, the state was paying a $20 bounty for pelts or carcasses. I have heard several accounts from sober, sane, intelligent people who have seen them (especially a latre, good friend who was a very competent spokesman and hunter.). It is hard for me to believe that the big cats havent found plenty of space to roam without regular detection. I lived in Woodstock, CT in 2005/2006. The captive narrative also helped explain why there had been so many sightings reported, including some in Greenwich, among the richest and most domesticated suburbs in America. I was outdoor with my two pugs and quickly scooped them up and brought them in the house. But this requires a breeding pair. Ordinary, the lone males do not range much more than 100 miles. To date, Keeping Track has helped conserve 40,000 acres in 12 states and inQuebec. He was a dark butterscotch color, very tall and lanky (taller and thinner than a really big German Shepard) and that tail. Whatever it was, it was standing motionless and, I thought, looking back at me as intently as I was staring at it. Indeed, in 2011, a male cougar was hit and killed by a car in Milford, Connecticut; through its DNA, wildlife biologists were able to trace the cat back to South Dakotas Black Hills, some 2,000 miles distant. If the mountain lion is a certified killer of sheep and, sometimes, cattle, it has also occasionally attacked humans. 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. Reported mountain lion sightings are popping up all over Vermont and convinced onlookers say the proof is in the pictures. They have the same stealthy movements as a house cat but are significantly larger. Long Trail Mountain Lion roster: Myra Aldanondo, Olivia Cole-Bugay, Liz Daara, Rose Johnson, Aubrey Lanning, Molly Luikart, Camilla Marcy, Meara Morgan, Harlow Quail, . Maybe, I thought, but the shape seemed wrong. Several years ago, I was bicycling with a buddy up Quabbin Reservoirs Administration Rd. Indeed! We hadnt seen a cougar, nor any evidence to suggest a cougar had traveled these woods recently. Theymay not be looking, specifically, for a catamount. Also moose. I have no choice but to take this seriously, he told me. I was agnostic, I suppose, on these stories which the state wildlife biologists inevitably found impossible to substantiate and, often, easy to disprove. Ive seen tracks (Downeast Maine) and others have seen them, plain as day. 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. They were also seen at other times by members of my family and other people in the neighborhood. Several years of doing the follow-ups, then, convinced Blodgett that there were no catamounts in Vermont. The Vermont woods would be a lot more interesting with mountain lions in them. 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. I saw an adult cougar/catamount twice within a two week period. The scientific name for the catamount is Puma concolor. But that was OK. Bo Ottmann knew they were out there. Not many, but then there dont have to be many to make humans aware of the danger and, often, over-react. The cat is dead. The second occasion was on the way to work when I saw the cougar/catamount crossing Route 44. 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. My assumption is it was the same animal. They are here & ..just a matter of time with photo or kill on a highway/road. It may not surprise you to learn that I was quite intrigued by this third group. And yet there I was, on a Saturday in early November, crammed into a booth with Bo Ottmann, 48, and Bill Betty, 72, of Cougars of the Valley, the organization that Ottmann founded in 2007 to gather evidence of and alert the public to the big cats living among us. His Tail was very long almost touching the ground and as thick as velvet rope. For instance, a favorite food for deer is the seedlings of forest tree species. Wildlife do really crazy things, and you just never know.. I started to get nervous so I was scanning the area low and high in the trees. Well, I KNOW there was at least one mountain lion in NE because years ago (maybe 35 or so) I lived in Longmeadow, MA. Tried to see "mountain lion" and agree that what appears to be a long tail is most likely the . But never a catamount. That was plain, right away. After 20 minutes or so, we turned and stumbled our way back to the parking lot. Check out 4 Seconds Until Impact by Bruce Hemming, or Cat Urbigkits books about predator attacks in unlikely places . Vermont Mountain Lion Sightings. In Vermont, for instance, a few dozen wild turkeys from Pennsylvania were released in 1969 and multiplied into the thousands we have here now. No An official form of the United States government. 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). A 2,000 Mile Journey In support of the Longmeadow sighting mentioned above1984, Granville, MA. ), 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 mentioned this to a neighbor who spotted one a few miles away. 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. Still, there is no saying that it will not happen. However, many of their claimsespecially Mr. Bettys contention of roughly a dozen personal sightings in New Englandare hard to take seriously. They are most definitely here. But other hard evidence of the big cats presence is elusive. 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