Phone: . Its closest living relative is the cheetah. 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). 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. 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. Not a bobcat 100% mountain lion and anybody that tries to think a bobcat as any resemblance to a mountain lion clearly has no idea about wildlife there are a lot of false reports because of this however they are without a doubt in part of New England and fish and game has as usual covered up despite coming out and following mountain lion tracks in the snow through the woods in Central Mass and finding a deer carcass 20 feet up in a tree and said to the landowner yep you probably have a mountain lion passing through and asked for the homeowner not to speak much about it furthermore DNA confirmation of a horse that was attacked in Petersham Massachusetts in the last several years and also the Quabbin Reservoir DNA were mountain lion without a doubt they are here. All of us with rifles, most of them scoped. I saw an adult cougar/catamount twice within a two week period. When we reached tower, a ranger arrived in a pickup. In the states where there are robust mountain lion populations, they are a threat to livestock, pets and, occasionally, humans. They may get here, Doug Blodgett said to me one afternoon. There was no mistake. But there was not enough evidence to either prove or disprove that a mountain lion had done the killing. My encounter was in Middlesex, VT along the river road (Route 2) just below I89. The name " Camel's Rump " was assigned on a historical map made by Ira Allen in 1798. Because they are.. 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. Morse introduced me to her cat, Allister, whom she referred to as her portable puma. Then she fetched me a beer. A 140-pound male mountain lion was hit by a car and killed in 2011 in Milford, Connecticut. Our county. 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. Of course. As pets or for exhibit. 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. As they watched in amazement, the cat casually moved off and disappeared into the surrounding woods. Body coloration can range from tan to gray and cubs are usually covered with blackish brown spots. But some sightings were more promising and some seemed exceedingly so. Now that USFW has declared them extinct, why not formally reintroduce them. Probably because of all the hunters that would be out trying to get their trophy and endangering others. 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. If there is a follow up investigation, it turns out that people were mistaken about what they saw.. A far less likelyenvironment for finding a mountain lion than just about anywhere in Vermont. 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 . Clearly, Puma concolor once inhabited the forests of the Northeast, although its difficult to say in what numbers. Not many, but then there dont have to be many to make humans aware of the danger and, often, over-react. If LTS can take care of business in that one, it would host the winner of the Bennington County matchup between No. My daughter said to me thats the biggest cat Ive ever seen. Our wildlife biologists and enforcement agents are mostly political bureaucrats who dont often venture more than 100yards from the truck. I have no choice but to take this seriously, he told me. The restrictions/regulations surrounding management of an endangered species is incredibly cumbersome, and would be difficult to manage. 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 ! This is part of the cougar business. Or, if it does, when that will be. It looked real promising, Blodgett remembers. The guide told him earlier in the summer he and a couple clients had watched a moutain lion come down to the bank of the Deerfield River just upstream and take a small deer, fawn, drag it into the woods and it kill it, they could hear the screams of the deer as the cougar finished the job. 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. In Vermont, in the late 19th century, this meant, especially, sheep. And there have been fatal attacks. 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. He says that if mountain lions do . Mountain Lions - Rocky Mountain National Park (U.S. National Park Service) NPS.gov Park Home Learn About the Park Nature Animals Mammals Mountain Lion Mountain Lion Last updated: May 4, 2018 Was this page helpful? I have pictures of tracks around my car and up to the back steps of my deck in Arkville, NY . All those deer hunters represent a kind of ad hoc search party. That it had, somehow, made a return and established residence. It was huge! Mr. Betty and Mr.Ottomans passion and efforts are impressive. Low 24F. I had been foraging up in an area that is rocky. Lacked, almost any tail at all, for that matter. Geoffrey Norman is a Dorset author and a frequent contributor to Stratton Magazine. It is also known as cougar, panther, mountain lion, and puma, though catamount is the preferred regional vernacular. 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. I wasnt planning to shoot her unless she moved in my direction. I started to get nervous so I was scanning the area low and high in the trees. Big kitty. But, yes, thats exactly what it was. Americans called the mountain " Tah-wak-be-dee-ee-wads. Its range was once similarly vast; from the high north regions of the Yukon to the Straits of Magellan. Green Mountain Lion Corp #256 34 Blair Park Road Ste. 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 definitely a cougar. 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). 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. They are much larger than bobcat and lynx, young adults can still have spots too. And, according to people who swear they know what they saw the catamount. But my eyes picked up something and I knew, right away, that it was alive. If you dont think cougars are coming to the East, think again, she said, leaning forward for emphasis. My neighbors have seen several over the last 15-20 years. I have learned one thing in my career, and thats to never say never, she said. Things seem to move at twilight and you never know. That animal in Connecticut makes for a pretty fantastic story but it takes more than one dispersing male. It is healthy to have respect and caution, but fear shouldnt drive ecological decision making. He set down his cigarette and looked me in the eye. Everglades Panther 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. The mountain lion can weigh upwards of 200 pounds and it can move like well, like a cat. 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. The scientific name for the catamount is Puma concolor. He coined the term landscape of fear to describe the relationship between predator and prey in the wild. Since then, there have been a handful of confirmed mountain lion sightings in the Northeast, although most have been thought to be escaped captive animals. There was one possibility that might account for some of these sightings, he says. It seems humans just cant resist destroying these animals and either dont realize or dont care what damage we have done to our natural environment over the centuries. 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. That was plain, right away. In the states where there are robust mountain lion populations, they are a threat to livestock, pets and, occasionally, humans. We told him what we saw, and he confirmed other sightings on the property. Bernier gets more than 50 reports of mountain lions a year. 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. But that was OK. Bo Ottmann, A Lobster Trap Menorah Shines in Gloucester, Massachusetts, Chips Off the Old Block | Knowledge & Wisdom, Yankee Candle | New England by the Numbers, First Christmas | Krissy OSheas Scandinavian-Inspired Holiday Cottage, The Sweet Life | Holiday Baking with Dorie Greenspan, 2019 Yankee Magazine Editors Choice Food Awards, In the Kitchen at Mayfair Farm | Weekends with Yankee. 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. 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. 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. It has, in fact, more names than any animal in the world. In the 37 years Ive been working, things have changed in ways Id never have predicted. The police and everyone else just shook their heads but she to her dying breath said she saw a mountain lion in Lexington MA. Wildlife is unpredictable (and several people go missing in wild areas, parks especially, every year -Probably not because of alien abduction). 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. Lizzie Post Would Like Your Attention. The second occasion was on the way to work when I saw the cougar/catamount crossing Route 44. People clearly arent lying when they say they saw a cougar; [the sighting] has a profound effect on them.. The Vermont woods would be a lot more interesting with mountain lions in them. Especially by one that he remembers involving a kill site.. 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