You need breeding pairs and theyd probably settle down long before they got here.. Its not a bear, not a dog, not a deer, not a bobcat. The evidence, he says, just wasnt there., Mountain Lions Revisit Kill Sites It has, in fact, more names than any animal in the world. For instance, a favorite food for deer is the seedlings of forest tree species. So the initial assumption was that the animal was one of those captives that had either escaped or been released by its owner. Until 2011, that question rested upon a hypothetical. 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. THAT is a mountain lion! It jumped 28 feet across the road. It has nothing to do with trophy hunting, public safety, etc. Betty had driven up from his home in Rhode Island. The tail, I said. Of course. As I looked at my daughter and then turned to follow the direction she was looking, I saw the animal in my side mirror. The Christian school also dropped out of the state . However, many of their claimsespecially Mr. Bettys contention of roughly a dozen personal sightings in New Englandare hard to take seriously. But I dont think it will happen any time soon.. The old logging road was easy enough to navigate and I let my feet follow it while I kept my eyes up and scanning. 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. Thats a reasonable assertion. The cat is dead. People said that the catamountas the animal is called in Vermontwas still around and you heard stories about someone who would swear to having seen one. Put bluntly, Morse does not believe that New England is home to cougars. When I shared their story with the staff at the center where my sister lived, I expected surprise and interested. 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. 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. Bernier gets more than 50 reports of mountain lions a year. I wished it were a camera with a long lens to document the sighting. This Everglades panther population has recently recovered after wildlife biologists brought in some animals from Texas to breed with the last few native cats and this story is typical of the conservation ethic that has taken hold in the United States. The restrictions/regulations surrounding management of an endangered species is incredibly cumbersome, and would be difficult to manage. A mountain lion was responsible for that too. So if coyotes could return and establish robust populations, why not a few catamounts? 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. 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. Some people say they have seen a catamount in the woods. It can run 50 miles an hour and clear a twelve-foot fence. Check out 4 Seconds Until Impact by Bruce Hemming, or Cat Urbigkits books about predator attacks in unlikely places . I started this blog for people to discuss mountain lion sightings and reports in the Green Mountain State of Vermont. Even though the experts say there arent any mountain lions in CT, there are. 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. We clearly have migratory male cougars coming through. Tom Stearns, a Vermont Game Warden says they get reports all the time. 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). Morse introduced me to her cat, Allister, whom she referred to as her portable puma. Then she fetched me a beer. The deer dont eat the exotics, but they eat the competitors. COLCHESTER, Vt. Catamounts are. 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. Several years ago, I was bicycling with a buddy up Quabbin Reservoirs Administration Rd. At Green Mountain Lion Corp, we specialize in placing professionals in a variety of industries. Mr. Betty and Mr.Ottomans passion and efforts are impressive. It has, in fact, more names than any animal in the world. Perhaps, then, the ultimate question isnt whether cougars are among us, but rather how we can encourage them to settle here. Now, ocelots are critically endangered and jaguarundis might be completely gone. 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. With all the thousands of trail cameras in the woods of New England, one would think that there would be at least one picture taken of a catamount. No way to proveor disproveit. 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. The cougar and the states refusal to admit it was here made the local paper. 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. I go out into the woods on the opening day of deer season every year and a lot of other Vermonters are out there with me. 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. We hadnt seen a cougar, nor any evidence to suggest a cougar had traveled these woods recently. Probably are lions in western NC, too. And why not? Local game officials are saying that this is another one of those sightings where people claim to have seen a mountain lion. This is part of the cougar business. Coyotes, for instance, found their way into Vermont with no help. Yes, of course they are here, transients. 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. When he suggested we retrace our route, past lion, to see a sow bear with cubs, we headed in the opposite direction. I mentioned this to a neighbor who spotted one a few miles away. You wouldnt shake hands with a man like that, she said, and though she was smiling I could tell she was serious. [The catamounts] movements were so noiseless that Mr. Crowell found himself in this dangerous proximity before he was aware of it, and it was only by great coolness and daring that he severely wounded the animal and perhaps saved his own life, reads a placard attached to the display case. In Vermont, in the late 19th century, this meant, especially, sheep. A far less likelyenvironment for finding a mountain lion than just about anywhere in Vermont. But I learned something else in my ad hoc researchesnamely that this was a question that aroused a lot of passion in people. 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. I saw one about 10 years ago, on our road. Long Trail Mountain Lion roster: Myra Aldanondo, Olivia Cole-Bugay, Liz Daara, Rose Johnson, Aubrey Lanning, Molly Luikart, Camilla Marcy, Meara Morgan, Harlow Quail, . It is what wildlife biologists call an apex carnivore, which means it can overpower pretty much any other creature in its environmentwith the exception of an armed human. Until 2011, that question rested upon a hypothetical. It had moved a little and was standing unconcealed, now, in the middle of the logging road. Geoffrey Norman is a Dorset author and a frequent contributor to Stratton Magazine. But some sightings were more promising and some seemed exceedingly so. Yet dozens of. I had been the first vehicle in a line held up by one lane traffic on a bridge reconstruction. The glasses I carried were of good quality with exceptional light-gathering property. I was deer hunting with my father, it was in the fall about 7 years ago, in Barre Ma towards the Templeton Ma lines. I saw one yesterday in Windsor Cty Vermont. He/she was UNMISTAKEABLY a mountain lion: stretched out straight, long tail straight out behind him, golden/beigey color, and smallish head, little ears. Success stories being more fun to talk about than the other kind. We told him what we saw, and he confirmed other sightings on the property. The animal, I learned, is called many things: mountain lion, panther, catamount, puma, cougar and more. She IS, perhaps, the most knowledgeable and experienced person in this arena and I listened intently to her presentation (Richmond, VT 2018). The last catamount in Vermont is finally, officially, certainly dead. Wildlife biologists, as professional scientists, require a higher level of documentation and proof. She lives near the end of a gravel road in a modest, low-slung house tucked into the flanks of the Green Mountains. Something I had not expected ever to experience. 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. She said it jumped up on the neighbors stone wall which was pretty high and walked across it. Ive heard some biologists say it is not a distinct subspecies. Im gonna get hammered for it, he sighed. Green Mountain Lion Corp #256 34 Blair Park Road Ste. 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. Actually, Blodgett says, something of the opposite was true. Morse is a Vermont-based naturalist and the founder of Keeping Track, a nonprofit that trains people in the scientific protocols needed to detect, interpret, record, and monitor wildlife tracks and signs. 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 heard from Neighbors that they have been sighting from the mass pike which runs along this area but also very close to Quabbin! There were pine cones on window sills, a well-used hatchet and a variety of animal figurines on display, and, near the television, a stack of videos including. And some people might decide to release them into the wild rather than keeping them in their possession. This was after the department sent him out west to study the behavior of mountain lions. The animal was shot in the town of Barnard on Thanksgiving Day 1881 by a man named Alexander Crowell. As land was cleared for farming and the cats prey species declined in number, it went after livestock. Morse has been tracking cougars for 45 years, mostly in the mountains of the West, where their existence is not in doubt. Where I live bears, wolves cougars etc roamed freely and now sadly if one of those apex predators is spotted our DNR will usually destroy it. This guy was very intelligent, he had abandoned a professional career to pursue his dream of guiding. The animal that was killed in Connecticut proved that. The solitary animal seeks out new territory and eventually a new population will be established. 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. I was outdoor with my two pugs and quickly scooped them up and brought them in the house. And thats a surprisingly complex question, because it hinges on numerous factors: policy and politics, culture and conditioning, habitat and, frankly, hubris. And its not just Vermont. Videos - Industry Stories; Find Candidates; And, if those people who said they were seeing catamounts were wrong, and not just making it up, then what were they seeing? Especially among those who did believe. Theyre here. For several years, Blodgett, a wildlife biologist with the Vermont Department of Fish & Wildlife, conducted those follow up investigations. Early spring 2019 I caught a glimpse of one entering over grown brush on the side of the road very very early in the morning. Well, I KNOW there was at least one mountain lion in NE because years ago (maybe 35 or so) I lived in Longmeadow, MA. The Mountain Lions won both regular season margins by 30-plus points. Ive attended talks with Sue Morse. 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. They denied it until a cougar was hit as it tried to cross the very busy Merritt Parkway. 8 Arlington (9-10) and No. We need [an apex] predator back on the land, Sue Morse told me. He and his clients were 100% sure of what they saw, and its very difficult to imagine any other animal being mistaken for a cougar in this case. We were about 50 feet from it and it stood taller than any labrador and we watched it tail and all slink down the side of the lawn and the rabbits being surprised out of the bushes. Tried to see "mountain lion" and agree that what appears to be a long tail is most likely the . 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. 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