Females ranges are much smaller so it will take reintroduction or a few savvy wildlife biologist in the dead of night. Interesting article, but it is really incomplete without a discussion of the legal implications of having a confirmed endangered species such as the Eastern Cougar in New England. "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. He says that if mountain lions do . Ottmann nodded. 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. Its not my call. Out & About | Best New England Holiday Events for 2019. 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. 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. They have a right to exist here and they contribute to healthier prey species. I went back and told the tale to anyone who would listen. In Vermont, in the late 19th century, this meant, especially, sheep. I mentioned this to a neighbor who spotted one a few miles away. Neither resemble a cougar! Green Mountain Lion Corp. Home; Apply Now! Bearded, bowler hat, expression impenetrable behind facial hair and the stoicism of an earlier era. Green Mountain Lion Corporation, Inc. Business Consulting and Services Williston, Vermont 5,563 followers Boutique management recruiting firm focusing on heavy equipment manufacturing & distribution. 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. First about the animal, itself, and then about the lore and the possibility that the catamount was not, in fact, extinct in Vermont. This was after the department sent him out west to study the behavior of mountain lions. Even in the controlled environment of a lab, the truth about Eastern cougars seems to be almost willfully eluding its seekers. A far less likelyenvironment for finding a mountain lion than just about anywhere in Vermont. Adult males can be around 8 feet in length and weigh between 130 and 150 pounds, while adult females can be 7 feet long and weigh between 65 and 90 pounds. 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). Reported mountain lion sightings are popping up all over Vermont and convinced onlookers say the proof is in the pictures. I also had a coworker report a similar experience around the same time. Can they really all be cases of false identification? Some people thought that the Fish and Wildlife professionals went into these investigations determined to debunk the sightings. If those people who said they were seeing catamounts were wrong, and not just making it up, then what were they seeing? 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 . Lizzie Post Would Like Your Attention. 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. 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. We really must establish first that these beautiful animals SHOULD be in every state that was once THEIR habitat. According to official estimates, as many as 1,000 people own, in spite of legal prohibitions, captive animals. He knew it was only a matter of time. It can run 50 miles an hour and clear a twelve-foot fence. Yet dozens of. The last catamount in Vermont is finally, officially, certainly dead. What are the chances of wolves coming back to Vermont? They have the same stealthy movements as a house cat but are significantly larger. Even in areas of high cougar density, the there are far more attacks on humans by domesticated dogs or deer/car collision fatalities than those due to cougar attack. But my eyes picked up something and I knew, right away, that it was alive. I lived in great Barrington mass and I took photos of tracks in a field in April of 2009 (and of course lost them). He was a dark butterscotch color, very tall and lanky (taller and thinner than a really big German Shepard) and that tail. My stepfather had been a hunter and was no stranger to seeing animals in the woods and countryside, so when they came up over a knoll in the road and saw a large cat looking at them, he saw the face and thought, bobcatuntil they then saw the rest of the animals body: huge, beautifully tawny colored, and in possession of what my mother described as a very long tail, that was as thick as my wrist. Bennington, VT (05201) Today. I got the glasses to my eyes and focused on the animal. They are most definitely here. I was curious enough at the time to do a little research. 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. 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. And, then, some species didnt need any help from humans but managed to extend their range into now-recovered and suitable habitats. But right now youre dealing with top-notch guys. We need cougars and we need wolves back in the Northeast, because a landscape of fear is a well-balanced landscape.. But other hard evidence of the big cats presence is elusive. Then saw him a few more times from further away across the road and along the edge sometimes of the woods. There was one photographed on a porch in Greenwich, CT, looking in the patio window that made national news a decade ago. 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.. The Vermont woods would be a lot more interesting with mountain lions in them. Snow accumulating 3 to 5 inches.. . 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. Photos of the cat did nothing to convince DEEP the cat was here. Wildlife is unpredictable (and several people go missing in wild areas, parks especially, every year -Probably not because of alien abduction). But I dont think it will happen any time soon.. We witnessed a mountain lion stalking a herd of deer. 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. One wonders just how tolerant Vermonters would be of a healthy population of mountain lions after one attacked a child waiting for the school bus. There, too, is Crowells photograph, grainy and old: the hunter leaning against a tree stump, his head propped casually on his left hand, elbow to stump, shotgun cradled in the crook of his right arm. I have learned one thing in my career, and thats to never say never, she said. She said it was long and thick. 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. In the states where there are robust mountain lion populations, they are a threat to livestock, pets and, occasionally, humans. 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. 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. ), 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. If LTS can take care of business in that one, it would host the winner of the Bennington County matchup between No. A hard-to-spot mountain lion patiently waits for the right moment to attack an elk feeding in a gully at the Rio Mora National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico in a photo posted by the refuge . I did call in a report to CT DEP and they basically dismissed my narrative questioning whether I made a mistake confusing the animal I saw with a bobcat or fisher cat. Its range was once similarly vast; from the high north regions of the Yukon to the Straits of Magellan. I saw one about 10 years ago, on our road. Even though the experts say there arent any mountain lions in CT, there are. My mother always said she saw one across the street from our house one night in the late 50s early 60s. Ive heard some biologists say it is not a distinct subspecies. Maybe, I thought, but the shape seemed wrong. Chance of snow 90%. Long Trail beat Arlington 62-40 on Feb. 7. So yes they are here and not to sure why they dont admit to them being around ! I had a pair of good binoculars in my coat pocket. 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. The last catamount in Vermont is finally, officially, certainly dead. 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. His mention of these encounters was so matter-of-fact that I found myself nodding along. I will never forget what I saw! Vermont offers plenty of habitat in which mountain lions could thrive. Beautiful creature. 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. We told him what we saw, and he confirmed other sightings on the property. Our county. But a deer is not a predator, like a bear can be, and certainly not a pure predator like a mountain lion, which is a majestic animal precisely because it is also a dangerous one. Vermont Girls' School Strikes Back Against the Trans Madness. We also had bobcats that we saw quite often but I am positive that these were mountain lions! A few years later, though, the scat was retested with DNA analysis and found to be canid, rather than feline, in origin. To Betty and Ottmann, the dominant narrative of the occasional itinerant cougar from the West is not particularly relevant to the facts on the ground. Wildlife do really crazy things, and you just never know.. 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? document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This setting should only be used on your home or work computer. Was INCREDIBLE! But it was also a male. Part of this belief is rooted in his journalistic experience, which across the decades has cultivated his nose for sincerity. We clearly have migratory male cougars coming through. 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. The key to Morses assertion can be found in the term breeding population. Although the fact that cougars have traveled through New England is irrefutable (a DNA-confirmed roadkill is hard to deny), Morse believes its unlikely that they have settled here and created a self-sustaining population. So if coyotes could return and establish robust populations, why not a few catamounts? And, now, here I was. When I came out, the cat appeared in front of me coming up a rise (incredibly close to some ski condos). 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 tail, I said. Morse founded Keeping Track in the belief that getting citizens interested and engaged in wildlife will have the knock-on effect of getting them interested and engaged in how land-use decisions affect wild populationsand might provide the impetus for conservation efforts. 9 Grace Christian (9-11). 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. Distinguished by a boxy head, big paws and a VERY long tail. Perhaps, then, the ultimate question isnt whether cougars are among us, but rather how we can encourage them to settle here. And, more often than not, when I told it, the person listening would nod and tell me about someone who had definitely seen a mountain lion/catamount in the Vermont woods or crossing a highway or, even, in the back yard. 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. Green Mountain Lion Corp #256 34 Blair Park Road Ste. Now that USFW has declared them extinct, why not formally reintroduce them. Theyre here. We met for lunch on a Sunday morning in early March, and it didnt take long for me to understand why Harrigan is such a popular columnist. Still, there is no saying that it will not happen. Recall a few years back, a guy in a kayak off Horseneck Beach in Westport, MA, was tracked by a large fin. The mountain lionalso known as the cougar, puma, panther, or catamountis a large cat species native to the Americas. He soon developed a five-question litmus test: How far away were you? 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). And the clincher, What would you say was the most distinguishing feature? Refuge volunteer Dale Erz originally. Our hunter friend was hunting in central NH when they came upon an adult deer carcass way up in a tree. In Vermont, it was 1881. You wouldnt shake hands with a man like that, she said, and though she was smiling I could tell she was serious. Experts need to see the body to dismiss their prejudices. As they watched in amazement, the cat casually moved off and disappeared into the surrounding woods. Bowler hat, expression impenetrable behind facial hair and the clincher, what would you say was most... 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