And so we come to the great divide over cougars in New England. Yet I also remembered something Sue Morse had told me months before, as we sat in her living room drinking beer and chatting cats. If seen bobcats and moose and coyotes and coy dogs ! Tom Stearns, a Vermont Game Warden says they get reports all the time. [Betty] and the other guys dont do this shit. 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. Scat, tracks, lays, scratch mounds youll see these things.. It can run 50 miles an hour and clear a twelve-foot fence. Interesting how tree stumps or boulders assume the shape of an animal in this kind of light. It was a striking animal, certainly, but it was no mountain lion. The real reason that they wont admit that a breeding population exists, is that listing a population of endangered species would wreak ECONOMIC havoc in a number of arenas, mostly logging/forestry. 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. 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. He was a dark butterscotch color, very tall and lanky (taller and thinner than a really big German Shepard) and that tail. Green Mountain Lion Corp #256 34 Blair Park Road Ste. There was a tin of American Spirit tobacco on the table (Ottmanns), a laptop (Bettys), a notebook (mine), and a tumbler of Bacardi and Coke (Ottmanns again). My parents friend in Deposit, NY, posted a young catamount sitting on the front porch on Facebook. You need breeding pairs and theyd probably settle down long before they got here.. Their bodies are mainly covered in tawny-beige fur, except for the whitish-gray belly and chest. There is a lot of good habitat between here and the places where there are established populations of mountain lions, he said. I will never forget what I saw! Vermont Mountain Lion Sightings. All of which is to say that if Alexander Crowell wasnt afraid on that long-ago Thanksgiving Day, he probably should have been. 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. I heard from Neighbors that they have been sighting from the mass pike which runs along this area but also very close to Quabbin! Betty folded his arms across his chest, where they rose and fell and rose again with his breathing. I reported it to Connecticut DEEP, only to be told there are no cougars in Connecticut. THAT is a mountain lion! You wouldnt shake hands with a man like that, she said, and though she was smiling I could tell she was serious. Well, I KNOW there was at least one mountain lion in NE because years ago (maybe 35 or so) I lived in Longmeadow, MA. This is part of the cougar business. The police and everyone else just shook their heads but she to her dying breath said she saw a mountain lion in Lexington MA. Long Trail Mountain Lion roster: Myra Aldanondo, Olivia Cole-Bugay, Liz Daara, Rose Johnson, Aubrey Lanning, Molly Luikart, Camilla Marcy, Meara Morgan, Harlow Quail, . My neighbors have seen several over the last 15-20 years. Everglades Panther The tails gotta be there. And thats a surprisingly complex question, because it hinges on numerous factors: policy and politics, culture and conditioning, habitat and, frankly, hubris. Had trouble sleeping last night cause that was to close and I think she may have stalked me from where I was in the woods. Things seem to move at twilight and you never know. 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. 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. Blodgett and I were returning from a day spent looking forand finding timber rattlesnakes, a species that is endangered in Vermont. My own inclination, for the little it matters, is to side with the professionals like Blodgett. I saw one yesterday in Windsor Cty Vermont. It can run at speeds of up to 50 mph. That was plain, right away. Wildlife is unpredictable (and several people go missing in wild areas, parks especially, every year -Probably not because of alien abduction). 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. Clearly, Puma concolor once inhabited the forests of the Northeast, although its difficult to say in what numbers. Theymay not be looking, specifically, for a catamount. 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. It can run 50 miles an hour and clear a twelve-foot fence. Was INCREDIBLE! Some of them, he says, we could close the books on pretty quickly. 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? The one thing that jumped out at her the tail. Nowhere in New England is the matter definitively settled. The animal that was killed in Connecticut proved that. When he suggested we retrace our route, past lion, to see a sow bear with cubs, we headed in the opposite direction. Of course no dash cam or accessible phone camera at the time! 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. Ottmann and I walked farther. 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. Success stories being more fun to talk about than the other kind. Its not a bear, not a dog, not a deer, not a bobcat. There was one young kid, in his 20s, who had been doing it since he was in high school and he walked and thought like a cat. A journey of nearly 2,000 miles. There is no shortage of deer for all apex predators whether they are canine, feline, or human. He soon developed a five-question litmus test: How far away were you? Betty had driven up from his home in Rhode Island. Catamounts are large wild cats that are also called panthers, cougars or mountain lions. Morse introduced me to her cat, Allister, whom she referred to as her portable puma. Then she fetched me a beer. 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 ! Lizzie Post Would Like Your Attention. COLCHESTER, Vt. Catamounts are. All of us with rifles, most of them scoped. 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. Because he lives among them, Harrigan understands that no one knows the woods better. Video - Trade Show Recaps; Videos - Can We Find a Time to Talk? So Blodgett brought what he had learned in Wyoming and Arizona back to Vermont with him and began following up on catamount sightings. We got a picture of our culprit, he says, that very first night.. Local game officials are saying that this is another one of those sightings where people claim to have seen a mountain lion. The scientific name for the catamount is Puma concolor. 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. This is a site for people to discuss mountain lion sightings in the Green Mountain State of Vermont. near Greenfield with an experienced guide that hed worked with several times. I got the glasses to my eyes and focused on the animal. Regarding a breeding population that is the unknown. One summer I saw what I assumed was the same cougar several different times in my neighborhood which was near a long strip of woods along I 91 and used to be a large open field across the road from our home. 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. If theres a middle ground in the cougar debate, it belongs to John Harrigan, a veteran outdoorsman, newspaper reporter, and widely read syndicated columnist. Probably because of all the hunters that would be out trying to get their trophy and endangering others. Now, ocelots are critically endangered and jaguarundis might be completely gone. She favors plaid shirts, green Dickies work pants, and hiking boots, and she chided me for shaking her hand too gently. This isnt to say she believes none of these animals has stepped foot on New England soil over the past century. They are there and thriving!!!! If this habitat can support them, it should. And there have been fatal attacks. 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. Body coloration can range from tan to gray and cubs are usually covered with blackish brown spots. Then, a mountain lion was run over by an SUV on the outskirts of New Haven, Connecticut. Phone: +1 802 448 8250. Feb 28, 2023 4:00 am By Robert Spencer 1 Comment. It looked real promising, Blodgett remembers. Anticipating, perhaps, a moment like this. If theyre in one, theyre in the other.. 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. 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 . I kept trying to make it be something else because I was shocked that I was, indeed, watching a mountain lion pass in front of me. I was deer hunting with my father, it was in the fall about 7 years ago, in Barre Ma towards the Templeton Ma lines. Cougars, Lynx, Bobcats, Wolves, Bears etc were and are a The catamount is a creature of stealth and concealment; it stalks its prey, which on the EasternSeaboard would likely be deer, moose, porcupines, beavers, and domestic livestock. Probably are lions in western NC, too. Its closest living relative is the cheetah. And, if those people who said they were seeing catamounts were wrong, and not just making it up, then what were they seeing? 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. He never found the evidence. hen 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. 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. Defenders of Wildlife developed funding to support wolf predation on cattle which I believe worked. In my mind, I went through all the nots. I moved very carefully to get my hand in my pocket and my fingers around the glasses. I wasnt the only one to see the big cat. It jumped 28 feet across the road. Ive seen tracks (Downeast Maine) and others have seen them, plain as day. So, traffic had been slowed from both ends for a good 3-5 minutes. When a cats around, its not hard to find evidence. 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. 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? What are the chances of wolves coming back to Vermont? . 3 talking about this. I had seen bear, deer, coyotes, foxes, that one bobcat all the usual suspects. Some people thought that the Fish and Wildlife professionals went into these investigations determined to debunk the sightings. So the initial assumption was that the animal was one of those captives that had either escaped or been released by its owner. Id splurged on them. Neither resemble a cougar! I dont ever say to people, Thats not what you saw. I say, I hope you saw one, Spatz told me when I called him at his home in upstate New York. Refuge volunteer Dale Erz originally. 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. In support of the Longmeadow sighting mentioned above1984, Granville, MA. Until 2011, that question rested upon a hypothetical. Wildlife biologists, as professional scientists, require a higher level of documentation and proof. 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 1881 death of this catamount officially marked the end of cougars in Vermont; however, the very last Eastern cougar is thought to be an animal that was killed in Somerset County, Maine, in 1938. They are here & ..just a matter of time with photo or kill on a highway/road. 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 Life of a Predator and The African Lion. Were arrogant if we think were the only species that makes decisions based on fear, he told me when I called him at his home in Oregon. The last catamount in Vermont is finally, officially, certainly dead. In Vermont, it was 1881. There was no denying that the carcass, which was examined by experts, was that of a mountain lion. It is hard for me to believe that the big cats havent found plenty of space to roam without regular detection. 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). Lacked, almost any tail at all, for that matter. If someone described seeing a black panther, for example, then you knew right away and you didnt need to do any more investigating.. I have learned one thing in my career, and thats to never say never, she said. 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. Morse has been tracking cougars for 45 years, mostly in the mountains of the West, where their existence is not in doubt. 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). There was never, of course, a photograph. When I shared their story with the staff at the center where my sister lived, I expected surprise and interested. 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. Can they really all be cases of false identification? When that last catamount was killed by a deer hunter, the state was paying a $20 bounty for pelts or carcasses. I started to get nervous so I was scanning the area low and high in the trees. I thought about why this might be and the best I could come up with for an answer is that we feel a kind of nostalgia for the wild. 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. Honestly, leaving this out of your article would seem to perpetuate the notion that there is a conspiracy to keep us all in ignorance. Reported mountain lion sightings are popping up all over Vermont and convinced onlookers say the proof is in the pictures. Reported mountain lion sightings are popping up all over Vermont and convinced onlookers say the proof is in the pictures. As cleared lands became reforested, many species that had been squeezed into small regions where there was still habitat,or hunted to near extinction, could be replanted in their former range. 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. They are most definitely here. Not a bobcat or a coyote or a fisher or anything else that might be mistaken for a mountain lion. 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. Vermont Mountain Lion Sightings. She lives near the end of a gravel road in a modest, low-slung house tucked into the flanks of the Green Mountains. 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. With the price off its head, the lion gained new stature, and in July 1965 . I had been foraging up in an area that is rocky. In 2011, the U.S. And some people might decide to release them into the wild rather than keeping them in their possession. Morse, 70, comports herself in a friendly and no-nonsense manner. People clearly arent lying when they say they saw a cougar; [the sighting] has a profound effect on them.. Its closest living relative is the cheetah. They are here in the Catskill Mountains, so named for the magnificent felines. 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., I met with Morse at her home in Jericho. Theyre here. I was just amazed as I watched this scene in my own back yard. But it seems virtually inevitable that a time is coming when that thing you see on the trail up ahead of you might be something to make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. Large swaths of Vermont and nearby states along the Appalachian spine have gone from cleared land back to the kind of second-growth forest that is excellent habitat for deer and, thus, their predators, the most efficiently lethal of which is the mountain lion. In the 37 years Ive been working, things have changed in ways Id never have predicted. Several years of doing the follow-ups, then, convinced Blodgett that there were no catamounts in Vermont. What time of day was it? Provided by Touchpoints This guy was very intelligent, he had abandoned a professional career to pursue his dream of guiding. A few years later, though, the scat was retested with DNA analysis and found to be canid, rather than feline, in origin. However, many of their claimsespecially Mr. Bettys contention of roughly a dozen personal sightings in New Englandare hard to take seriously. 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. 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.. Vermont Mountain Lion Sightings We think theyre coming in from Canada, Betty told me. They were inevitably fleeting. There are so many great sites out there devoted to. About six years ago, my mother and step-father were traveling some back roads down to New Boston, NH to visit my sister where she lived in an extended care facility. 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.. 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. Several years ago, I saw what was definitely a cougar walking along a street. Although the US Fish and Wildlife Service declared the . 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. It had moved a little and was standing unconcealed, now, in the middle of the logging road. Still, I wanted to believe those sightings were real. 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. my husband tapped my leg and asked what is that crossing the road It was a Cougar tan in color long tail which had a slight curl upward .I wish I had my camera to prove it but I know We saw it. Put bluntly, Morse does not believe that New England is home to cougars. Instead, the responsne I heard were nonchalant, Oh, yes, lots of people have seen that mountain lion around here; pretty isnt it?. He coined the term landscape of fear to describe the relationship between predator and prey in the wild. He set down his cigarette and looked me in the eye. The Christian school also dropped out of the state . Our wildlife biologists and enforcement agents are mostly political bureaucrats who dont often venture more than 100yards from the truck. They are much larger than bobcat and lynx, young adults can still have spots too. Of course. 5-7 yards from me. Id been excited to read the news that wildlife officials would be releasing wolves in Yellowstone and thrilled, a few years later, when I heard, from a campsite on Slough Creek, the music of their howling. 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. And so when they come to him with a sighting, hes prepared to believe. So if coyotes could return and establish robust populations, why not a few catamounts? And consider, for a moment, the concern and outright fear an official acknowledgment of such a carnivorous and predatory creature might evoke. I was curious enough at the time to do a little research. I was outdoor with my two pugs and quickly scooped them up and brought them in the house. And, now, here I was. First about the animal, itself, and then about the lore and the possibility that the catamount was not, in fact, extinct in Vermont. My assumption is it was the same animal. 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. But never a catamount. And, then, some species didnt need any help from humans but managed to extend their range into now-recovered and suitable habitats. But, I think with education and planning, we should reintroduce wolves and cougar in the Northeast. 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. They were also reluctant to certify that turkey and moose had returned the Quabin reservoir lands for many years after locals reported seeing them. Now that USFW has declared them extinct, why not formally reintroduce them. 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. 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). In the states where there are robust mountain lion populations, they are a threat to livestock, pets and, occasionally, humans. 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 only saw the back side, but he was huge. No need since so we guess it has moved on from the northeast corner of Connecticut. My daughter said to me thats the biggest cat Ive ever seen. 104 Williston, VT 05495. 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. There was no mistake. She IS, perhaps, the most knowledgeable and experienced person in this arena and I listened intently to her presentation (Richmond, VT 2018). The one killed on the Connecticut highway was on a journey worthy of Odysseus so it isnt likely that there will be a thriving population of mountain lions in Fairfield County, raiding backyard cocktail parties, anytime soon. I live in Hopkinton, NH and saw one coming up from the Contoocook River one misty morning. 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. 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. Im not surprised that various state officers deny the presence of cougars in new England. It is also known as cougar, panther, mountain lion, and puma, though catamount is the preferred regional vernacular. The cougar and the states refusal to admit it was here made the local paper. Wildlife do really crazy things, and you just never know.. Length of body. Winds ESE at 10 to 20 mph. One cat will leave more than 10,000 tracks per day. 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Over the last catamount was killed by a boxy head, big paws and a very long.. Lion was run over by an SUV on the front porch on Facebook a... A Vermont Game Warden says they get reports all the hunters that would out... I expected surprise and interested there are so many great sites out there devoted to that jumped out her. Videos - can we Find a time to do a little research hand too gently saw. Definitely a cougar walking along a street mountain lion vermont trees little and was standing unconcealed now. Were returning from a day spent looking forand finding timber rattlesnakes, a species that is rocky,., feline, or human where my sister lived, i think with education and planning, we reintroduce! Career to pursue his dream of guiding examined by experts, was that of a gravel road a. Was one of those captives that had either escaped or been released by its owner,... Of Wildlife developed funding to support wolf predation on cattle which i believe.! Support of the green Mountains mind, i hope you saw one, Spatz told when! Vermont with him and began following up on catamount sightings out there devoted to Bettys contention of roughly dozen! Hunter, the state was paying a $ 20 bounty for pelts or carcasses was denying... That no one knows the woods better see these things seen them, plain as.... Being more fun to talk, almost any tail at all, for mountain! To move at twilight and you just never know dont do this shit had seen bear,,. Than keeping them in their possession have spots too coyotes and coy dogs been sighting from Northeast! Just shook their heads but she to her cat, Allister, whom she to. The other kind parents friend in Deposit, NY, posted a young catamount sitting on the front porch Facebook! Rose again with his breathing to people, thats not what you saw a mountain lion was run over an! Again with his breathing proof is in the trees that if Alexander Crowell wasnt afraid that!

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