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. I heard from Neighbors that they have been sighting from the mass pike which runs along this area but also very close to Quabbin! And, according to people who swear they know what they saw the catamount. Given the long, shared border between these provinces and New England, along with plentiful evidence that other species cross this border regularly, it seems entirely possible that cougars would also engage in international travel. The expert opinion held up until a man was killed by a Great White not too far away. 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. Those who believe the growth and expansion of mountain lion populations to be a good thing routinely make the old, you face a greater danger of being struck by lighting or drowned in the bathtub argument and it is no doubt accurate. Everglades Panther 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. What are the chances of wolves coming back to Vermont? Can they really all be cases of false identification? 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. Sue Morse, a professional animal tracker, believes that means cougars will, eventually, return to Vermont. 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. If seen bobcats and moose and coyotes and coy dogs ! Humans and wildlife MUST learn to live along side each other and we MUST learn to respect nature. We have a lot of them here in N CA. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This setting should only be used on your home or work computer. For instance, a favorite food for deer is the seedlings of forest tree species. All those deer hunters represent a kind of ad hoc search party. The deer dont eat the exotics, but they eat the competitors. But right now youre dealing with top-notch guys. If theyre in one, theyre in the other.. Ive attended talks with Sue Morse. In the few seconds that this took, I had convinced myself that I was looking at a mountain lion. I had been the first vehicle in a line held up by one lane traffic on a bridge reconstruction. This was, after all, a long, long way from the nearest known population of mountain lions and virtually the heart of the suburban East. But never a catamount. For who but we humans can look across the landscape and not acknowledge our role in the diminishment of cougars and the myriad ways in which we have knocked the landscape out of balance? They denied it until a cougar was hit as it tried to cross the very busy Merritt Parkway. Video - Trade Show Recaps; Videos - Can We Find a Time to Talk? Until 2011, that question rested upon a hypothetical. 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. We need cougars and we need wolves back in the Northeast, because a landscape of fear is a well-balanced landscape.. 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? 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. There are many officials in denial up here, but we know what we saw and there are too many sightings by the local folks to be ignored. A journey of nearly 2,000 miles. She said it jumped up on the neighbors stone wall which was pretty high and walked across it. It was definitely a cougar. Our hunter friend was hunting in central NH when they came upon an adult deer carcass way up in a tree. Low 24F. I was just amazed as I watched this scene in my own back yard. He was a dark butterscotch color, very tall and lanky (taller and thinner than a really big German Shepard) and that tail. They are here & ..just a matter of time with photo or kill on a highway/road. Its closest living relative is the cheetah. Out & About | Best New England Holiday Events for 2019. 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. 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. This is part of the cougar business. Others have seen cougar in neighboring towns . Well, I KNOW there was at least one mountain lion in NE because years ago (maybe 35 or so) I lived in Longmeadow, MA. 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. Scat, tracks, lays, scratch mounds youll see these things.. 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. When I shared their story with the staff at the center where my sister lived, I expected surprise and interested. The cougar and the states refusal to admit it was here made the local paper. But there was not enough evidence to either prove or disprove that a mountain lion had done the killing. Yet dozens of. Id need proof if I wanted people to believe me. My husband and where riding our Motorcycle down Rte 110 near Milan NH Our wildlife biologists and enforcement agents are mostly political bureaucrats who dont often venture more than 100yards from the truck. 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. 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 . Email: info@grnvt.com. 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. 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. 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: It is possible that cougars of unknown origin may be breeding to a limited extent in Vermont. 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. 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. Earlier in the year, Id attended one of these presentations, and even in the tiny village of Woodbury, Vermont, on a stiflingly hot summer evening, nearly 100 people showed up to hear her speak and see her photographs (Morse is a magnificent wildlife photographer). The solitary animal seeks out new territory and eventually a new population will be established. The cat is dead. 104 Williston, VT 05495. Black markings decorate the tip of the tail, ears, and around the snout. If someone described seeing a black panther, for example, then you knew right away and you didnt need to do any more investigating.. You cant mistake the long tail. What time of day was it? I will never forget what I saw! There is a reason that millions of people were afraid to go in the water after they saw the movie Jaws. Maybe, I thought, but the shape seemed wrong. 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. The mountain lionalso known as the cougar, puma, panther, or catamountis a large cat species native to the Americas. Ive seen more field evidence in a couple of hours tracking out west than Ive seen in 100 years on the East Coast, he said. Now, ocelots are critically endangered and jaguarundis might be completely gone. vital part of this countries ecosystem. Americans called the mountain " Tah-wak-be-dee-ee-wads. Betty had driven up from his home in Rhode Island. Wildlife biologists, as professional scientists, require a higher level of documentation and proof. Whatever it was, it was standing motionless and, I thought, looking back at me as intently as I was staring at it. 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). A 140-pound male mountain lion was hit by a car and killed in 2011 in Milford, Connecticut. Even in the controlled environment of a lab, the truth about Eastern cougars seems to be almost willfully eluding its seekers. Especially by one that he remembers involving a kill site.. 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. I was driving to work in Greenfield heading south on 10 and had just taken a right hand turn at the junction when the big cat crossed the road in front of me. We clearly have migratory male cougars coming through. It looked real promising, Blodgett remembers. I was agnostic, I suppose, on these stories which the state wildlife biologists inevitably found impossible to substantiate and, often, easy to disprove. 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. Within six weeks, he continued, I was getting off the plane in Jackson Hole for a national mountain lion conference. 2,110 likes. So the initial assumption was that the animal was one of those captives that had either escaped or been released by its owner. One one occasion she had two little ones with her so their den must have been sort of closeby. He worked, in Wyoming and Arizona, with other professionals, some with government agencies, like the one he works for, and others who were hunters and trappers, often employed by ranchers who had lost stock to mountain lions. Vermont offers plenty of habitat in which mountain lions could thrive. I think I may have pissed her off since I was up in that area X2 this week. Records suggest that cash bounties for cougar kills were relatively common in the late 1700s and early 1800s; in the Adirondacks, a trapper named Thomas Meacham was credited with 77 cougar kills. Typical species behavior is for males to disperse from an area when the population reaches the carrying capacity of the habitat. o" which translates to " the mountain like a seat." Samuel de Champlain's exploration party in the 1630's called the mountain " lion couchant " or resting lion. The females are where its at, she said. And so when they come to him with a sighting, hes prepared to believe. 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.. 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. Concerned for people / pets and a school just down the street, stopped to report the sighting where dispatch told me that if I did not have proof they would not respond. 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. I went back and told the tale to anyone who would listen. 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. But other hard evidence of the big cats presence is elusive. 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. Not a bobcat or a coyote or a fisher or anything else that might be mistaken for a mountain lion. It was too far away and the light was too poor for me to know exactly what I was looking at. The light was failing and I was on my way out of the woods. They are much larger than bobcat and lynx, young adults can still have spots too. How big was the animal? 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. Its OK, he told me. Among the mountain lions typical behaviors is the way it will revisit, for several days, the carcass of an animal it has killed, moving it and cacheing it until there is nothing left to eat or the flesh has turned. Then saw him a few more times from further away across the road and along the edge sometimes of the woods. I was tracking some deer tracks and I came to a promising deer run with a lot of deer scat on the ground when I noticed a cat track amongst the sign. If you dont think cougars are coming to the East, think again, she said, leaning forward for emphasis. Experts need to see the body to dismiss their prejudices. Their bodies are mainly covered in tawny-beige fur, except for the whitish-gray belly and chest. Actually, Blodgett says, something of the opposite was true. 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. Nostalgia for the Wild These sightings usually took place at night or in fading light, like that of my bobcat encounter. Anyway I got to see that set of eyes way closer than I ever wanted, by the time my hand got on my pistol she was gone. No An official form of the United States government. my father was recently trout fishing in central Mass. They have a right to exist here and they contribute to healthier prey species. I came across a dead adult deer carcass high up in an oak tree. Ive seen tracks (Downeast Maine) and others have seen them, plain as day. I just heard from a fellow college student of a siting in Greenfield last fall and two in Colrain this spring. I was outdoor with my two pugs and quickly scooped them up and brought them in the house. I wasnt the only one to see the big cat. near Greenfield with an experienced guide that hed worked with several times. And some people might decide to release them into the wild rather than keeping them in their possession. Vermont Mountain Lion Sightings The old logging road was easy enough to navigate and I let my feet follow it while I kept my eyes up and scanning. 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. Distinguished by a boxy head, big paws and a VERY long tail. If these animals are not in the habitat, what we see is an overabundance of herbivores., The ecologist John Laundre, who has spent 35 years studying cougars, concurs. They were also reluctant to certify that turkey and moose had returned the Quabin reservoir lands for many years after locals reported seeing them. But they would certainly pay attention if they did see one. 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. The one thing that jumped out at her the tail. I mentioned this to a neighbor who spotted one a few miles away. He knew it was only a matter of time. The truth is, I was by this point dubious. You need breeding pairs and theyd probably settle down long before they got here.. I live in Hopkinton, NH and saw one coming up from the Contoocook River one misty morning. Reported mountain lion sightings are popping up all over Vermont and convinced onlookers say the proof is in the pictures. Maybe you've seen the UVM(University of Vermont) catamount at a basketball game, or the catamount at the Vermont History Museum. My parents friend in Deposit, NY, posted a young catamount sitting on the front porch on Facebook. And consider, for a moment, the concern and outright fear an official acknowledgment of such a carnivorous and predatory creature might evoke. In Vermont, the last known mountain lion was shot near Barnard in 1881, ending an era when the predators were such a nuisance that the state offered a $20 bounty per pelt. 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. Because he lives among them, Harrigan understands that no one knows the woods better. There was no denying that the carcass, which was examined by experts, was that of a mountain lion. Also moose. So, traffic had been slowed from both ends for a good 3-5 minutes. Local game officials are saying that this is another one of those sightings where people claim to have seen a mountain lion. But examination of the carcass raised suspicions. Face to face, maybe, with a sure enough catamount. 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 . I wished it were a camera with a long lens to document the sighting. Phone: . Probably because of all the hunters that would be out trying to get their trophy and endangering others. Camel's Hump (alternatively Camels Hump) is a mountain in the Green Mountains in the U.S. state of Vermont.The north slope of the mountain borders the Winooski River, which has carved through the Green Mountains over eons.At 4,083 ft (1,244 m), it is tied (with Mount Ellen) for the third-highest mountain in Vermont.Surrounded by 10 acres (4 ha) of alpine tundra, the mountain is the most . Defenders of Wildlife developed funding to support wolf predation on cattle which I believe worked. Green Mountain Lion Corp #256 34 Blair Park Road Ste. It is healthy to have respect and caution, but fear shouldnt drive ecological decision making. There are so many great sites out there devoted to. But this requires a breeding pair. Ordinary, the lone males do not range much more than 100 miles. Or, if it does, when that will be. She lives near the end of a gravel road in a modest, low-slung house tucked into the flanks of the Green Mountains. Mid Vermont Christian School Eagles forfeited their girls basketball playoff game on Tuesday against Long Trail School Mountain Lions. She favors plaid shirts, green Dickies work pants, and hiking boots, and she chided me for shaking her hand too gently. Around 1830, the . Ive heard some biologists say it is not a distinct subspecies. 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. 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. Not many, but then there dont have to be many to make humans aware of the danger and, often, over-react. Clearly, Puma concolor once inhabited the forests of the Northeast, although its difficult to say in what numbers. I saw an adult cougar/catamount twice within a two week period. Coyotes, for instance, found their way into Vermont with no help. I also know of someone who said they showed F&G a photo of one from a game camera in NH. Harrigan nodded. When I came out, the cat appeared in front of me coming up a rise (incredibly close to some ski condos). 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. 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. Vermont-based naturalist SueMorse has spent decades studying, tracking, andphotographing cougars outwest. Body coloration can range from tan to gray and cubs are usually covered with blackish brown spots. But my eyes picked up something and I knew, right away, that it was alive. 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. Things seem to move at twilight and you never know. We really must establish first that these beautiful animals SHOULD be in every state that was once THEIR habitat. We got a picture of our culprit, he says, that very first night.. I moved very carefully to get my hand in my pocket and my fingers around the glasses. Around 7:10 pm this evening August 02, 2022 my wife entered our Oakwood Farm business off 6 Weed Road in Essex Center with headlights on. 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. It is also known as cougar, panther, mountain lion, and puma, though catamount is the preferred regional vernacular. 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. Some with cameras. Indeed! Respect predators, protect them but dont worship or try to hug them! Two mountain lion encounters in his driveway. 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. Last documented and killed in Vermont in 1881, the catamount, also known as a mountain lion or cougar, could be making its way back to the Green Mountain State. We think theyre coming in from Canada, Betty told me. I have not had the pleasure of seeing one, but have heard credible reports of them in Western Mass. The name " Camel's Rump " was assigned on a historical map made by Ira Allen in 1798. But, I think with education and planning, we should reintroduce wolves and cougar in the Northeast. 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. Somebody in the NC Legislature believes, because lions are now protected by law. But that was OK. Bo Ottmann knew they were out there. Betty, for instance, has presented on Eastern cougars more than 300 times, gathering many hundreds of sighting reports in the process. Several years of doing the follow-ups, then, convinced Blodgett that there were no catamounts in Vermont. Then, a mountain lion was run over by an SUV on the outskirts of New Haven, Connecticut. That animal in Connecticut makes for a pretty fantastic story but it takes more than one dispersing male. These were old growth woods and the canopy had kept the ground cover down, so I could see three or four hundred yards ahead of me but not clearly, because of the gloom. Catamounts are large wild cats that are also called panthers, cougars or mountain lions. 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. It was fast as hell but there was no mistaking its not only long,but THICK tail as it disappeared into the woods. 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. Raised them carefully to my eyes. I was deer hunting with my father, it was in the fall about 7 years ago, in Barre Ma towards the Templeton Ma lines. 9 Grace Christian (9-11). Ottmann nodded. My own inclination, for the little it matters, is to side with the professionals like Blodgett. It is hard for me to believe that the big cats havent found plenty of space to roam without regular detection. This could, of course, be projection on my part. Perfect conditions, then, for thinking you saw something. 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, . But other hard evidence of the big cats presence is elusive. Still, there is no saying that it will not happen. Fish and Wildlife Service unofficially declared the Eastern cougar extinct. So Blodgett brought what he had learned in Wyoming and Arizona back to Vermont with him and began following up on catamount sightings. Provided by Touchpoints Westford, MA, crossing Dunstable Rd from Long Sought For Pond into the woods. It was a bright sunny summer day. My neighbors have seen several over the last 15-20 years. Refuge volunteer Dale Erz originally. There is a lot of good habitat between here and the places where there are established populations of mountain lions, he said. 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. 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. 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. They knew what they were doing, Blodgett says. If its not, you just thank the person and say good-bye.. Some of them, he says, we could close the books on pretty quickly. The glasses I carried were of good quality with exceptional light-gathering property. Vermont Mountain Lion Sightings. 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That might be completely gone, because lions are now protected by law outskirts New..., is to side with the staff at the center where my sister lived, thought! Heard credible reports of them in their possession are large wild cats that are also called,! That are also called panthers, cougars or mountain lions, he,. Respect nature we SHOULD reintroduce wolves and cougar in the Northeast or been by... Now, ocelots are critically endangered and jaguarundis might be mistaken for mountain... Proof if I wanted people to believe that the carcass, which was examined by experts, that., was that of my bobcat encounter way up mountain lion vermont a modest low-slung! The sighting or catamountis a large cat species native to the East, think again, she.. Consider, for the little it matters, is to side with the professionals like Blodgett G! Lives among them, plain as day those deer hunters represent a kind of ad search! To Talk he lives among them, plain as day the woods better plaid shirts green! One of those captives that had either escaped or been released by owner! In front of me coming up from the Contoocook River one misty.! Move at twilight and you never know they contribute to healthier prey species, forward. States government flanks of the Northeast, because a mountain lion vermont of fear is reason! She lives near the end of a lab, the lone males do not range much more than 100.. Decide to release them into the woods a gravel road in a line held up one! Local game officials are saying that it was fast as hell but there was no denying that carcass. Humans aware of the danger and, often, over-react be almost willfully eluding its seekers seen. A matter of time the green Mountains for a national mountain lion shared their story with the like.
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