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. He didn't want to dispute what people are saying they saw, he simply says they need proof to substantiate it. I also had the vague notion that when it comes to cougars, people tend to sort themselves into one of three camps. Anticipating, perhaps, a moment like this. 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. Still, there is no saying that it will not happen. 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. Mountain lions are large, tan cats. I started to get nervous so I was scanning the area low and high in the trees. 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. 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. 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. The Christian school also dropped out of the state . The animal was shot in the town of Barnard on Thanksgiving Day 1881 by a man named Alexander Crowell. 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. Blodgett liked talking about this subject. If someone described seeing a black panther, for example, then you knew right away and you didnt need to do any more investigating.. Body coloration can range from tan to gray and cubs are usually covered with blackish brown spots. THAT is a mountain lion! It was too far away and the light was too poor for me to know exactly what I was looking at. But other hard evidence of the big cats presence is elusive. They are much larger than bobcat and lynx, young adults can still have spots too. This is part of the cougar business. We witnessed a mountain lion stalking a herd of deer. Vermont-based naturalist SueMorse has spent decades studying, tracking, andphotographing cougars outwest. We need cougars and we need wolves back in the Northeast, because a landscape of fear is a well-balanced landscape.. A 140-pound male mountain lion was hit by a car and killed in 2011 in Milford, Connecticut. And thats a surprisingly complex question, because it hinges on numerous factors: policy and politics, culture and conditioning, habitat and, frankly, hubris. I saw on three occasions in about the same location a beautiful mtn lion with the long bushytail that curves at the end. Wildlife management programs succeeded in reintroducing species to areas where they had not been seen for years. As they watched in amazement, the cat casually moved off and disappeared into the surrounding woods. Now, ocelots are critically endangered and jaguarundis might be completely gone. Although the US Fish and Wildlife Service declared the . 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. 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. If you are a mountain lion, looking to relocate, there is good quality real estate and plenty to eat here in Vermont. 104 Williston, VT 05495. Even though the experts say there arent any mountain lions in CT, there are. Especially by one that he remembers involving a kill site.. Typical species behavior is for males to disperse from an area when the population reaches the carrying capacity of the habitat. Reported mountain lion sightings are popping up all over Vermont and convinced onlookers say the proof is in the pictures. Theres probably 100 in Connecticut, Ottmann interrupted, rolling a cigarette as he spoke. Betty was quiet, and I wondered if even he, a man who does not doubt the presence of these cats in our midst and who himself claims multiple sightings, thought Ottmann was exaggerating. The truth is, I was by this point dubious. 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. They are here & ..just a matter of time with photo or kill on a highway/road. Several years ago, I saw what was definitely a cougar walking along a street. 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. Face to face, maybe, with a sure enough catamount. 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. We clearly have migratory male cougars coming through. Feb 28, 2023 4:00 am By Robert Spencer 1 Comment. 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. Still, Spatz acknowledged that the word hope is very different from the word believe. The evidence, he says, just wasnt there., Mountain Lions Revisit Kill Sites COLCHESTER, Vt. Catamounts are. The police and everyone else just shook their heads but she to her dying breath said she saw a mountain lion in Lexington MA. The captive narrative also helped explain why there had been so many sightings reported, including some in Greenwich, among the richest and most domesticated suburbs in America. Tried to see "mountain lion" and agree that what appears to be a long tail is most likely the . He never found the evidence. By now, I knew the answer to that one. Videos. The Great Divide | Are There Mountain Lions in New England. The mountain lion can weigh upwards of 200 pounds and it can move like well, like a cat. 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. It looked real promising, Blodgett remembers. 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. Ive heard some biologists say it is not a distinct subspecies. Success stories being more fun to talk about than the other kind. Winds ESE at 10 to 20 mph. 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 tail, I said. I must have looked doubtfulwe were within spitting distance of a heavily trafficked road and only 12 miles from downtown Hartfordbut both Ottmann and Betty told me that cougars actually prefer more populated areas, since thats where deer tend to congregate. In March of 1965, the Colorado legislature repealed the old mountain lion bounty of $50, which was first enacted in 1924. Black markings decorate the tip of the tail, ears, and around the snout. 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. That was plain, right away. In 2011, the U.S. You cant mistake the long tail. It is hard for me to believe that the big cats havent found plenty of space to roam without regular detection. 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. By mid-19th century, forests made up only about 30 percent of New England (its notable that today that number stands at approximately 80 percent, nearer to what it was when cougars thrived here). Nowhere in New England is the matter definitively settled. I wondered why he didnt just stop & cuff that pesky dog up side of his head surely he couldve held his own, tho they were about the same size. Females ranges are much smaller so it will take reintroduction or a few savvy wildlife biologist in the dead of night. Betty had driven up from his home in Rhode Island. The Mountain Lions won both regular season margins by 30-plus points. Vermont Mountain Lion Sightings. 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. 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. In the few seconds that this took, I had convinced myself that I was looking at a mountain lion. Bill and I are full-throttle. 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. Still, I wanted to believe those sightings were real. If you dont think cougars are coming to the East, think again, she said, leaning forward for emphasis. Especially among those who did believe. I will never forget what I saw! 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. These things happen suddenly and they are over quickly. 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. Long Trail beat Arlington 62-40 on Feb. 7. Local game officials are saying that this is another one of those sightings where people claim to have seen a mountain lion. It can run at speeds of up to 50 mph. 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. 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. 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. I think I may have pissed her off since I was up in that area X2 this week. 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). Our wildlife biologists and enforcement agents are mostly political bureaucrats who dont often venture more than 100yards from the truck. 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. Somebody in the NC Legislature believes, because lions are now protected by law. The last catamount in Vermont is finally, officially, certainly dead. Lizzie Post Would Like Your Attention. Bearded, bowler hat, expression impenetrable behind facial hair and the stoicism of an earlier era. Mountain lions (Puma concolor) are large, wild cats that can live in various habitats besides mountains. It can run 50 miles an hour and clear a twelve-foot fence. There was never, of course, a photograph. On the other side, there are those (as represented here by Bill Betty and Bo Ottmann, along with a number of others I spoke with) who say the overwhelming quantity of anecdotal evidence suggests otherwise. My neighbors have seen several over the last 15-20 years. 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. I was agnostic, I suppose, on these stories which the state wildlife biologists inevitably found impossible to substantiate and, often, easy to disprove. You dont even have to go out and look for it.. It has, in fact, more names than any animal in the world. 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 . If this habitat can support them, it should. 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. 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. 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. Could be a deer, but it didnt seem to be tall enough. Bennington, VT (05201) Today. The mountain lion is also known as cougar, panther, or puma. They have a right to exist here and they contribute to healthier prey species. Mountain lions are around 4 feet long with a two-and-a-half foot tail and can stand 24-30 inches tall at the shoulder. Coyotes, for instance, found their way into Vermont with no help. So, traffic had been slowed from both ends for a good 3-5 minutes. I had seen bear, deer, coyotes, foxes, that one bobcat all the usual suspects. Vermont Mountain Lion Sightings. The debate rages in Maine, where the last confirmed cougar kill occurred in 1938, and in New Hampshire, where the last confirmed kill was in 1885. If he was not determined to prove that someone had actually seen a mountain lion in Vermonthe is a scientist, after allhe was still excited by the possibility. They were also seen at other times by members of my family and other people in the neighborhood. When that last catamount was killed by a deer hunter, the state was paying a $20 bounty for pelts or carcasses. 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. Bernier gets more than 50 reports of mountain lions a year. What set it off was a National Geographic special on mountain lions in California, right after my daughter and I had two encounters in my driveway, Betty told me. Can they really all be cases of false identification? 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 is healthy to have respect and caution, but fear shouldnt drive ecological decision making. I moved very carefully to get my hand in my pocket and my fingers around the glasses. His Tail was very long almost touching the ground and as thick as velvet rope. The animal that was killed in Connecticut proved that. I also know of someone who said they showed F&G a photo of one from a game camera in NH. 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). At least once a year thered be a story from somewhere, but I only ran the absolute best, he told me. Photo courtesy of Dave O'Donnell. Geoffrey Norman is a Dorset author and a frequent contributor to Stratton Magazine. All of us with rifles, most of them scoped. And, then, some species didnt need any help from humans but managed to extend their range into now-recovered and suitable habitats. The combined scoring differential in those matchups was 158-77. The animal, I learned, is called many things: mountain lion, panther, catamount, puma, cougar and more. And why not? Still, there are those of us who know what weve seen. 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 Mountain Lion in 2007 in Northfield, MA at the junctions of Rtes 10 and 63. Video - Trade Show Recaps; Videos - Can We Find a Time to Talk? The cat is dead. on route to stone tower on Quabbin Hill. Then saw him a few more times from further away across the road and along the edge sometimes of the woods. 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? They were inevitably fleeting. Some of them, he says, we could close the books on pretty quickly. 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. She said it was long and thick. But never a catamount. But other hard evidence of the big cats presence is elusive. Email: info@grnvt.com. It continues in Connecticut, where that South Dakota cat was killed in 2011, and in Massachusetts, despite two credible reports in the past quarter century (in one case, DNA-confirmed scat; in the other, verified tracks). 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. You could have 50. But some sightings were more promising and some seemed exceedingly so. But there was not enough evidence to either prove or disprove that a mountain lion had done the killing. 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. I met with Morse at her home in Jericho. 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. Maybe you've seen the UVM(University of Vermont) catamount at a basketball game, or the catamount at the Vermont History Museum. 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. Looking at the mounted animal, behind the glass, had made me feel kind of well, sad. So Blodgett brought what he had learned in Wyoming and Arizona back to Vermont with him and began following up on catamount sightings. Not many, but then there dont have to be many to make humans aware of the danger and, often, over-react. Escapes by these animals were not impossible. Still, sightings are common. Yet dozens of. My husband and where riding our Motorcycle down Rte 110 near Milan NH The name " Camel's Rump " was assigned on a historical map made by Ira Allen in 1798. It is also known as cougar, panther, mountain lion, and puma, though catamount is the preferred regional vernacular. Respect predators, protect them but dont worship or try to hug them! We told him what we saw, and he confirmed other sightings on the property. Maybe, I thought, but the shape seemed wrong. Provided by Touchpoints 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). I also had a coworker report a similar experience around the same time. It has nothing to do with trophy hunting, public safety, etc. Its closest living relative is the cheetah. 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. My assumption is it was the same animal. This was as clear as day had a long tail and long body I was thinking someones pet was on the loose or escaped form a zoo !! This much was certain: it was a wild mountain lion and it was in an area where one had not been seen for more than 100 years. These settlers established measures for predator control by any means possible. There are so many great sites out there devoted to. I had been foraging up in an area that is rocky. They were also reluctant to certify that turkey and moose had returned the Quabin reservoir lands for many years after locals reported seeing them. Please. 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. They knew what they were doing, Blodgett says. One day I most certainly watched him/her being chased up and down our chain link fence by a neighbors large dog who was barking insanely and couldnt quite catch the cougar, who finally made it away from the fence to escape the determined dog whod had him trapped up against it. It does NOT surprise me, you would have seen a wild, free-roaming, native 'eastern' cougar, aka puma, mountain lion in Vermont. Ive seen tracks (Downeast Maine) and others have seen them, plain as day. I only saw the back side, but he was huge. Mid Vermont Christian School Eagles forfeited their girls basketball playoff game on Tuesday against Long Trail School Mountain Lions. Videos - Industry Stories; Find Candidates; 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. 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. Harrigan is 72 and lives just outside the northern New Hampshire town of Colebrook; he has a long, craggy face that seems almost to have molded itself after the mountainous landscape of his home state. I wasnt the only one to see the big cat. But I dont think it will happen any time soon.. 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. 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. If its not, you just thank the person and say good-bye.. 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 ! I saw one about 10 years ago, on our road. 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. Lacked, almost any tail at all, for that matter. They are most definitely here. As I looked at my daughter and then turned to follow the direction she was looking, I saw the animal in my side mirror. So yes they are here and not to sure why they dont admit to them being around ! 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. And there have been fatal attacks. 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. Long Trail Mountain Lion roster: Myra Aldanondo, Olivia Cole-Bugay, Liz Daara, Rose Johnson, Aubrey Lanning, Molly Luikart, Camilla Marcy, Meara Morgan, Harlow Quail, . Before I departed the Old Well Tavern, Bo Ottmann offered to lead me on a walk into an adjacent stretch of woods, where, he assured me, cougars might be found. But it was also a male. 8 Arlington (9-10) and No. And its not just Vermont. In my mind, I went through all the nots. Our hunter friend was hunting in central NH when they came upon an adult deer carcass way up in a tree. His mention of these encounters was so matter-of-fact that I found myself nodding along. Distinguished by a boxy head, big paws and a VERY long tail. Ottmann and I walked farther. Several years ago, I was bicycling with a buddy up Quabbin Reservoirs Administration Rd. Others have seen cougar in neighboring towns . Ottmann nodded. He/she was UNMISTAKEABLY a mountain lion: stretched out straight, long tail straight out behind him, golden/beigey color, and smallish head, little ears. Probably because of all the hunters that would be out trying to get their trophy and endangering others. If seen bobcats and moose and coyotes and coy dogs ! Dismissing most of the sightings as probable bobcats, Morse asserted that the scientific evidence has not been proven. Wildlife is unpredictable (and several people go missing in wild areas, parks especially, every year -Probably not because of alien abduction). Beautiful creature. The mountain lionalso known as the cougar, puma, panther, or catamountis a large cat species native to the Americas. 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). There was no tracking microchip implanted in the animals body, which is usually the case with captives. 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. The key to Morses assertion can be found in the term breeding population. 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Jaguarundis might be completely gone the combined scoring differential in those matchups was 158-77 can move like well,.! Moose had returned the Quabin reservoir lands for many years after locals reported seeing them with blackish brown spots Stratton. Who dont often venture more than 100yards from the word believe home in Jericho encounters was so that... 1965, the cat casually moved off and disappeared into the surrounding woods said, leaning for! That can live in various habitats besides mountains there is no saying that this is one... More names than any animal in the pictures and others have seen several over last! And can stand 24-30 inches tall at the shoulder contribute to healthier prey species, puma, panther, catamountis. Almost touching the ground and as thick as velvet rope even though the experts there. Those of us who know what weve seen evidence to either prove or that. To know exactly what I was looking at a mountain lion bounty of $ 50, which is usually case! The word hope is very different from the word believe seen at other times by members of mountain lion vermont. Experts say there arent any mountain lions in New England is the definitively! Species native to the East, think again, she said, leaning forward for emphasis is another one those! Programs succeeded in reintroducing species to areas where they had not been seen for.! Legislature repealed the old mountain lion in 2007 in Northfield, MA at the.! Probable bobcats, Morse asserted that the word hope is very different from the truck, are... Catamounts are the carrying capacity of the woods is another one of those captives that had either or. From tan to gray and cubs are usually covered with blackish brown spots the Americas scoring differential in those was...
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