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. Betty, for instance, has presented on Eastern cougars more than 300 times, gathering many hundreds of sighting reports in the process. Spatz and Sue dont want to go where were going.. I doubt it but it could be a mountain lion. Now the bears, they dont even care if people are home, theyll go right in the house. Bobcats have a white-tipped tail and mountain lions don't. All of which is to say that if Alexander Crowell wasnt afraid on that long-ago Thanksgiving Day, he probably should have been. Were getting more and more home entries every year. Hawley:Were sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place right now. Until recently, it was thought that the last mountain lion (a very big cat -- aka a catamount) disappeared from our state decades ago. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); aint seen none yet, them wind turbines scarin em off, I have been following the eastern mountain lion mystery since the mid-1960s, in every state, east of the Mississippi River. Lucky the house cat got away. But no. Apparently, Barnaby is blind because he couldnt see it. Where once it was flatly dismissed as impossible in the so-called developed East, scientists have now documented cougar dispersals and reoccupation of a growing list of eastern states and provinces. 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. 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.. Paul Barrile Senior Capstone and GIS Project Number of Sightings Per Year 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 0 000 0 0 09 0 0 0 00 0 0 000 o Legend "Cougars in the East are the equivalent of Bigfoot or UFO's," according to Mark Dowling of the Eastern Cougar We need them for the health of our forests.. I wanted to see how close I could get walking closer and closer the eyes did not run in fact they started to come to us. People often get very emotional about it, Hawley says. At first my husband thoughtwow huge dog and it turned its head and it was a cat. She lives near the end of a gravel road in a modest, low-slung house tucked into the flanks of the Green Mountains. He was very, very shook up. But I still wouldn;t want to run into one. In June 1991 and again in July 1993, my wife Linda and I, visited Prof. Harold & wife Martene at their Maine Cottage overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, where we had serious discussions on the WILD, NATIVE, FREE-ROAMING cougars-mountain lions and their ancestors who have inhabited the eastern U.S. for over the last 500 years. Body coloration can range from tan to gray and cubs are usually covered with blackish brown spots. During Harolds tenture at Middlebury College, he spent many an evening with wife martene, conducting in field investigations across Vermont. I think they never left, Ottmann piped in. I could hear the steady rush of traffic on Route 315. 26M views, 14K likes, 2K loves, 8.1K comments, 19K shares, Facebook Watch Videos from VT: This mountain lion is about to turn a vacation into a nightmare. Mountain Lions Living Mountain Lion Sightings in Vermont in Vermont? These are huge animals that make a lot of distance to the day. However they put out a statement that IF there were to be a wild cat such as this it was illegal to shoot it. The cougar appeared injured and stunned, but eventually ran away . After registering, I can manage my newsletter subscriptions by visiting my Profile Settings page. In the second camp, there are those issuing the denials, pointing to the lack of photographic evidence, or the absence of tracks, or the simple truth that many people dont seem to know the difference between a cougar and a bobcat and a lynx and even, in some cases, a golden retriever. We need our apex carnivores in a big way, Morse says. I am an analytical person and I would say regardless of what they think it is-it was clearly a large cat of some sort. There were also people who spoke of seeing prints in a specific area in Hartland as well. Hear the full interview: Megafauna mania: our obsession with mountain lions and other large predators, Connecticut Dept. I could never forget your love for the big cats! Now, lets start talking about our favorite big cat! Just like cats do - it waited to the last moment and then ran across in front of me. The mountain lion is also known as cougar, panther, or puma. Fish and Wildlife Service unofficially declared the Eastern cougar extinct. [5] I have seen herons and other things there. 2023 Yankee publishing, Inc., An Employee-Owned company, all rights reserved. Pictures are pretty clear. My understanding is that they can roam a 50 mile radius as home, so seeing one there could mean it lives 50 miles away in the woods. This is a site for people to discuss mountain lion sightings in the Green Mountain State of Vermont. Tom Stearns, a Vermont Game Warden says they get reports all the time. Because he lives among them, Harrigan understands that no one knows the woods better. I can say that we didnt linger too long in the area. Johnny Lutz Happy hunting Mike Copeland. And that is often what people see when they get a fleeting glimpse of a bobcat is that white tail because bobcats walk with their tails up, Bernier said. We need [an apex] predator back on the land, Sue Morse told me. Other sightings have come from individuals with various responsible backgrounds. This is part of the cougar business. I will try to take more photos with an object to show scale. Stay clear and give 'em space. [2] [3] The subspecies as described in 1946 was declared extinct by the U.S. Still, this isnt a foolproof rule for big cat identification. Whats happening in Waterbury? Lets learn to live alongside this very large animal is one of the schools of thought. Despite frequent claims, there has only been one confirmed mountain lion sighting since the late 1800s here. Li mistaking that long swaying tail. I was within inches of hitting him, actually. Not yet. (Photo courtesy of Vermont Historical Society) Sincerely, Harrigan's column mentioned above continues to talk about this. Prior to becoming a reporter, he was the founding producer of Connecticut Public Radio's The Colin McEnroe Show, which began in 2009. The cat was out day light standing in hill that was near road only about 3 FT off ground, looking at me driving by. Sign up below to receive the weekly newsletter, which also includes top trending stories and what all the locals are talking about! Hes also unafraid to take unpopular positions when he deems it necessary: Shortly before our meeting, hed signed a petition in favor of keeping ATVs off public roads. 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. The animal, I learned, is called many things: mountain lion, panther, catamount, puma, cougar and more. Box 313, Maysville, WV 26833. My e-mail: epuma@frontier.com /// my mailing address 99 Beagle Boot Lane, Maysville, WV 26833 I do this shit.. Felis concolor couguar. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2011. of Energy & Environmental Protection. Hawley: Yeah. The presentation promises to be a magnificently illustrated introduction to cougar biology and ecology in the broad diversity of habitats where Morse has studied them, from Alberta to the Mexican border. This assessment is echoed by the aforementioned Christopher Spatz, who has been studying cougars for better than 20 years. The U.S. Vermont Fish and Wildlife say they get between 50 and 75 sightings here in Vermont, annually. The truth is, I was by this point dubious. The Spatz and Sue Ottmann referred to are Christopher Spatz and Sue Morse, two of the better-known and arguably most experienced cougar skeptics in the Northeast. She still produces shows with Colin and the team when her schedule allows. Required fields are marked *. Telephone: (802) 422-2399 There are. I can unsubscribe any time using the unsubscribe link at the end of all emails. 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). You could have 50. 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. I can send the pics I have. It was just before dark and it crossed in front of me probably 20 yards in front, it was tawny colored, mid tan like and had long legs and long tail and was trotting. Tracks are among the most common forms of verifiable evidence of Mountain Lion sightings, so it helps to have some idea of what to look for. When seen in Florida, they are of approx. So special. I noticed that there were many great websites, blogs, and discussion boards devoted to mountain lion sightings in other states of New England, but not one just for Vermont. At the head of the driveway is a flower sales table in front of a modest size greenhouse. He soon developed a five-question litmus test: How far away were you? E-mail it to epuma@frontier.com Hi Annie, I dont know if you still keep up with this blog but I thought Id give it a try. We even enjoyed the pleasure of taking them out to dinner, then returning wiith them for a delightful 3 days with them, dicussing the big cats, while they vacationed at their Atlantic Oceanfront Cottage.. HHH was firmly convinced, wild cougars inhabited Vermont, as well as each of New Englands nothernmost states. 99 Beagle Boot Lane If you have a cell phone telephone number I can send photos to, I will send you photos of the prints in the snow around my porchside door. If you do see a big cat in your neighborhood, best practice is to leave it alone, according to Waterbury Game Warden Chad Barrett. There were reported sighting of it but Vermont and NH denied the allegations. Though the infamous catamount has been declared extinct in Vermont since 2018, several people spotted big cats that they thought to be mountain lions on Ripley Road two weeks ago, according to posts on Front Porch Forum. Eastern bobcat. I have seen plenty of bobcat in my life and my son and I were even lucky enough to see a lynx about 8 years ago. How big was the animal? My husband hunts and tracks. Even in the controlled environment of a lab, the truth about Eastern cougars seems to be almost willfully eluding its seekers. 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