Face to face, maybe, with a sure enough catamount. His Tail was very long almost touching the ground and as thick as velvet rope. Long Trail Mountain Lion roster: Myra Aldanondo, Olivia Cole-Bugay, Liz Daara, Rose Johnson, Aubrey Lanning, Molly Luikart, Camilla Marcy, Meara Morgan, Harlow Quail, . We lived off of Mountain Rd in Granby, Ct for 8 years and I can say that without a doubt I am 100% sure that there are mountain lions living there. I have pictures of tracks around my car and up to the back steps of my deck in Arkville, NY . 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. 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. If you are a mountain lion, looking to relocate, there is good quality real estate and plenty to eat here in Vermont. The animal, I learned, is called many things: mountain lion, panther, catamount, puma, cougar and more. 5-7 yards from me. What color was it? Ive heard some biologists say it is not a distinct subspecies. And so when they come to him with a sighting, hes prepared to believe. 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. And there have been fatal attacks. Still, there is no saying that it will not happen. There was the vaguest of trails, crisscrossed by deadfalls and a sharp-thorned bush that soon drew blood from Ottmanns right hand. I wished it were a camera with a long lens to document the sighting. The tavern was quiet except for some hard-rock music playing on the radio, the murmur of a handful of men at the bar, and us. In the few seconds that this took, I had convinced myself that I was looking at a mountain lion. Cougars, Lynx, Bobcats, Wolves, Bears etc were and are a Still, Spatz acknowledged that the word hope is very different from the word believe. Especially among those who did believe. Please. I lived in great Barrington mass and I took photos of tracks in a field in April of 2009 (and of course lost them). I have heard several accounts from sober, sane, intelligent people who have seen them (especially a latre, good friend who was a very competent spokesman and hunter.). So it is possible that, on occasion, someone would catch a glimpse of one of these animals. [Betty] and the other guys dont do this shit. But, I think with education and planning, we should reintroduce wolves and cougar in the Northeast. The Christian school also dropped out of the state . It kills to eat but does not necessarily practice any sort of conservation ethic. 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. Vermont Girls' School Strikes Back Against the Trans Madness. 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. I could hear the steady rush of traffic on Route 315. Geoffrey Norman is a Dorset author and a frequent contributor to Stratton Magazine. Maybe you've seen the UVM(University of Vermont) catamount at a basketball game, or the catamount at the Vermont History Museum. 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. Yes I have seen several pictures on game cameras from people in Massachusetts in Central and western Mass that do have mountain lions on their game camera so please dont be ignorant. 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. We need cougars and we need wolves back in the Northeast, because a landscape of fear is a well-balanced landscape.. And why not? 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? In my mind, I went through all the nots. If you dont think cougars are coming to the East, think again, she said, leaning forward for emphasis. Newspaperman John Harrigan has long covered the New England outdoors, including writing the New Hampshire Sunday News column Woods, Water & Wildlife which ran for almost 40 years. Or, if it does, when that will be. In Vermont, it was 1881. The animal was too small and it lacked the long, sinuous tail of the catamount. What time of day was it? We think theyre coming in from Canada, Betty told me. Tried to see "mountain lion" and agree that what appears to be a long tail is most likely the . This is a site for people to discuss mountain lion sightings in the Green Mountain State of Vermont. I got the glasses to my eyes and focused on the animal. There was one photographed on a porch in Greenwich, CT, looking in the patio window that made national news a decade ago. All of which is to say that if Alexander Crowell wasnt afraid on that long-ago Thanksgiving Day, he probably should have been. Something I had not expected ever to experience. Clearly, Puma concolor once inhabited the forests of the Northeast, although its difficult to say in what numbers. Then, a mountain lion was run over by an SUV on the outskirts of New Haven, Connecticut. She favors plaid shirts, green Dickies work pants, and hiking boots, and she chided me for shaking her hand too gently. 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. Somebody in the NC Legislature believes, because lions are now protected by law. It may not surprise you to learn that I was quite intrigued by this third group. Sue Morse, a professional animal tracker, believes that means cougars will, eventually, return to Vermont. 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. Snow accumulating 3 to 5 inches.. . After 20 minutes or so, we turned and stumbled our way back to the parking lot. and with my friend Chris Christinat who lives in hartsville we saw one stalking a rabbit on her lawn about autumn of 2009. Success stories being more fun to talk about than the other kind. Lizzie Post Would Like Your Attention. However, many of their claimsespecially Mr. Bettys contention of roughly a dozen personal sightings in New Englandare hard to take seriously. He wore red suspenders and a baseball cap. Instead, the responsne I heard were nonchalant, Oh, yes, lots of people have seen that mountain lion around here; pretty isnt it?. Because while male cougars eventually strike out on their own and occasionally wander far from home, females are, as Morse puts it, hardwired to remain close to their mothers home range. The scientific name for the catamount is Puma concolor. The solitary animal seeks out new territory and eventually a new population will be established. 3 talking about this. I wasnt the only one to see the big cat. Around 1830, the . 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. But it is also true that there is something different and especially chilling about the threat of being attacked by something that is alive and wants to devour you. We were talking about those animals, like coyotes and turkeys, that have re-established themselves in Vermont and, unlike the rattlers, are thriving. This could, of course, be projection on my part. Not many, but then there dont have to be many to make humans aware of the danger and, often, over-react. We told him what we saw, and he confirmed other sightings on the property. They were also reluctant to certify that turkey and moose had returned the Quabin reservoir lands for many years after locals reported seeing them. Dismissing most of the sightings as probable bobcats, Morse asserted that the scientific evidence has not been proven. In 2011, the U.S. 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). Responding to complaints about a predator eating a local farmers sheep, Crowell and a small group of fellow hunters had tracked the big cat through the snow. Local game officials are saying that this is another one of those sightings where people claim to have seen a mountain lion. Females ranges are much smaller so it will take reintroduction or a few savvy wildlife biologist in the dead of night. So long as the tails there, that is. As I walked thru the beginning of the trail I spooked a deer and heard this awful screech and slowly backed out of there .. It is also known as cougar, panther, mountain lion, and puma, though catamount is the preferred regional vernacular. The light was failing and I was on my way out of the woods. We also had bobcats that we saw quite often but I am positive that these were mountain lions! So Blodgett brought what he had learned in Wyoming and Arizona back to Vermont with him and began following up on catamount sightings. However, when I asked the room of 200 or so people how many believe they had seen a mountain lion/cougar/puma/catamount, hands shot up all around the room about 25% of those present. Morse introduced me to her cat, Allister, whom she referred to as her portable puma. Then she fetched me a beer. 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. I have not had the pleasure of seeing one, but have heard credible reports of them in Western Mass. I had seen only one in my life and it was not in Vermont, where the mountain lion was officially extinct, the last one having been killed in 1881. Adult males may be more than 8 feet long (from the tip of the nose to the tip of the tail), and can weigh between 130 and 150 pounds. Adult males can be around 8 feet in length and weigh between 130 and 150 pounds, while adult females can be 7 feet long and weigh between 65 and 90 pounds. Regarding a breeding population that is the unknown. Reported mountain lion sightings are popping up all over Vermont and convinced onlookers say the proof is in the pictures. Green Mountain Lion Corp #256 34 Blair Park Road Ste. A few years later, though, the scat was retested with DNA analysis and found to be canid, rather than feline, in origin. Threat of Being Attacked All those deer hunters represent a kind of ad hoc search party. 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. When I came out, the cat appeared in front of me coming up a rise (incredibly close to some ski condos). This isnt to say she believes none of these animals has stepped foot on New England soil over the past century. 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. Ive seen tracks (Downeast Maine) and others have seen them, plain as day. In Vermont, for instance, a few dozen wild turkeys from Pennsylvania were released in 1969 and multiplied into the thousands we have here now. vital part of this countries ecosystem. 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. 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. We really must establish first that these beautiful animals SHOULD be in every state that was once THEIR habitat. The animal, I learned, is called many things: mountain lion, panther, catamount, puma, cougar and more. It jumped 28 feet across the road. Id splurged on them. People could have been looking at a catamount that was not, in fact, a wild animal. [The catamounts] movements were so noiseless that Mr. Crowell found himself in this dangerous proximity before he was aware of it, and it was only by great coolness and daring that he severely wounded the animal and perhaps saved his own life, reads a placard attached to the display case. I saw one yesterday in Windsor Cty Vermont. 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.. All with eyes to see and spring loaded to see something. But there was certainty, or near-certainty, on the part of the witnesses who, it seemed, would swear to having seen a catamount. 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