cougars in the 'Dacks?

Chris Little wrote:

Yes

I think the pertinent question is who are you, and what prompted you to resurrect a thread from 2012? Not that your answer wasn't succinct...

Lol! OLH

Old lady H wrote:

I think the pertinent question is who are you, and what prompted you to resurrect a thread from 2012? Not that your answer wasn't succinct...

Lol! OLH

I'm just an over the hill has been who used to live for climbing and nothing else. Now I just hang out in Albuquerque and lust over the granite I can see from my house. I didn't realize I was resurrecting a thread, I just stumbled across it and remembered that cheetas couldn't retract their claws, based on what I saw on a documentary. I was trying to help. Also, they LOVE Cheetos. That's all I know about them.

Chris Little wrote:

I'm just an over the hill has been who used to live for climbing and nothing else. Now I just hang out in Albuquerque and lust over the granite I can see from my house. I didn't realize I was resurrecting a thread, I just stumbled across it and remembered that cheetas couldn't retract their claws, based on what I saw on a documentary. I was trying to help. Also, they LOVE Cheetos. That's all I know about them.

Well. Some other thread helpfully let me know I'm a jaguar.... potentially. 

We have mountain lions and wolves both, here in Boise. They both can roam huge distances, so I would be surprised if they weren't anyplace where there's a sizeable deer population.

Good thing Cheetos don't run wild here....

Go climb somethin. :-)

Best, OLH

Very Strange wrote:

I know this an old thread and all...

...But this made me laugh. The confirmed wolves live in an enclosure at the Wilmington wildlife refuge and were raised in captivity

I wasn't referring to any refuge coyotes or wolves when I posted that 5 or 6 years ago.  And in the time since, I've come to understand that what we have in the Northeast is a hybrid (a.k.a "coywolf") that can be quite large, resembling a wolf to those who have never seen wolves (and expect coyotes to be much smaller).

s.price wrote:

In 2001 a wolf was killed north of Great Sacanda Lake. In 98 and 06 wolves were killed in Vermont's NE kingdom. Tests showed they were all wild.

As referenced above animals can and will travel amazing distances. A wolf was hit by a car on Vail Pass in CO a few years back. It had traveled from Montana. And the aforementioned cougar from South Dakota who made it to the east coast.

I have personally seen wolves and grizzly in the South San Juans. Neither has been acknowledged by the agencies involved since 79 when the last grizzly was shot here.

She had suckled. Her age would suggest more than once.

Never underestimate the mystery of the natural world.

Nature will, uh, find a way.

Mike - love the Jurassic Park reference. 

Just backpacked the Cats this past weekend and we found tracks that were way too big for raccoon and were def not bear. There are def some bigger cats out there. 

I thought I read they were extinct on the east coast a while back

A Grizzly was reported, and confirmed by conservation officers, on Mt. Greylock in Massachusettes a few months ago. Apparently some of them travel great distances looking for love.

We've got them in OK. I saw two 4yrs back a month apart. One atypical yellow one and a black (dark brown) one. Two years ago one of my friends saw one hunting, last week of archery my son and I got circled by a howling female while sitting tree stands.

Creepiest thing you'll ever hear in the woods........

https://youtu.be/pxo8X5uIWRE

Almost forgot, we decided we should probably trap the cougar for safety purposes. All you need is a cardboard box..... ;)

Once it's in there you close it, tape it and mail it to the wildlife department.

Remember, "if it fits, it ships".

John Barritt wrote:

We've got them in OK. I saw two 4yrs back a month apart. One atypical yellow one and a black (dark brown) one. Two years ago one of my friends saw one hunting, last week of archery my son and I got circled by a howling female while sitting tree stands.

Creepiest thing you'll ever hear in the woods........

https://youtu.be/pxo8X5uIWRE

Almost forgot, we decided we should probably trap the cougar for safety purposes. All you need is a cardboard box..... ;)

Once it's in there you close it, tape it and mail it to the wildlife department.

Remember, "if it fits, it ships".

If you don't put a bowl of water, some cat food, & some kitty litter in with it, you'll have peta on your door step w/the local T.V. news crew.

Chris Little wrote:

If you don't put a bowl of water, some cat food, & some kitty litter in with it, you'll have peta on your door step w/the local T.V. news crew.

We sent it overnight, marked FRAGILE, DONUTS, OPEN IMMEDIATELY! with no return address....... ;)

Jack Lumber wrote:

A Grizzly was reported, and confirmed by conservation officers, on Mt. Greylock in Massachusettes a few months ago. Apparently some of them travel great distances looking for love.

If that were in NY, I would expect the official line to be "escaped pet".

Despite some ambiguity, the FWS believes the Eastern mountain lion is extinct as of January 2018 (see an in-depth description of the history of opinions on this here). Even if you don't believe the FWS, it's highly improbable that you saw one.

s.price wrote:

John is right, creepiest sound in the woods.

While hunting archery season 5 years ago this sound stopped me in my tracks. I had been blessed with an elk that morning but was a half mile from camp, 2 from the nearest trail and 4 miles from my truck. Long day. To get it all out meant 2 and a half trips. 

Stopped me in my tracks is an understatement. Paralyzed more like it. I had heard this before but always from a distance and a place that felt safe. I had just picked up the trail and had been navigating by headlamp for the last hour.

When the cat screamed it sounded like it was right on top of me. I'm loaded down with a hind quarter, fur and antlers. Basically a wounded elk with a headlamp.

My heartbeat returned to a resemblance of normal shortly after returning to the truck. And a few sips of Bourbon.

I know that's right. We were sitting in 20' stands on a treeline facing a meadow about 100 yards apart when that screaming girl in the woods walked all the way around us.

It was an edgy walk to the truck. We decided to get out before dark and the woods were so still you could hear a pin drop.

Chills.......

eastern cougar is extinct. what has happened simeler to our coyote population is migration. our  coyotes have bred with red wolfs  and are much bigger than normal. Several years ago a collered western mtn lion was killed by a car in CT. that mountain lion had traveled all the way from montana.  If we had a sustainable population of western mtn lions in VT they would show up on game cameras. they do not.    game cameras are a game changer. My sisters farm they use them and you see all kinds of stuff. bears, bob cat, deer etc.   I have seen 2 linx where I live in VT. one up close. they have a very large  snowshoe paw print.  also listed as native to the area.  they live on snowshoe wabbits and are only found where there is a healthy rabbit population.

In 2011 four days before they declared the mountain lion extinct I had one cross the road in front of me in southern New Hampshire. Clearly was a lion with the black tipped tail. Other reports by the mail delivery person corroborated my sighting. I reported it to fish and game and was told is was probably a western lion. I don’t disagree with that but whether it’s western or eastern, there are cougars in the east. Few and far between?  Yeah. Are they out there though? Yeah.

John Barritt wrote:

We've got them in OK. I saw two 4yrs back a month apart. One atypical yellow one and a black (dark brown) one. Two years ago one of my friends saw one hunting, last week of archery my son and I got circled by a howling female while sitting tree stands.

Creepiest thing you'll ever hear in the woods........

https://youtu.be/pxo8X5uIWRE

Almost forgot, we decided we should probably trap the cougar for safety purposes. All you need is a cardboard box..... ;)

Once it's in there you close it, tape it and mail it to the wildlife department.

Remember, "if it fits, it ships".

Wow office depot stooped to a new low in their marketing ploys

Dan Knisell wrote:

In 2011 four days before they declared the mountain lion extinct I had one cross the road in front of me in southern New Hampshire. Clearly was a lion with the black tipped tail. Other reports by the mail delivery person corroborated my sighting. I reported it to fish and game and was told is was probably a western lion. I don’t disagree with that but whether it’s western or eastern, there are cougars in the east. Few and far between?  Yeah. Are they out there though? Yeah.

It was pretty much the same thing here. The wildlife dept. denied the presence of the big cats in OK. Until people started reporting them. Then one gets hit on the high way south of town. I was fly fishing a spot called "the evening hole" in beavers bend state park about 12 years ago (when we didn't have any big cats here) and was told by a park official I knew to keep my eyes peeled. One had been spotted drinking from that very pool the day before. Come to find out there is a big cat relocation program and some were introduced here from CO. Most of them are chipped and GPS locatable.

After my first sighting 5 years ago I've done some research, they have a 20 mi per day range and about a 100 mile total range. The cat my friend saw 2 years ago (8 miles from where I was sitting when we got circled the end of deer season) and the one I heard could be the same cat. Or not........

After we got circled by the female in heat the end of deer season I called the warden for the county we were in to ask about sightings or livestock being killed in that area. Surprise! Not that he knew of.........

Our state hunting guide now shows them as no season or limit animals that "may" be killed if  deemed a threat to livestock or personal safety.

I don't know about NY but here the "country" creeps into our city via creeks and green spaces like little wildlife corridors. We have urban and sub-urban coyote and deer populations. My wife and I watched two coyotes cross the road onto a golf course where we see deer nearly every time we drive by. Not to mention in-town skunks, possums, raccoons and so on. I count the deer every time I drive by the water treatment plant, If the (extinct) Mountain lion population expands well be seeing them on the golf course next.  

Lisa Haze wrote:

Wow office depot stooped to a new low in their marketing ploys

It definitely plants the seed that their boxes are best for catching mountain lions.........or hard to tear up.......I can hear it now.... "Boss, I have a great idea! We get some cat-nip and a mountain lion......" 

Wildlife biologist here- 

Though there are no reproductive populations of mountain lions in the Eastern US, sightings of vagrants do occasionally happen, though the vast majority (>99%) of reported sightings are mis-identifications. However, the species is undeniably expanding back into territory it once was native to, and substantiated observations are likely to increase as time goes on.