At least once a year thered be a story from somewhere, but I only ran the absolute best, he told me. Adult mountain lions can be 7-8 feet long, including their tails. September 16, 2020. in Bethlehem, Environment, News, Towns. A harvest is kind of twofold. I started to get nervous so I was scanning the area low and high in the trees. Fear is actually one of the most powerful ecological forces we know, and its a really important management tool., According to Laundre, the problems caused by a relatively fear-free ecosystem are not always obvious, in part because they can take decades to fully manifest. 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. Stephen Gencarella, professor of folklore studies at the University of Massachusetts and a Connecticut resident, says, The government coverup is only the latest version of something that could stretch back in the oral tradition to precolonial times. He notes that supposed mountain lion sightings spiked in the late 1800s and early 1900s shortly after the animals disappeared from New Englands woods. How big was the animal? Hawley: Wildlife biologists across the United States know where the current mountain lion range is. Public opinion surveys show many more would support reintroduction, than oppose. Body length: 5 - 8 feet Ear length: 3 - 4 inches Tail length: 21 - 35 inches Weight: 90 - 160 pounds Behavior: Mountain lions are solitary animals except during the breeding season or when females are raising kittens. She still produces shows with Colin and the team when her schedule allows. But, I think with education and planning, we should reintroduce wolves and cougar in the Northeast. Hawley said that the typical range of cougars like mountain lions is from west of the South Dakota area. 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. 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.). Mountain Lion Weight: 80-160 pounds Length: About 7-8 feet long Tail: 2-3 feet long (up to half of the total length) Identification The mountain lion is a large, slender cat, with a long rope-like tail. Ottmann and I walked farther. Genetic testing placed the animal in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and the cat had been sighted at several different points during its long journey east. Bill Betty of Matunuck, a mountain lion expert who spoke at the South Kingstown Land Trust barn Oct. 30, thinks there is ample evidence pointing to the existence of a mountain lion in Matunuck. Betty folded his arms across his chest, where they rose and fell and rose again with his breathing. Its quite an uphill challenge for us to manage that situation right now. It was fast as hell but there was no mistaking its not only long,but THICK tail as it disappeared into the woods. The cat is dead. Nearby grocery stores include Food Lion, Star Food. You dont even have to go out and look for it.. They also generally have spots on their fur. It had rained previously. She still produces shows with Colin and the team when her schedule allows. In the 1930s, Bruce Wright, an influential wildlife manager from New Brunswick, Canada, began gathering reports of sightings of mountain lions in the East and searching for their tracks. Reading Time: 4 mins read . I wasnt the only one to see the big cat. No need since so we guess it has moved on from the northeast corner of Connecticut. However, many of their claimsespecially Mr. Bettys contention of roughly a dozen personal sightings in New Englandare hard to take seriously. We have people eating dinner in their kitchen, they hear a noise, all of a sudden a bear walks in, so they run into their bedroom to get away from the bear, while the bears out ransacking their refrigerator. Otherwise, Hawley said cats like bobcats want nothing to do with people, and they will generally prey on chickens, small dogs or cats. The sighting on Gerdes Road is the third in the past month and very close to the most recent one, on . They were also seen at other times by members of my family and other people in the neighborhood. You need to understand that every biologist that works for the state has a duty to deny mountain lions. You cant mistake the long tail. What color was it? 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. Facebook . She lives near the end of a gravel road in a modest, low-slung house tucked into the flanks of the Green Mountains. Hear the full interview: Megafauna mania: our obsession with mountain lions and other large predators. Yale New Haven Health Check; . 1 After three deer were killed on his property in March, Matunuck resident Abel Collins found what he suspected might be a mountain lion track nearby. It jumped 28 feet across the road. But a high-profile sighting in 2011 stirred up renewed interest in the animals here, when a mountain lion from South Dakota was hit and killed by a car on a Connecticut highway. Sometimes people feared fishers (erroneously attributing the blood-curdling screams of foxes to these hard-to-spot creatures), and in the late 1930s, after several animals were slain under strange circumstances in Glastonbury, the. 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 the vague notion that when it comes to cougars, people tend to sort themselves into one of three camps. I did call in a report to CT DEP and they basically dismissed my narrative questioning whether I made a mistake confusing the animal I saw with a bobcat or fisher cat. People have been known to submit photos of real mountain lions taken in other states and claim they were taken in Connecticut. Today marks the date of our inception. Then in June 2011, there were reports of a mountain lion in Greenwich and, for the first time, a photo. She said it jumped up on the neighbors stone wall which was pretty high and walked across it. On November 22, about 20 miles north of Rowlett there was another . Another possibility is to use the dosdude1 patcher to upgrade the MacBook to Sierra, this being generally possible on any unsupported machines mid-2008 or later. Check out 4 Seconds Until Impact by Bruce Hemming, or Cat Urbigkits books about predator attacks in unlikely places . Many, many times, in many different ways along its travel up through Minnesota, Michigan and to Canada, down through New York, through hair samples, blood samples, trail camera photos. She had seen an animal on foot in broad daylight. Mountain Lions: Large tan cats with a distinctive two to three-foot curving tail, that can almost touch the ground as they walk. In my mind, I went through all the nots. 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. Theres something in human nature to overestimate the size of wild animals we see, especially if we get a brief glance and if the animal is moving. He adds, Bobcats can get pretty large and some people believe they should have pretty visible spots and very often theyre pretty uniform in color. This is especially true in the summer, when my wifes sighting occurred. Mountain lions have traveled through Fairfield County in the past. I live in Hopkinton, NH and saw one coming up from the Contoocook River one misty morning. 5-7 yards from me. People like you are the problem and cause of extinctions. Then saw him a few more times from further away across the road and along the edge sometimes of the woods. My parents friend in Deposit, NY, posted a young catamount sitting on the front porch on Facebook. That maybe, just maybe, what my wife and others saw wasnt a bobcat that seemed bigger in the thrill of the moment, but a real, honest-to-goodness mountain lion, a long-lost ghost of the forest. But what about the sightings in Connecticut that are made by experienced outdoorsmen and women, people who know the difference between bobcats and mountain lions? Learn More Who We Are & What We Do. hen 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. are received by 1:00 p.m. CT, June 9, 2020 by Sheri Henderson at the Lincoln . The reason why experts wont admit to a breeding population existing is that there is NO PROOF. My mother always said she saw one across the street from our house one night in the late 50s early 60s. Our Mission. These powerful cats can weigh between 70-220 pounds, with males weighing more. 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. Genetic testing placed the animal in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and the cat had been sighted at several different points during its long journey east. Im not an expert on human psychology, but if youre looking for something, you have a greater chance of actually seeing it. Ive heard some biologists say it is not a distinct subspecies. And even the home entries are kind of changing. A month after the cat was struck and killed, researchers confirmed it had traveled more than 1,500 miles from the Black Hills of South Dakota. Photo of a mountain lion taken by a game camera. 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. Part of this belief is rooted in his journalistic experience, which across the decades has cultivated his nose for sincerity. On a mountain lion that died on a Connecticut highway. 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. No doubt of what it was; size, color and recognizable tail. Megafauna mania: our obsession with mountain lions and other large predators., Megafauna mania: our obsession with mountain lions and other large predators. Hawley, a wildlife biologist with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, says data dont support a breeding population of mountain lions in Connecticut. Bobcat sightings are not uncommon in Connecticut. And DNA analysis shows us that felis concolor is genetically the same across the USI think it is irrelevant, but interesting. 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. In some versions, state officials dont want to alarm people about the feline predators in their midst. Once at dusk driving in the Berkshires, he saw what he initially thought was a cat-like creature that was far bigger than a bobcat leap across the road. He was a dark butterscotch color, very tall and lanky (taller and thinner than a really big German Shepard) and that tail. Its quite an uphill challenge for us to manage that situation right now. To learn more about "lion country" in Colorado check here. Massachusetts and several other New England states have bear hunting, or harvest, seasons, which proponents say help control populations. 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