It was his great coolness and daring (either that, or fear) that enabled Crowell to shoot the animal at a distance of one rod only (roughly 16 feet), first hitting it in the leg with his shotgun, then dispatching it with a bullet to the head from a borrowed rifle. At Green Mountain Lion Corp, we specialize in placing professionals in a variety of industries. 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. When he suggested we retrace our route, past lion, to see a sow bear with cubs, we headed in the opposite direction. Experts need to see the body to dismiss their prejudices. Success stories being more fun to talk about than the other kind. Whatever it was, it was standing motionless and, I thought, looking back at me as intently as I was staring at it. He set down his cigarette and looked me in the eye. 104 Williston, VT 05495. As land was cleared for farming and the cats prey species declined in number, it went after livestock. He coined the term landscape of fear to describe the relationship between predator and prey in the wild. I appreciated Ottmann and Bettys confidence and commitment, but here I was, poking through thorny thickets behind a bar, trailing a bleeding man whose devotion to proving the presence of cougars was beginning to seem like a quixotic quest with no end. Around 7:10 pm this evening August 02, 2022 my wife entered our Oakwood Farm business off 6 Weed Road in Essex Center with headlights on. Others have seen cougar in neighboring towns . I go out into the woods on the opening day of deer season every year and a lot of other Vermonters are out there with me. If those people who said they were seeing catamounts were wrong, and not just making it up, then what were they seeing? Vermont Mountain Lion Sightings. But there was not enough evidence to either prove or disprove that a mountain lion had done the killing. It kills to eat but does not necessarily practice any sort of conservation ethic. COLCHESTER, Vt. Catamounts are. I got the glasses to my eyes and focused on the animal. Several years ago, I was bicycling with a buddy up Quabbin Reservoirs Administration Rd. The reasons for this conspiracy vary depending upon whom you talk to, but they coalesce around the idea that wildlife agencies would be inconvenienced by the cougars presence, as theyd be forced to respond in ways that would tax their resources. Hed encouraged me to keep my eyes open for deer carcasses cached in the trees (according to Ottmann, cougars are fantastic climbers and are known to stash their kills high in trees), but I saw only leaf-bare branches. If LTS can take care of business in that one, it would host the winner of the Bennington County matchup between No. This could, of course, be projection on my part. But some sightings were more promising and some seemed exceedingly so. 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. They were also seen at other times by members of my family and other people in the neighborhood. Its closest living relative is the cheetah. 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. Interesting how tree stumps or boulders assume the shape of an animal in this kind of light. My neighbors have seen several over the last 15-20 years. 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. Harrigan nodded. Wildlife management programs succeeded in reintroducing species to areas where they had not been seen for years. I wasnt the only one to see the big cat. 104 Williston, VT 05495. I started asking a lot of questions, and realized theres only one explanation for the answers I was getting: They are here., You could have 30 in Connecticut alone. 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. We need cougars and we need wolves back in the Northeast, because a landscape of fear is a well-balanced landscape.. The tail, I said. It has, in fact, more names than any animal in the world. With the price off its head, the lion gained new stature, and in July 1965 . You need breeding pairs and theyd probably settle down long before they got here.. Green Mountain Lion Corp #256 34 Blair Park Road Ste. We have a lot of them here in N CA. People could have been looking at a catamount that was not, in fact, a wild animal. And so we come to the great divide over cougars in New England. And, he says, if they were here, wouldnt one have been killed on one of the states highways where cars and trucks travel some 9 million miles every year? Betty had driven up from his home in Rhode Island. It is also known as cougar, panther, mountain lion, and puma, though catamount is the preferred regional vernacular. Kim Royar, a biologist at the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, told me she receives 40 to 50 reports annually, and although she believes that few, if any, are actual cougar sightings, she doesnt dismiss the possibility that someday someone will happen upon the real deal. 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. Ottmann nodded. I lived in Woodstock, CT in 2005/2006. The one killed on the Connecticut highway was on a journey worthy of Odysseus so it isnt likely that there will be a thriving population of mountain lions in Fairfield County, raiding backyard cocktail parties, anytime soon. All of us with rifles, most of them scoped. Interesting article, but it is really incomplete without a discussion of the legal implications of having a confirmed endangered species such as the Eastern Cougar in New England. Mountain Lions - Rocky Mountain National Park (U.S. National Park Service) NPS.gov Park Home Learn About the Park Nature Animals Mammals Mountain Lion Mountain Lion Last updated: May 4, 2018 Was this page helpful? Because they are.. No way to proveor disproveit. Or, if it does, when that will be. But perhaps an even larger portion is the product of his enduring faith in the men and womanloggers, hunters, trapperswhose vocations and avocations have instilled in them a deep familiarity with wild places and the creatures who inhabit them. But they would certainly pay attention if they did see one. Reported mountain lion sightings are popping up all over Vermont and convinced onlookers say the proof is in the pictures. He never found the evidence. 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. Its closest living relative is the cheetah. 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. We were about 50 feet from it and it stood taller than any labrador and we watched it tail and all slink down the side of the lawn and the rabbits being surprised out of the bushes. An expert said it was probably a basking shark. Most of those sightings were misidentifications, Doug Blodgett says. Wildlife biologists, as professional scientists, require a higher level of documentation and proof. One one occasion she had two little ones with her so their den must have been sort of closeby. Green Mountain Lion Corporation, Inc. Business Consulting and Services Williston, Vermont 5,563 followers Boutique management recruiting firm focusing on heavy equipment manufacturing & distribution. If theres a middle ground in the cougar debate, it belongs to John Harrigan, a veteran outdoorsman, newspaper reporter, and widely read syndicated columnist. It had moved a little and was standing unconcealed, now, in the middle of the logging road. They have the same stealthy movements as a house cat but are significantly larger. Ive attended talks with Sue Morse. Tom Stearns, a Vermont Game Warden says they get reports all the time. I was driving to work in Greenfield heading south on 10 and had just taken a right hand turn at the junction when the big cat crossed the road in front of me. His Tail was very long almost touching the ground and as thick as velvet rope. They are much larger than bobcat and lynx, young adults can still have spots too. This guy was very intelligent, he had abandoned a professional career to pursue his dream of guiding. When a cats around, its not hard to find evidence. Also moose. Inslerman said the DEC received about a half-dozen calls reporting sightings of mountain lions last year; two calls this week. But other hard evidence of the big cats presence is elusive. 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 also had the vague notion that when it comes to cougars, people tend to sort themselves into one of three camps. Females ranges are much smaller so it will take reintroduction or a few savvy wildlife biologist in the dead of night. I was outdoor with my two pugs and quickly scooped them up and brought them in the house. Matthew Johnson/Vermont Historical Society. 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. Vermont offers plenty of habitat in which mountain lions could thrive. And, according to people who swear they know what they saw the catamount. The Christian school also dropped out of the state . Ive seen more field evidence in a couple of hours tracking out west than Ive seen in 100 years on the East Coast, he said. Sue Morse, a professional animal tracker, believes that means cougars will, eventually, return to Vermont. I thought about why this might be and the best I could come up with for an answer is that we feel a kind of nostalgia for the wild. 3 talking about this. Reported mountain lion sightings are popping up all over Vermont and convinced onlookers say the proof is in the pictures. He didn't want to dispute what people are saying they saw, he simply says they need proof to substantiate it. Prior to the mid-1990s, the late Wildlife Professor Harold Hitchcock of Middlebury College, became Vermont's Official Big Cat 'hunter', who sought evidence of the Big Cats across the Maple State. Vermont Mountain Lion Sightings As I walked thru the beginning of the trail I spooked a deer and heard this awful screech and slowly backed out of there .. They set the stage for the exotics to move in, and this has a huge impact on our ecology, he said. And the clincher, What would you say was the most distinguishing feature? I had been the first vehicle in a line held up by one lane traffic on a bridge reconstruction. . 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. I knew it had to have been from a mountain lion Ive seen bobcats and their tracks and from the size of the deer carcass Im convinced there are mountain lions amongst us in Massachusetts! There are so many great sites out there devoted to. When I came out, the cat appeared in front of me coming up a rise (incredibly close to some ski condos). Even though the experts say there arent any mountain lions in CT, there are. 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. A far less likelyenvironment for finding a mountain lion than just about anywhere in Vermont. I had seen bear, deer, coyotes, foxes, that one bobcat all the usual suspects. And, if those people who said they were seeing catamounts were wrong, and not just making it up, then what were they seeing? Theyre here. So if coyotes could return and establish robust populations, why not a few catamounts? 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. 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. I only saw the back side, but he was huge. With all the thousands of trail cameras in the woods of New England, one would think that there would be at least one picture taken of a catamount. Was INCREDIBLE! 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. Probably because of all the hunters that would be out trying to get their trophy and endangering others. 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 think theyre coming in from Canada, Betty told me. It seems humans just cant resist destroying these animals and either dont realize or dont care what damage we have done to our natural environment over the centuries. We really must establish first that these beautiful animals SHOULD be in every state that was once THEIR habitat. Im gonna get hammered for it, he sighed. The Mountain Lions won both regular season margins by 30-plus points. 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. A journey of nearly 2,000 miles. They were also reluctant to certify that turkey and moose had returned the Quabin reservoir lands for many years after locals reported seeing them. 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. There was never, of course, a photograph. Our hunter friend was hunting in central NH when they came upon an adult deer carcass way up in a tree. 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. Watching a potential winter storm. Regarding a breeding population that is the unknown. Vermont Mountain Lion Sightings. I moved very carefully to get my hand in my pocket and my fingers around the glasses. This was after the department sent him out west to study the behavior of mountain lions. I think I may have pissed her off since I was up in that area X2 this week. And why not? The last catamount killed in Vermont was shot in 1881. She lives near the end of a gravel road in a modest, low-slung house tucked into the flanks of the Green Mountains. Our county. And, in the real world, a black bears fatal attack on a hiker in New Jersey last year made many people reconsider their warm feelings for that animal. I went back and told the tale to anyone who would listen. Morse introduced me to her cat, Allister, whom she referred to as her portable puma. Then she fetched me a beer. "The catamount, which is also a mountain lion, a cougar, a panther and a ton of other words, is actually one of the most widely distributed mammals in the whole world. If its not, you just thank the person and say good-bye.. 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