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. First about the animal, itself, and then about the lore and the possibility that the catamount was not, in fact, extinct in Vermont. This is Christina, I used to work with you at the YMCA in Burlington. The tail, I said. I have been investigating big cat reports across the eastern U.S., since 1963, have collected over 11,000 sightingsThis message is NOT a joke!! The animal was shot in the town of Barnard on Thanksgiving Day 1881 by a man named Alexander Crowell. Help us document the biodiversity of the Green Mountain State. I must have looked doubtfulwe were within spitting distance of a heavily traffickedroad and only 12 miles from downtown Hartfordbut both Ottmann and Betty told me that cougars actually prefer more populated areas, since thats where deer tend to congregate. After 20 minutes or so, we turned and stumbled our way back to the parking lot. The News Bank Conference Center is located at 352 Main Street in Chester. They certainly have, you know, lower levels of conflicts and home entries than we do here in Connecticut. One, Waterbury resident Jeff Kilgores sister-in-law, came across the cats while walking a dog on Ripley Road on a Monday morning. My favorite mountain lion story while living in California years ago was the turkey hunter who crouched down in front of a rock then used his call several times. Sincerely, Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. Theres probably 100 in Connecticut, Ottmann interrupted, rolling a cigarette as he spoke. The last catamount in Vermont is finally, officially, certainly dead. Too loud, too close and too deep a voice to be a shy bobcat2 nights with a big fire blazing. While on vacation last summer in the Sequoias we had a lion cross the road in front of us at about 11 at night one night. 0. Our county announced that they do not think they will be able to retain our county trapper due to our serious budget crisis. There was NO doubt it was a cat, it was huge about the size of a Great Dane, sleek and leggy. Now only feet from what I realized was a mountain lion I was in horror. Back in 2002 I saw a full grown mountain lion in Dummerston Vermont on east/west road. My husband was on a conference call and was staring out of our front window while on the call. sunnyside village cohousing; federal halfway house rules and regulations; Owners. Dashboard for displaying mountain lion reports to the public. Lynx sightings and Catamount sightings have been on the increase every year since 2003. Monday Friday: 10 a.m. 3 p.m. Prior to the mid-1990s, the late Wildlife Professor Harold Hitchcock of Middlebury College, became Vermonts Official Big Cat hunter, who sought evidence of the Big Cats across the Maple State. And so when they come to him with a sighting, hes prepared to believe. Betsy started as an intern at WNPR in 2011 after earning a Master's Degree in American and Museum Studies from Trinity College. Forty years of reporting on New Hampshire cougar sightings has convinced Harrigan that the state is home to at least a handful of breeding animals. Jason Hawley says his office gets lots of calls about mountain lions each year. 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. Glen Gunelic Vermont Mountain Lion Sightings. 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? Reported catamount sightings all over Vermont MyNBC5-WPTZ 16.6K subscribers Subscribe 15 Share 4.5K views 10 years ago Reported mountain lion sightings are popping up all over Vermont. I was awakened by a wailing sound that I thought was a woman in great pain and fear in my front yard. Dan Moore::: IN reference to your big cat crossing Route 113, YES, mountain lions/cougars/pumas, 3 of the most popular names for North Americas largest unspotted, lion-cat, travelling free in almost every state, across the USA. Massachusetts and several other New England states have bear hunting, or harvest, seasons, which proponents say help control populations. Because theyre a northern animal, they have snow shoes by birth, Bernier said. 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 Back in the 60s a traveling zoo lost their black panther, and denied it. Spatz and Sue dont want to go where were going.. Its quite an uphill challenge for us to manage that situation right now. I know the difference. What set it off was a National Geographic special on mountain lions in California, right after my daughter and I had two encounters in my driveway, Betty told me. Waterbury Roundabout is an online news site launched in May 2020 as a volunteer effort in collaboration with the University of Vermont's Reporting and Documentary Storytelling program to cover local news in and around Waterbury, Vermont. http://www.unionleader.com/pda-articrespectful+way. Morse has been tracking cougars for 45 years, mostly in the mountains of the West, where their existence is not in doubt. We have a lot of them here in N CA. But no. 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). This is a natural wildlife corridor coming down off of the Worcester Range headed over towards the Green Mountain Range. They usually don't wanna be around you anyways. Its acceleration was amazing. I couldnt tell you how happy I would be if mountain lions were actually recolonizing the state of Connecticut, Hawley says, but its just not happening., Hawley spoke about bobcats, mountain lions and bears on The Colin McEnroe Show: Megafauna mania: our obsession with mountain lions and other large predators.. Hawley: That animal was documented. Photo courtesy of Dave O'Donnell. I swear that is what I saw this morning at about 4 am in my drive. A few years latter our friends saw the mt lion cross rt 100 directly below the spot of my incounter. Since my 1st contact with Prof. Harold Hitchcock in 1981, I have collected big cat sightings from across Vermont from the internet. PO Box 183 (Postal address) I did not see [the cats], but I did talk to the guy. Eastern bobcat. I was driving on cave road on Back side of military base toward Willisdon VT and it was across from ANG Miitary.. Johnny Lutz I have no choice but to take this seriously, he told me. The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources is alerting residents of Cache County, UT that there have been several mountain lion sightings recently in the area, including along the river trail in Logan Canyon. Wildlife do really crazy things, and you just never know.. Lutz, P.O. It has, in fact, more names than any animal in the world. And theres another school of thought, Well, no, there just are too many of them probably we have to reduce that population somehow. Where do you fall in that whole continuum? And somebody hollering. He can be reached by phone at 860-275-7297 or by email: pskahill@ctpublic.org. "Of those . Two of my family members sighted cougars in Florida during daylight hours: one was leaping through a field on myakka side of route 75, between north port and Sarasota. Please contact me at epuma@frontier.com or 304-749-7778. And then he drove up into my yard to read the meter. I can unsubscribe any time using the unsubscribe link at the end of all emails. Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. I was proud to acknowledge the fact, of being a CLOSE friend to both the Professor & his wife Martene. But right now youre dealing with top-notch guys. I read John Harrigan's weekly wildlife column in the Sunday Manchester Union Leader (NH). ALSO KNOWN AS Bobcats: Though technically a type of lynx, they are distinct from other species of lynx such as the Canadian lynx. It was a beautiful golden red color (like a red squirrel), about the size of a medium dog (maybe 40lbs?) According to the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department, only four confirmed sightings occurred in the state from the late 1700s to the early 2000s. The tail was very long and we estimate it to have been at least a hundred pounds. Li mistaking that long swaying tail. 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. Those are the two closest populations that we have here. The cat was a goldish / tan color not real big but at least twice the size of a full grown fox,very long thick bushy tail.The tail was almost as long as its body. 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. So theres fresh mud. 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 Box 313, Maysville, WV 26833. But I still wouldn;t want to run into one. Hawley: Wildlife biologists across the United States know where the current mountain lion range is. 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. When you look at a state like Connecticut, with all the people we have here, all the trail cameras we have in the woods, all the cars we have driving you can imagine if we had an established population here in Connecticut, we would know about it pretty quickly. Bobcat tails, though prominent when they walk, are only about six or seven inches long. What else could it be so big I thought it was a deer with a long cat tail? The cats passed by, moving west through Snows property. It was on a hill beside the road looking across, when I looked at it better I saw the long tail and cat ears. Thank you for reading. Earlier in the year, Id attended one of these presentations, and even in the tiny village of Woodbury, Vermont, on a stiflingly hot summer evening, nearly 100 people showed up to hear her speak and see her photographs (Morse is a magnificent wildlife photographer). I will not go into the woods unarmed anymore ever. She lives near the end of a gravel road in a modest, low-slung house tucked into the flanks of the Green Mountains. Not yet. Prior to becoming a reporter, he was the founding producer of Connecticut Public Radio's The Colin McEnroe Show, which began in 2009. The animal, I learned, is called many things: mountain lion, panther, catamount, puma, cougar and more. 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. 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). As a hobby gone astray, I have recorded more than 20,000 big cat sightings, from all states, east of Mississippi River since 1969. Nowhere in New England is the matter definitively settled. 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. 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? How big was the animal? And were one of the most densely populated states as far as humans. He was big. Your email address will not be published. Mountain Lions Living Mountain Lion Sightings in Vermont in Vermont? Now, lets start talking about our favorite big cat! 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. It can run at speeds of up to 50 mph. Now, lets start talking about our favorite big cat! My e-mail: epuma@frontier.com /// my mailing address 99 Beagle Boot Lane, Maysville, WV 26833 Its on the property that we own over there. 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. COLCHESTER, Vt. Catamounts. On Friday July 8, 2022 there was a few reported Mountain Lion sightings the last few days one actually involving an encounter with one's family in their lawn. 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., I met with Morse at her home in Jericho. The regions top predator, the coyote, is classified by biologists as a mesopredator (a type that in New England includes skunks and raccoons), which feeds primarily on smaller animals. Amazing sight. Pictures are pretty clear. A few years later, though, the scat was retested with DNA analysis and found to be canid, rather than feline, in origin. It was a few miles south of the Hanover exit. His studies NEVER ended, even after going nearly blind by the mid-1990s. 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. Betty, for instance, has presented on Eastern cougars more than 300 times, gathering many hundreds of sighting reports in the process. To date, Keeping Track has helped conserve 40,000 acres in 12 states and inQuebec. If you do see a big cat in your neighborhood, best practice is to leave it alone, according to Waterbury Game Warden Chad Barrett. Betty folded his arms across his chest, where they rose and fell and rose again with his breathing. I encourage everyone who has seen a mountain lion or heard of a report to please leave a post here. He honked his horn to scare them off, and the cats made their way into Snows yard. Sincerely, Mountain Lions Not Just a Tall Tale in Adirondacks. While . For who but we humans can look across the landscape and not acknowledge our role in the diminishment of cougars and the myriad ways in which we have knocked the landscape out of balance? If yes, like most state Highway Agencies, they should have a record of both the pickup of its carcass, as well, as to where they dumped it. It crossed the road just below where the Jaquiths lived. Very Very fast. It is what wildlife biologists call an apex carnivore, which means it can overpower pretty much any other creature in its environmentwith the exception of an armed human. 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. It crossed the road and went into the woods. John Lutz, Eastern Puma Research Network. They were at least 4-5 inches at the widest part of the pad. Cat. And its not just Vermont. Credit: ViralHog VT - Cougar tries to break in house It took me by fantastic surprise! But that was OK. Bo Ottmann. Brown. I pulled over along Rt 30 to walk down to a swimming hole. I think the only reason the lion did not attack was because of the dogs. The truth is, I was by this point dubious. Having been doing this since 1994, I have yet to have had a definitive, documented, indisputable, verifiable sighting of a mountain lion, Bernier said. Laura: Did you report the dead mountain lion to the state Highway Dept. We hadnt seen a cougar, nor any evidence to suggest a cougar had traveled these woods recently. If there are mountain lions skulking around Vermont, they wont stay hidden for long, Bernier said. She will also discuss the latest confirmations of cougars in the East, including the recently documented suitability of a substantial amount of wild habitats from Manitoba to Louisiana and Maine to Georgia. He is a consummate storyteller, and he wears on his sleeve his affection for the region and the hard-working, commonsense people who inhabit it. 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. This is part of the cougar business. My wife Linda and I, spent several days with the Hitchcocks at their Atlantic Ocean-front Cabin overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, from high up on a cliff, where you could hear the screams of at least 1 of Vermonts wild cougars, in both 1991 and again in 1993. Mountain lion tails, however, are about three feet long, usually the length of the cats body. These highlights have been edited and condensed for length and clarity. The lion three feet away crouched down and screamed in my face, at that point i have never been so scared in my life i thought this is it i am a dead man. You were the first person I thought of after I calmed down enough to think straight! On one side, there are those (as represented here by Sue Morse, Kim Royar, and Christopher Spatz, along with a number of others I spoke with) who contend that the lack of verifiable evidence is proof that the animals are not here. Harrigan's column mentioned above continues to talk about this. Using DNA and physical evidence, state environmental officials said they determined that the animal likely trekked more than 1,500 miles from South Dakota, a journey that was captured by trail camera (above). Perhaps, then, the ultimate question isnt whether cougars are among us, but rather how we can encourage them to settle here. I want emails from Fodor's Travel with travel information and promotions. The cougar was so close I could smell it. It used to be that a bear would go into a house when someone wasnt home. You could have 50. I told family and close friends as I was very excited about it .I have hunted deer my whole life and had seen bobcats and lynx but there was no mistaken this catamount! While the Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks department hesitates to give solid numbers because they feel methods for tracking the population need to be improved, their estimate in 2019 was about 4,000 - 4,500 mountain lions. (Photo courtesy of Vermont Historical Society) If moved like a leopard but without spotty leopard skin. The cat traveled down through New York and was last sighted at Lake George in New York state before it was hit by a car and killed on the Wilbur Cross Parkway in Connecticut. But that was OK. Bo Ottmannknew they were out there. The date was June 17 at about 1 pm. 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. 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