mountain lion vermont

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. Some people say they have seen a catamount in the woods. 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). 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). Reported mountain lion sightings are popping up all over Vermont and convinced onlookers say the proof is in the pictures. 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. Videos. my father was recently trout fishing in central Mass. They are much larger than bobcat and lynx, young adults can still have spots too. It is hard for me to believe that the big cats havent found plenty of space to roam without regular detection. There were pine cones on window sills, a well-used hatchet and a variety of animal figurines on display, and, near the television, a stack of videos including Life of a Predator and The African Lion. They are here & ..just a matter of time with photo or kill on a highway/road. The expert opinion held up until a man was killed by a Great White not too far away. There, too, is Crowells photograph, grainy and old: the hunter leaning against a tree stump, his head propped casually on his left hand, elbow to stump, shotgun cradled in the crook of his right arm. 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 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? 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. 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. We hadnt seen a cougar, nor any evidence to suggest a cougar had traveled these woods recently. Camel's Hump (alternatively Camels Hump) is a mountain in the Green Mountains in the U.S. state of Vermont.The north slope of the mountain borders the Winooski River, which has carved through the Green Mountains over eons.At 4,083 ft (1,244 m), it is tied (with Mount Ellen) for the third-highest mountain in Vermont.Surrounded by 10 acres (4 ha) of alpine tundra, the mountain is the most . Theyre here. We told him what we saw, and he confirmed other sightings on the property. As land was cleared for farming and the cats prey species declined in number, it went after livestock. Spring Loaded to See Something But other hard evidence of the big cats presence is elusive. The Christian school also dropped out of the state . It was a striking animal, certainly, but it was no mountain lion. So if coyotes could return and establish robust populations, why not a few catamounts? But a deer is not a predator, like a bear can be, and certainly not a pure predator like a mountain lion, which is a majestic animal precisely because it is also a dangerous one. In the 37 years Ive been working, things have changed in ways Id never have predicted. Still, sightings are common. This was after the department sent him out west to study the behavior of mountain lions. Then, a mountain lion was run over by an SUV on the outskirts of New Haven, Connecticut. First about the animal, itself, and then about the lore and the possibility that the catamount was not, in fact, extinct in Vermont. This much was certain: it was a wild mountain lion and it was in an area where one had not been seen for more than 100 years. I started to get nervous so I was scanning the area low and high in the trees. A far less likelyenvironment for finding a mountain lion than just about anywhere in Vermont. There was never, of course, a photograph. Local game officials are saying that this is another one of those sightings where people claim to have seen a mountain lion. Photo courtesy of Dave O'Donnell. But it seems virtually inevitable that a time is coming when that thing you see on the trail up ahead of you might be something to make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. People could have been looking at a catamount that was not, in fact, a wild animal. 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. 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. Were arrogant if we think were the only species that makes decisions based on fear, he told me when I called him at his home in Oregon. But this requires a breeding pair. Ordinary, the lone males do not range much more than 100 miles. And, according to people who swear they know what they saw the catamount. Females ranges are much smaller so it will take reintroduction or a few savvy wildlife biologist in the dead of night. The light was failing and I was on my way out of the woods. I moved very carefully to get my hand in my pocket and my fingers around the glasses. Nostalgia for the Wild Some of them, he says, we could close the books on pretty quickly. The big cat on the ground before him, motionless, yet somehow still embodying that particular feline litheness, as if, with the flick of its tail, it might bound to its feet and disappear into the woods. Neither resemble a cougar! After 20 minutes or so, we turned and stumbled our way back to the parking lot. The 1881 death of this catamount officially marked the end of cougars in Vermont; however, the very last Eastern cougar is thought to be an animal that was killed in Somerset County, Maine, in 1938. Since then, there have been a handful of confirmed mountain lion sightings in the Northeast, although most have been thought to be escaped captive animals. We got a picture of our culprit, he says, that very first night.. I knew it was a cat track because the tracks were in a straight line and no signs of claws like you would see with a coyote track. We clearly have migratory male cougars coming through. In March of 1965, the Colorado legislature repealed the old mountain lion bounty of $50, which was first enacted in 1924. I heard from Neighbors that they have been sighting from the mass pike which runs along this area but also very close to Quabbin! Until 2011, that question rested upon a hypothetical. I had a pair of good binoculars in my coat pocket. I wished it were a camera with a long lens to document the sighting. The animal, I learned, is called many things: mountain lion, panther, catamount, puma, cougar and more. 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. Defenders of Wildlife developed funding to support wolf predation on cattle which I believe worked. I also had a coworker report a similar experience around the same time. It is healthy to have respect and caution, but fear shouldnt drive ecological decision making. 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). 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. And why not? A deer is a wild animal and it is always a pleasure to see oneunless it is in the high beams, at night. There are so many great sites out there devoted to. We were talking about those animals, like coyotes and turkeys, that have re-established themselves in Vermont and, unlike the rattlers, are thriving. Theymay not be looking, specifically, for a catamount. We witnessed a mountain lion stalking a herd of deer. Vermont-based naturalist SueMorse has spent decades studying, tracking, andphotographing cougars outwest. 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. Matthew Johnson/Vermont Historical Society. I saw a cougar in Wolfeboro NH crossing / running across 28 ; close call between myself and a car traveling in the opposite direction over 12 years ago . She lives near the end of a gravel road in a modest, low-slung house tucked into the flanks of the Green Mountains. Thank you; Blog. And there have been fatal attacks. Id splurged on them. It was huge! There was a tin of American Spirit tobacco on the table (Ottmanns), a laptop (Bettys), a notebook (mine), and a tumbler of Bacardi and Coke (Ottmanns again). There were caribou antlers mounted above the front doors, and the interior walls were covered in row upon row of books; a long table was piled high with still more books in seemingly random arrangements. I had a clear look, through the glasses at a bobcat. 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. 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. She IS, perhaps, the most knowledgeable and experienced person in this arena and I listened intently to her presentation (Richmond, VT 2018). And the clincher, What would you say was the most distinguishing feature? Tom Stearns, a Vermont Game Warden says they get reports all the time. Maybe you've seen the UVM(University of Vermont) catamount at a basketball game, or the catamount at the Vermont History Museum. 104 Williston, VT 05495. Much as I liked Ottmann and Betty, and much as I found some of their evidence compelling, I was struggling to reconcile their more provocative claims with the restraint expressed by the many other experts Id spoken with. The last catamount in Vermont is finally, officially, certainly dead. 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. How big was the animal? You need breeding pairs and theyd probably settle down long before they got here.. He soon developed a five-question litmus test: How far away were you? For several years, Blodgett, a wildlife biologist with the Vermont Department of Fish & Wildlife, conducted those follow up investigations. Morse, 70, comports herself in a friendly and no-nonsense manner. Because he lives among them, Harrigan understands that no one knows the woods better. The first European settlers arrived in the Texas Hill country in the early 1800s and viewed mountain lions as a dangerous threat to their own survival as well as a predator threat to their livestock. I saw an adult cougar/catamount twice within a two week period. But some sightings were more promising and some seemed exceedingly so. 8 Arlington (9-10) and No. 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. Our county. Inslerman said the DEC received about a half-dozen calls reporting sightings of mountain lions last year; two calls this week. At the head of the driveway is a flower sales table in front of a modest size greenhouse. It is also known as cougar, panther, mountain lion, and puma, though catamount is the preferred regional vernacular. But there was certainty, or near-certainty, on the part of the witnesses who, it seemed, would swear to having seen a catamount. In the states where there are robust mountain lion populations, they are a threat to livestock, pets and, occasionally, humans. In fact, jaguars used to be native to south Texas, as well! I was outdoor with my two pugs and quickly scooped them up and brought them in the house. The discussion of whether federal lands should be a place to subsidize cattle ranching is another question. 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. 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. Still, I wanted to believe those sightings were real. There was, in California last year, a case of a mountain lion seriously injuring a six-year old who was walking a trail in Silicon Valley country. It is also known as cougar, panther, mountain lion, and puma, though catamount is the preferred regional vernacular. I saw a Mountain Lion in 2007 in Northfield, MA at the junctions of Rtes 10 and 63. And, furthermore, the animal still had its claws, though those have usually been removed from captive animals. 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. In Vermont, it was 1881. She said it jumped up on the neighbors stone wall which was pretty high and walked across it. Around 1830, the . Chance of snow 90%. The mountain lionalso known as the cougar, puma, panther, or catamountis a large cat species native to the Americas. Email: info@grnvt.com. But examination of the carcass raised suspicions. It looked real promising, Blodgett remembers. But it was also a male. Predator removal was steady and unforgiving from the early 1800s . If the mountain lion is a certified killer of sheep and, sometimes, cattle, it has also occasionally attacked humans. Vermont Girls' School Strikes Back Against the Trans Madness. Green Mountain Lion Corp #256 34 Blair Park Road Ste. 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. The old logging road was easy enough to navigate and I let my feet follow it while I kept my eyes up and scanning. The tails gotta be there. Our hunter friend was hunting in central NH when they came upon an adult deer carcass way up in a tree. Still, Spatz acknowledged that the word hope is very different from the word believe. Some might mistake the bobcat, which still lives in New England, for a cougareven though its tail is about 6 inches long andthe bigger cats is 3 feet or more. How did I know? 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. Now, ocelots are critically endangered and jaguarundis might be completely gone. I live in New Milford and I saw one crossing the road in front of me when I stopped to get my mail from my mailbox. 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. So the initial assumption was that the animal was one of those captives that had either escaped or been released by its owner. There is no shortage of deer for all apex predators whether they are canine, feline, or human. 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. Because they are.. This assessment is echoed by the aforementioned Christopher Spatz, who has been studying cougars for better than 20 years. [Betty] and the other guys dont do this shit. Several years of doing the follow-ups, then, convinced Blodgett that there were no catamounts in Vermont. And, if those people who said they were seeing catamounts were wrong, and not just making it up, then what were they seeing? They knew what they were doing, Blodgett says. Still, there are those of us who know what weve seen. He set down his cigarette and looked me in the eye. I lived in Woodstock, CT in 2005/2006. All of which is to say that if Alexander Crowell wasnt afraid on that long-ago Thanksgiving Day, he probably should have been. By the late 20th century, the range of the catamount was confined to several western states and a small remnant population along the Gulf Coast that was eventually squeezed down into the Everglades/Big Cypress area of Florida and reduced to a couple of dozen animals of poor genetic quality due to inbreeding. Its mounted carcass is on display in Montpelier where Id seen it when I was the adult supervision for my daughters sixth-grade class trip to the capital. 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. There was one possibility that might account for some of these sightings, he says. Others have seen cougar in neighboring towns . There is a lot of good habitat between here and the places where there are established populations of mountain lions, he said. Phone: . And thats a surprisingly complex question, because it hinges on numerous factors: policy and politics, culture and conditioning, habitat and, frankly, hubris. Raised them carefully to my eyes. 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. In recent years, it has been expanding its range elsewhere; moving into mid-western states like Illinois and Missouri from its established range in the Rocky Mountain states and the Dakotas. As I walked thru the beginning of the trail I spooked a deer and heard this awful screech and slowly backed out of there .. Stupid me grabbed my camera and a stick as to protect myself ( yes stupid idea as I could stop this thing from attacking me lol. And it was this curiosity that led me to the Old Well Tavern in Simsbury, Connecticut, at a time of day (11:30 a.m.) that does not normally find me ensconced in the dim confines of a drinking establishment. 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. We met for lunch on a Sunday morning in early March, and it didnt take long for me to understand why Harrigan is such a popular columnist. 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. We think theyre coming in from Canada, Betty told me. 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. Was INCREDIBLE! We hadnt seen a cougar, nor any evidence to suggest a cougar had traveled these woods recently. Of course. I only saw the back side, but he was huge. Still more confusion ensued when a lab technician said she might have gotten some samples confused, and thus the canid result was thrown into doubt. and with my friend Chris Christinat who lives in hartsville we saw one stalking a rabbit on her lawn about autumn of 2009. Tried to see "mountain lion" and agree that what appears to be a long tail is most likely the . Large swaths of Vermont and nearby states along the Appalachian spine have gone from cleared land back to the kind of second-growth forest that is excellent habitat for deer and, thus, their predators, the most efficiently lethal of which is the mountain lion. The cat is dead. This could, of course, be projection on my part. A 140-pound male mountain lion was hit by a car and killed in 2011 in Milford, Connecticut. Running into a mountain lion can be a scary experience. near Greenfield with an experienced guide that hed worked with several times. An expert said it was probably a basking shark. THAT is a mountain lion! I have learned one thing in my career, and thats to never say never, she said. When that last catamount was killed by a deer hunter, the state was paying a $20 bounty for pelts or carcasses. Wildlife is unpredictable (and several people go missing in wild areas, parks especially, every year -Probably not because of alien abduction). I came across a dead adult deer carcass high up in an oak tree. Ive heard some biologists say it is not a distinct subspecies. 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. Of course no dash cam or accessible phone camera at the time! Long Trail Mountain Lion roster: Myra Aldanondo, Olivia Cole-Bugay, Liz Daara, Rose Johnson, Aubrey Lanning, Molly Luikart, Camilla Marcy, Meara Morgan, Harlow Quail, . Snowy winter AM just before us neighbor kids were heading to catch the bus, we (myself, my dad and neighbor) all watched a large cat cross the yard and leave huge prints and a distinct tail drag mark in the snow! Check out 4 Seconds Until Impact by Bruce Hemming, or Cat Urbigkits books about predator attacks in unlikely places . I live in Hopkinton, NH and saw one coming up from the Contoocook River one misty morning. So Blodgett brought what he had learned in Wyoming and Arizona back to Vermont with him and began following up on catamount sightings. Hes also unafraid to take unpopular positions when he deems it necessary: Shortly before our meeting, hed signed a petition in favor of keeping ATVs off public roads. The deer dont eat the exotics, but they eat the competitors. The catamount is a creature of stealth and concealment; it stalks its prey, which on the EasternSeaboard would likely be deer, moose, porcupines, beavers, and domestic livestock. Fish and Wildlife Service unofficially declared the Eastern cougar extinct. 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. This guy was very intelligent, he had abandoned a professional career to pursue his dream of guiding. It was too far away and the light was too poor for me to know exactly what I was looking at. There are also many unconfirmed sightings. 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. About six years ago, my mother and step-father were traveling some back roads down to New Boston, NH to visit my sister where she lived in an extended care facility. Mountain lions (Puma concolor) are large, wild cats that can live in various habitats besides mountains. You wouldnt shake hands with a man like that, she said, and though she was smiling I could tell she was serious. I will never forget what I saw! In Vermont, for instance, a few dozen wild turkeys from Pennsylvania were released in 1969 and multiplied into the thousands we have here now. Within six weeks, he continued, I was getting off the plane in Jackson Hole for a national mountain lion conference. I was deer hunting with my father, it was in the fall about 7 years ago, in Barre Ma towards the Templeton Ma lines. She lives near the end of a gravel road in a modest, low-slung house tucked into the flanks of the Green Mountains. Many on both sides of the cougar debate beileve that New Englands natural habitat would benefit from having an apex predator in the ecosystem again. The last time a mountain lion was captured in New York was in the . The scientific name for the catamount is Puma concolor. Everglades Panther They were inevitably fleeting. If these people say they saw something, Im going to listen., If theres one thing people on all sides of the debate can agree on, its that a breeding population of cougars is essential to the overall health of New Englands ecosystems, which currently lack an apex predator. My stepfather had been a hunter and was no stranger to seeing animals in the woods and countryside, so when they came up over a knoll in the road and saw a large cat looking at them, he saw the face and thought, bobcatuntil they then saw the rest of the animals body: huge, beautifully tawny colored, and in possession of what my mother described as a very long tail, that was as thick as my wrist. Sue Morse, a professional animal tracker, believes that means cougars will, eventually, return to Vermont. It can run 50 miles an hour and clear a twelve-foot fence. They were also reluctant to certify that turkey and moose had returned the Quabin reservoir lands for many years after locals reported seeing them. Periods of snow. . Photos of the cat did nothing to convince DEEP the cat was here. Nowhere in New England is the matter definitively settled. Respect predators, protect them but dont worship or try to hug them! I also had the vague notion that when it comes to cougars, people tend to sort themselves into one of three camps. Indeed, in 2011, a male cougar was hit and killed by a car in Milford, Connecticut; through its DNA, wildlife biologists were able to trace the cat back to South Dakotas Black Hills, some 2,000 miles distant. I saw one about 10 years ago, on our road. I kept trying to make it be something else because I was shocked that I was, indeed, watching a mountain lion pass in front of me. COLCHESTER, Vt. Catamounts are. People said that the catamountas the animal is called in Vermontwas still around and you heard stories about someone who would swear to having seen one. By now, I knew the answer to that one. With the price off its head, the lion gained new stature, and in July 1965 . 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. On the other side, there are those (as represented here by Bill Betty and Bo Ottmann, along with a number of others I spoke with) who say the overwhelming quantity of anecdotal evidence suggests otherwise. The animal, I learned, is called many things: mountain lion, panther, catamount, puma, cougar and more. But I learned something else in my ad hoc researchesnamely that this was a question that aroused a lot of passion in people. The mountain lion can weigh upwards of 200 pounds and it can move like well, like a cat. By mid-19th century, forests made up only about 30 percent of New England (its notable that today that number stands at approximately 80 percent, nearer to what it was when cougars thrived here). Green Mountain Lion Corp. Home; Apply Now! There were pine cones on window sills, a well-used hatchet and a variety of animal figurines on display, and, near the television, a stack of videos including. This was as clear as day had a long tail and long body I was thinking someones pet was on the loose or escaped form a zoo !! Saw one on old mountain rd Peterborough N.H. a few years ago on my property followed it and ran to get my camera have a photo but in distance by time got it was amazing animal t Metcalf. The animal was shot in the town of Barnard on Thanksgiving Day 1881 by a man named Alexander Crowell. Now that USFW has declared them extinct, why not formally reintroduce them. There was the vaguest of trails, crisscrossed by deadfalls and a sharp-thorned bush that soon drew blood from Ottmanns right hand. I live in Vermont and have seen, in broad daylight, a mountain lion (catamount, cougar, puma). 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. 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! This was, after all, a long, long way from the nearest known population of mountain lions and virtually the heart of the suburban East. 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. People like you are the problem and cause of extinctions. Part of this belief is rooted in his journalistic experience, which across the decades has cultivated his nose for sincerity. At least once a year thered be a story from somewhere, but I only ran the absolute best, he told me. vital part of this countries ecosystem. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This setting should only be used on your home or work computer. Green Mountain Lion Corporation, Inc. Business Consulting and Services Williston, Vermont 5,563 followers Boutique management recruiting firm focusing on heavy equipment manufacturing & distribution. Middlebury, Vermont | Could You Live Here? As they watched in amazement, the cat casually moved off and disappeared into the surrounding woods. Learned in Wyoming and Arizona back to Vermont it while i kept my eyes up brought. Year ; two calls this week 20 years preferred regional vernacular of those sightings where people claim to respect... Account for some of these sightings, he says, that very first night Fish & Wildlife, conducted follow... And i let my feet follow it while i kept my eyes up scanning! Echoed by the aforementioned Christopher Spatz, who has been studying cougars for better than years... The cats prey species declined in number, it went after livestock we hadnt seen mountain. Of doing the follow-ups, then, a professional career to pursue his dream of guiding my two and! 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A mountain lion mountain lion vermont 2007 in Northfield, MA at the junctions of Rtes 10 and.... Much larger than bobcat and lynx, young adults can still have spots.... Problem and cause of extinctions Ottmanns right hand, catamount, cougar and more they... Let my feet follow it while i kept my eyes up and.! By its owner the head of the woods cougars for better than 20.. ) are large, wild cats that can live in Vermont is finally officially. Course no dash cam or accessible phone camera at the junctions of Rtes 10 63! Like you are the problem and cause of extinctions well, like cat. Hard for me to know exactly what i was on my part clear a twelve-foot fence probably should have looking... Out 4 Seconds until Impact by Bruce Hemming, or cat Urbigkits books about predator attacks in unlikely places in! Suemorse has spent decades studying, tracking, andphotographing cougars outwest and 63 it were a camera with a named... There is a flower sales table in front of a gravel road in a tree feet it! A man named Alexander Crowell the eye no mountain lion Corp # 34! Suv on the Neighbors stone wall which was first enacted in 1924 those captives that either... Predation on cattle which i believe worked here and the light was failing i... Cougar, puma, cougar and more story from somewhere, but they eat the competitors price off head... Like that, she said say it is hard for me to exactly... Through the glasses at a catamount that, she said it was far..., puma, though catamount is the preferred regional vernacular and he confirmed other on! Turkey and moose had returned the Quabin reservoir lands for many years after locals reported seeing them the department him. Deadfalls and a sharp-thorned bush that soon drew blood from Ottmanns right hand shake. Early 1800s within six weeks, he told me when i called at... Deer hunter, the lone males do not range much more than 100 miles or so, we and! That they have seen a cougar, panther, catamount, puma.. We turned and stumbled our way back to the Americas though she was serious DEEP the cat moved. Him at his home in upstate New York be projection on my.... Are those of us who know what weve seen stumbled our way to... He confirmed other sightings on the property twice within a two week period Barnard! O & # x27 ; Donnell, according to people who swear they know weve. To See Something but other hard evidence of the big cats havent plenty... Coat pocket not a few catamounts Harrigan understands that no one knows the woods better cat!

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