The scientific name for the catamount is Puma concolor. February 19, 2021. For several years, Blodgett, a wildlife biologist with the Vermont Department of Fish & Wildlife, conducted those follow up investigations. Mountain Lion adult in Fall colors in Montana USA. In this case, there was the carcass of a deer, recently killed in the area where a couple had reported seeing what looked like a mountain lion on land they owned. Mountain Lion vs. Bobcat vs. Mountain lions are not supposed to live in New Hampshire but some people say they're seeing them. Fish and Wildlife Service evaluation in 2011. A mountain lion has not been confirmed by state authorities in Tennessee in perhaps 100 years, he said. Its closest living relative is the cheetah. Catamounts are a familiar sight around the University of Vermont -- being the school mascot and all -- but Mark Trudo believes he saw a real one in Milton a few weeks ago. Search ... Upcoming Events. Stratton Magazine – Celebrating Manchester and the Mountains. Not a bobcat or a coyote or a fisher or anything else that might be mistaken for a mountain lion. They are also known as pumas, cougars and panthers. (The cat I saw when I was a young boy was on the Gulf Coast.). Then, follow-up DNA research—matching samples from the carcass with those from scat and hair collected in other locations—established that the animal had come to Connecticut from the Black Hills of North Dakota. Dr. "A mountain lion, bounds out into the middle of the road and stops dead," he recalled. All with eyes to see and spring loaded to see something. Sharon Negri, Producer of The Secret Life of Mountain Lions, had the honor and privilege to co-edit, “Cougar Ecology and Conservation” with her friend and disti ... nguished colleague, Dr. Maurice Hornocker. Mountain lions are considered to be extirpated from the state of Vermont. And, now, here I was. No way to prove—or disprove—it. In Vermont, for instance, a few dozen wild turkeys from Pennsylvania were released in 1969 and multiplied into the thousands we have here now. Mountain Lions Are Back in Vermont! A far less likely environment for finding a mountain lion than just about anywhere in Vermont. Blodgett liked talking about this subject. He said it's possibly Photoshopped.Officials at the Department of Fish and Wildlife were skeptical for different reasons. Some with cameras. But my eyes picked up something and I knew, right away, that it was alive. Hearst Television participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on purchases made through our links to retailer sites. Photo courtesy of Dave O'Donnell. You need breeding pairs and they’d probably settle down long before they got here.”. The habitat is certainly right, with so many farms having gone by and so much formerly cleared land returning to second growth forest and with the populations of prey species such as deer and porcupines having reached abundant proportions. Trending Today. There was never, of course, a photograph. So I asked him about the catamount and if the animal in Connecticut was some sort of advance scout for a coming wave of resident lions. Vermont Mountain Lion Sightings. I’d splurged on them. That it had, somehow, made a return and established residence. A deer is a wild animal and it is always a pleasure to see one—unless it is in the high beams, at night. Body size, of course, is a much more dramatic factor. Actually, Blodgett says, something of the opposite was true. The cat is dead. They are solitary and. “There was one young kid, in his 20’s, who had been doing it since he was in high school and he walked and thought like a cat. I was curious enough at the time to do a little research. All of us with rifles, most of them scoped. Or, if it does, when that will be. They may not be looking, specifically, for a catamount. People could have been looking at a catamount that was not, in fact, a wild animal. It's not like a regular cat or something. Success stories being more fun to talk about than the other kind. The map from that publication is shown below, with the current mountain lion range in green and confirmed mountain lion locations as black dots. For a sure bet, come and visit our Mountain Lion Exhibit, constructed with appreciation to its donors, the Lehner and Kingsbury families, the Meredith Village Savings Bank Community Fund, the Parker Nelson Foundation, the McIninch Foundation and the Davis Conservation Foundation. Its mounted carcass is on display in Montpelier where I’d seen it when I was the adult supervision for my daughter’s sixth-grade class trip to the capital. My own inclination, for the little it matters, is to side with the professionals like Blodgett. 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. The “captive” narrative also helped explain why there had been so many sightings reported, including some in Greenwich, among the richest and most domesticated suburbs in America. “They knew what they were doing,” Blodgett says. In the few seconds that this took, I had convinced myself that I was looking at a mountain lion. Reported mountain lion sightings are popping up all over Vermont and convinced onlookers say the proof is in the pictures. Its range was once similarly vast; from the high north regions of the Yukon to the Straits of Magellan. 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. Norwich Lions Honor Outgoing Chief Frank with a Lion. Could be a deer, but it didn’t seem to be tall enough. It was pretty neat to see. "Should have a black coloring on the back of the ears," said state biologist John Gobeille, looking at the photos. Fish and Wildlife Service declared the eastern mountain lion extinct in 2011, sparking many calls to the Vermont Fish and Wildlife office about potential sightings. But there was not enough evidence to either prove or disprove that a mountain lion had done the killing. Catamounts are a familiar sight around the University of Vermont -- being the school mascot and all -- but Mark Trudo believes he saw a real one in Milton a few weeks ago. Threat of Being Attacked Those calls continue today; a local Milton business owner said she’s heard of three puma sightings in Milton just this summer. He said no evidence of the cat in the state has been found for at least a century. When that last catamount was killed by a deer hunter, the state was paying a $20 bounty for pelts or carcasses. There was no tracking microchip implanted in the animal’s body, which is usually the case with captives. In the United States the animal could, at one time, be found in all the states but with civilization, came a decline, the Vermont experience being more or less typical. This animal was too long in the body and blunt in the head. The mountain lion can weigh upwards of 200 pounds and it can move like … well, like a cat. Some commenters on social media have proclaimed that the animal in the video was not a mountain lion, but could be a bobcat, cougar, line, or similar predators. He regrets he couldn't snap a good picture of the animal, but was excited looking at two pictures Dave O'Donnell posted on NewsChannel 5's Facebook page. Visit the Green Mountain Lions Camp Website . He worked, in Wyoming and Arizona, with other professionals, some with government agencies, like the one he works for, and others who were hunters and trappers, often employed by ranchers who had lost stock to mountain lions. Mountain Lion looking at camera. They said to take pictures and call Chris Bernier at the Springfield office at 802-885-8855 if you think you see a mountain lion or mountain lion tracks. Wildlife management programs succeeded in reintroducing species to areas where they had not been seen for years. The solitary animal seeks out new territory and eventually a new population will be established. Still, there is no saying that it will not happen. This was after the department sent him out west to study the behavior of mountain lions. The one killed on the Connecticut highway was on a journey worthy of Odysseus so it isn’t likely that there will be a thriving population of mountain lions in Fairfield County, raiding backyard cocktail parties, anytime soon. And, he says, if they were here, wouldn’t one have been killed on one of the state’s highways where cars and trucks travel some 9 million miles every year? Mountain lions have been dispersing away from these population areas, and researchers recently mapped all confirmed mountain lion observations from 1990-2008 (LaRue et al. The “captive” narrative also helped explain why there had been so many sightings reported, including some in Greenwich, among the richest and most domesticated suburbs in America. Geoffrey Norman is a Dorset author and a frequent contributor to Stratton Magazine. Adult Mountain Lion playing and frolicking in the Montana fall foliage. Sign up for daily emails with local updates and other important news. All those deer hunters represent a kind of ad hoc search party. Everglades Panther The Rio Mora National Wildlife Refuge found more than an elk in a photo snapped in the wilderness. Until 2011, that question rested upon a hypothetical. The animal in the picture could be a bobcat, he said. 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. Domestic Cat The Worcester Telegram reports the Massachusetts Department of Fisheries and Wildlife is aware of the sighting but is referring people to a document which chronicles the history of mountain lion sightings in Massachusetts. If the mountain lion is a certified killer of sheep and, sometimes, cattle, it has also occasionally attacked humans. “Most of those sightings were misidentifications,” Doug Blodgett says. 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. David C. of Vermont Wolfhound fame say this picture of a big cat was recently taken in Vermont by a game camera located near Route 125 in Addison. They once populated the state, colloquially called the “Catamount”. Until recently, it was thought that the last mountain lion (a very big cat -- aka a catamount) disappeared from our state decades ago. It is so strikingly similar," said Trudo, looking at the pictures.According to Jonathan Rajewski, a digital expert from Champlain College, at least one the pictures looks suspect at first glance. If someone described seeing a ‘black panther,’ for example, then you knew right away and you didn’t need to do any more investigating.”. And, according to people who swear they know what they saw… the catamount. Face to face, maybe, with a sure enough catamount. According to official estimates, as many as 1,000 people own, in spite of legal prohibitions, captive animals. I moved very carefully to get my hand in my pocket and my fingers around the glasses. Mountain lions, also known as cougars, pumas, panthers and catamounts, have substantially longer and thicker tails. 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