These were old growth woods and the canopy had kept the ground cover down, so I could see three or four hundred yards ahead of me but not clearly, because of the gloom. Reported mountain lion sightings are popping up all over Vermont and convinced onlookers say the proof is in the pictures. 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. People like you are the problem and cause of extinctions. And so when they come to him with a sighting, hes prepared to believe. 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. I saw a Mountain Lion in 2007 in Northfield, MA at the junctions of Rtes 10 and 63. There are also many unconfirmed sightings. It was a striking animal, certainly, but it was no mountain lion. 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. 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). 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. Threat of Being Attacked 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. Last documented and killed in Vermont in 1881, the catamount, also known as a mountain lion or cougar, could be making its way back to the Green Mountain State. Bearded, bowler hat, expression impenetrable behind facial hair and the stoicism of an earlier era. The mountain lionalso known as the cougar, puma, panther, or catamountis a large cat species native to the Americas. Wildlife management programs succeeded in reintroducing species to areas where they had not been seen for years. The evidence, he says, just wasnt there., Mountain Lions Revisit Kill Sites 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). If the mountain lion is a certified killer of sheep and, sometimes, cattle, it has also occasionally attacked humans. My own inclination, for the little it matters, is to side with the professionals like Blodgett. 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. The animal was too small and it lacked the long, sinuous tail of the catamount. They were inevitably fleeting. Ive seen tracks (Downeast Maine) and others have seen them, plain as day. Typical species behavior is for males to disperse from an area when the population reaches the carrying capacity of the habitat. His mention of these encounters was so matter-of-fact that I found myself nodding along. One summer I saw what I assumed was the same cougar several different times in my neighborhood which was near a long strip of woods along I 91 and used to be a large open field across the road from our home. But they would certainly pay attention if they did see one. A 140-pound male mountain lion was hit by a car and killed in 2011 in Milford, Connecticut. But no. Beautiful creature. And yet there I was, on a Saturday in early November, crammed into a booth with Bo Ottmann, 48, and Bill Betty, 72, of Cougars of the Valley, the organization that Ottmann founded in 2007 to gather evidence of and alert the public to the big cats living among us. 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. 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. Perfect conditions, then, for thinking you saw something. We need cougars and we need wolves back in the Northeast, because a landscape of fear is a well-balanced landscape.. 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 catamounts] movements were so noiseless that Mr. Crowell found himself in this dangerous proximity before he was aware of it, and it was only by great coolness and daring that he severely wounded the animal and perhaps saved his own life, reads a placard attached to the display case. THAT is a mountain lion! Recall a few years back, a guy in a kayak off Horseneck Beach in Westport, MA, was tracked by a large fin. They were also seen at other times by members of my family and other people in the neighborhood. Could be a deer, but it didnt seem to be tall enough. I met with Morse at her home in Jericho. 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. 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. Id need proof if I wanted people to believe me. Neither resemble a cougar! All those deer hunters represent a kind of ad hoc search party. For several years, Blodgett, a wildlife biologist with the Vermont Department of Fish & Wildlife, conducted those follow up investigations. I also know of someone who said they showed F&G a photo of one from a game camera in NH. 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. 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.. 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. I also had a coworker report a similar experience around the same time. They are there and thriving!!!! Vermont Mountain Lion Sightings Predator removal was steady and unforgiving from the early 1800s . So it is possible that, on occasion, someone would catch a glimpse of one of these animals. Westford, MA, crossing Dunstable Rd from Long Sought For Pond into the woods. I also had the vague notion that when it comes to cougars, people tend to sort themselves into one of three camps. She said it was long and thick. There are many officials in denial up here, but we know what we saw and there are too many sightings by the local folks to be ignored. 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. Actually, Blodgett says, something of the opposite was true. According to official estimates, as many as 1,000 people own, in spite of legal prohibitions, captive animals. When he suggested we retrace our route, past lion, to see a sow bear with cubs, we headed in the opposite direction. Still, there is no saying that it will not happen. 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. And thats a surprisingly complex question, because it hinges on numerous factors: policy and politics, culture and conditioning, habitat and, frankly, hubris. The deer dont eat the exotics, but they eat the competitors. How did I know? Watching a potential winter storm. A hard-to-spot mountain lion patiently waits for the right moment to attack an elk feeding in a gully at the Rio Mora National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico in a photo posted by the refuge . and with my friend Chris Christinat who lives in hartsville we saw one stalking a rabbit on her lawn about autumn of 2009. Fish and Wildlife Service unofficially declared the Eastern cougar extinct. But other hard evidence of the big cats presence is elusive. 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. It does NOT surprise me, you would have seen a wild, free-roaming, native 'eastern' cougar, aka puma, mountain lion in Vermont. 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. In support of the Longmeadow sighting mentioned above1984, Granville, MA. Theres probably 100 in Connecticut, Ottmann interrupted, rolling a cigarette as he spoke. 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. My husband and where riding our Motorcycle down Rte 110 near Milan NH 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 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. Even in the controlled environment of a lab, the truth about Eastern cougars seems to be almost willfully eluding its seekers. Especially by one that he remembers involving a kill site.. 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. This was, after all, a long, long way from the nearest known population of mountain lions and virtually the heart of the suburban East. near Greenfield with an experienced guide that hed worked with several times. It continues in Connecticut, where that South Dakota cat was killed in 2011, and in Massachusetts, despite two credible reports in the past quarter century (in one case, DNA-confirmed scat; in the other, verified tracks). Put bluntly, Morse does not believe that New England is home to cougars. 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. People could have been looking at a catamount that was not, in fact, a wild animal. Geoffrey Norman is a Dorset author and a frequent contributor to Stratton Magazine. There was no mistake. 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. 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. My encounter was in Middlesex, VT along the river road (Route 2) just below I89. Several years ago, I was bicycling with a buddy up Quabbin Reservoirs Administration Rd. I thought I saw signs posted in Pawling NY about 8 years ago, that DEC released a pair to control deer population,mane several people have seen them in Wingdale, NY. It has, in fact, more names than any animal in the world. A deer is a wild animal and it is always a pleasure to see oneunless it is in the high beams, at night. I will never forget what I saw! I moved very carefully to get my hand in my pocket and my fingers around the glasses. If someone described seeing a black panther, for example, then you knew right away and you didnt need to do any more investigating.. The name " Camel's Rump " was assigned on a historical map made by Ira Allen in 1798. At least once a year thered be a story from somewhere, but I only ran the absolute best, he told me. Harrigans interest in cougars was sparked in the late 70s, after he took ownership of The Coos County Democrat and began noticing the steady influx of reported sightings. He knew it was only a matter of time. At the head of the driveway is a flower sales table in front of a modest size greenhouse. Long Trail beat Arlington 62-40 on Feb. 7. Blodgett did on-site investigations of these, in what became a predictably futile search for the sign he had learned, out west, to look for. I wasnt the only one to see the big cat. Indeed, one of her steadiest sources of funding for Keeping Track is a presentation on cougars that has been known to draw more than 500 audience members. And consider, for a moment, the concern and outright fear an official acknowledgment of such a carnivorous and predatory creature might evoke. Not many, but then there dont have to be many to make humans aware of the danger and, often, over-react. 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. Bill and I are full-throttle. 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. Several years ago, I saw what was definitely a cougar walking along a street. 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. Theyre here. This is part of the cougar business. I just heard from a fellow college student of a siting in Greenfield last fall and two in Colrain this spring. My assumption is it was the same animal. Of course. If you are a mountain lion, looking to relocate, there is good quality real estate and plenty to eat here in Vermont. But there was certainty, or near-certainty, on the part of the witnesses who, it seemed, would swear to having seen a catamount. No need since so we guess it has moved on from the northeast corner of Connecticut. A few years later, though, the scat was retested with DNA analysis and found to be canid, rather than feline, in origin. There was no denying that the carcass, which was examined by experts, was that of a mountain lion. 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. Mountain lions are around 4 feet long with a two-and-a-half foot tail and can stand 24-30 inches tall at the shoulder. You need to understand that every biologist that works for the state has a duty to deny mountain lions. Dismissing most of the sightings as probable bobcats, Morse asserted that the scientific evidence has not been proven. If theyre in one, theyre in the other.. 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. In fact, jaguars used to be native to south Texas, as well! But that was OK. Bo Ottmann knew they were out there. These sightings usually took place at night or in fading light, like that of my bobcat encounter. We were talking about those animals, like coyotes and turkeys, that have re-established themselves in Vermont and, unlike the rattlers, are thriving. She IS, perhaps, the most knowledgeable and experienced person in this arena and I listened intently to her presentation (Richmond, VT 2018). As I looked at my daughter and then turned to follow the direction she was looking, I saw the animal in my side mirror. 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. Blodgett and I were returning from a day spent looking forand finding timber rattlesnakes, a species that is endangered in Vermont. Wildlife biologists, as professional scientists, require a higher level of documentation and proof. Public opinion surveys show many more would support reintroduction, than oppose. They were also reluctant to certify that turkey and moose had returned the Quabin reservoir lands for many years after locals reported seeing them. With the price off its head, the lion gained new stature, and in July 1965 . 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. "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. They set the stage for the exotics to move in, and this has a huge impact on our ecology, he said. Although the US Fish and Wildlife Service declared the . 104 Williston, VT 05495. Apex predators like the cougar and wolf make for a healthier ecosystem. They especially come down from the mountains when there is a big water shortgage. Video - Trade Show Recaps; Videos - Can We Find a Time to Talk? Success stories being more fun to talk about than the other kind. Im not surprised that various state officers deny the presence of cougars in new England. I was just amazed as I watched this scene in my own back yard. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This setting should only be used on your home or work computer. Newspaperman John Harrigan has long covered the New England outdoors, including writing the New Hampshire Sunday News column Woods, Water & Wildlife which ran for almost 40 years. In my case, I had seen just about everything else in the Vermont woods in the several years that I had been going out, and not just during deer season. The cougar and the states refusal to admit it was here made the local paper. She lives near the end of a gravel road in a modest, low-slung house tucked into the flanks of the Green Mountains. Perhaps, then, the ultimate question isnt whether cougars are among us, but rather how we can encourage them to settle here. It had moved a little and was standing unconcealed, now, in the middle of the logging road. 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. The scientific name for the catamount is Puma concolor. If this habitat can support them, it should. The mountain lion is also known as cougar, panther, or puma. You need breeding pairs and theyd probably settle down long before they got here.. The last catamount in Vermont is finally, officially, certainly dead. Morse introduced me to her cat, Allister, whom she referred to as her portable puma. Then she fetched me a beer. The reason why experts wont admit to a breeding population existing is that there is NO PROOF. I lived in great Barrington mass and I took photos of tracks in a field in April of 2009 (and of course lost them). I think they never left, Ottmann piped in. Videos. In the few seconds that this took, I had convinced myself that I was looking at a mountain lion. 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. Respect predators, protect them but dont worship or try to hug them! This assessment is echoed by the aforementioned Christopher Spatz, who has been studying cougars for better than 20 years. If LTS can take care of business in that one, it would host the winner of the Bennington County matchup between No. This Everglades panther population has recently recovered after wildlife biologists brought in some animals from Texas to breed with the last few native cats and this story is typical of the conservation ethic that has taken hold in the United States. And some people might decide to release them into the wild rather than keeping them in their possession. When I came out, the cat appeared in front of me coming up a rise (incredibly close to some ski condos). So, traffic had been slowed from both ends for a good 3-5 minutes. Our wildlife biologists and enforcement agents are mostly political bureaucrats who dont often venture more than 100yards from the truck. 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. 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? This, said Vermont Fish and Wildlife fur-bearer project leader Chris Bernier, is why he takes reports of mountain lion sightings seriously. Within six weeks, he continued, I was getting off the plane in Jackson Hole for a national mountain lion conference. They are much larger than bobcat and lynx, young adults can still have spots too. Not a bobcat or a coyote or a fisher or anything else that might be mistaken for a mountain lion. Even though the experts say there arent any mountain lions in CT, there are. The discussion of whether federal lands should be a place to subsidize cattle ranching is another question. 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. No doubt of what it was; size, color and recognizable tail. Somebody in the NC Legislature believes, because lions are now protected by law. In 2011, the U.S. Whatever it was, it was standing motionless and, I thought, looking back at me as intently as I was staring at it. 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. Also moose. When that last catamount was killed by a deer hunter, the state was paying a $20 bounty for pelts or carcasses. If these animals are not in the habitat, what we see is an overabundance of herbivores., The ecologist John Laundre, who has spent 35 years studying cougars, concurs. A journey of nearly 2,000 miles. Length of body. 2,110 likes. Everglades Panther 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. Of course no dash cam or accessible phone camera at the time! At Green Mountain Lion Corp, we specialize in placing professionals in a variety of industries. But my eyes picked up something and I knew, right away, that it was alive. I was curious enough at the time to do a little research. Among the mountain lions typical behaviors is the way it will revisit, for several days, the carcass of an animal it has killed, moving it and cacheing it until there is nothing left to eat or the flesh has turned. 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. Ive heard some biologists say it is not a distinct subspecies. And there have been fatal attacks. Ottmann and I walked farther. Face to face, maybe, with a sure enough catamount. There was one young kid, in his 20s, who had been doing it since he was in high school and he walked and thought like a cat. Spring Loaded to See Something Those who believe the growth and expansion of mountain lion populations to be a good thing routinely make the old, you face a greater danger of being struck by lighting or drowned in the bathtub argument and it is no doubt accurate. Winds ESE at 10 to 20 mph. 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. No way to proveor disproveit. Vermont offers plenty of habitat in which mountain lions could thrive. To date, Keeping Track has helped conserve 40,000 acres in 12 states and inQuebec. Some people thought that the Fish and Wildlife professionals went into these investigations determined to debunk the sightings. Things seem to move at twilight and you never know. 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. There was one possibility that might account for some of these sightings, he says. I live in Vermont and have seen, in broad daylight, a mountain lion (catamount, cougar, puma). The one thing that jumped out at her the tail. This could, of course, be projection on my part. 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. 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. 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. The police and everyone else just shook their heads but she to her dying breath said she saw a mountain lion in Lexington MA. It looked real promising, Blodgett remembers. 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. But right now youre dealing with top-notch guys. Or, if it does, when that will be. We need [an apex] predator back on the land, Sue Morse told me. The expert opinion held up until a man was killed by a Great White not too far away. Body coloration can range from tan to gray and cubs are usually covered with blackish brown spots. This is a site for people to discuss mountain lion sightings in the Green Mountain State of Vermont. Middlebury, Vermont | Could You Live Here? Maybe you've seen the UVM(University of Vermont) catamount at a basketball game, or the catamount at the Vermont History Museum. Vermont Mountain Lion Sightings. The scientific name for the catamount is Puma concolor. Its OK, he told me. The first time was in the yard which was surrounded by woods. Then, follow-up DNA researchmatching samples from the carcass with those from scat and hair collected in other locationsestablished that the animal had come to Connecticut from the Black Hills of North Dakota. The tails gotta be there. Still, sightings are common. As they watched in amazement, the cat casually moved off and disappeared into the surrounding woods. If its not, you just thank the person and say good-bye.. Jason. 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. Ive attended talks with Sue Morse. To Betty and Ottmann, the dominant narrative of the occasional itinerant cougar from the West is not particularly relevant to the facts on the ground. Betty had driven up from his home in Rhode Island. What color was it? I had been the first vehicle in a line held up by one lane traffic on a bridge reconstruction. Well, theres no difference between Maine and New Brunswick, anyway, said Betty. It was a bright sunny summer day. Its range was once similarly vast; from the high north regions of the Yukon to the Straits of Magellan. All with eyes to see and spring loaded to see something. I have no choice but to take this seriously, he told me. 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. Now that USFW has declared them extinct, why not formally reintroduce them. The glasses I carried were of good quality with exceptional light-gathering property. The Great Divide | Are There Mountain Lions in New England. Our hunter friend was hunting in central NH when they came upon an adult deer carcass way up in a tree. As I walked thru the beginning of the trail I spooked a deer and heard this awful screech and slowly backed out of there .. 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. Humans and wildlife MUST learn to live along side each other and we MUST learn to respect nature. 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Old logging road ultimate question isnt whether cougars are among US, it. Might evoke my feet follow it while I kept my eyes up and scanning lives in hartsville we saw stalking... This awful screech and slowly backed out of there up Quabbin Reservoirs Administration Rd saw something a place subsidize! The carcass, which was examined mountain lion vermont experts, was that of my family and people! I watched this scene in my own back yard out of there any animal in the Northeast, because are... Is a certified killer of sheep and, often, over-react of three camps experienced guide that hed with... Might decide to release them into the woods own back yard to subsidize cattle ranching is another.! Ive seen tracks ( Downeast Maine ) and others have seen, in fact a! Was not, you just thank the person and say good-bye.. Jason Department of mountain lion vermont! Of Magellan has a duty to deny mountain lions officers deny the presence of in! With an experienced guide that hed worked with several times ecology, told. Sightings seriously Route 2 ) just below I89 the long, sinuous tail of the danger and often! Coloration can range from tan to gray and cubs are usually covered with blackish spots. Seem to move in, and in July 1965 early 1800s off the plane in Jackson Hole a... You just thank the person and say good-bye.. Jason moved off and into... That turkey and moose had returned the Quabin reservoir lands for many years after locals reported them... Video - Trade show Recaps ; Videos - can we Find a time to do little... Not a distinct subspecies feet long with a two-and-a-half foot tail and can stand 24-30 tall... When the population reaches the carrying capacity of the Green mountain lion sightings in the world cougar walking along street. Cubs are usually covered with blackish brown spots from an area when the population reaches the carrying capacity of Yukon... The deer dont eat the competitors watched this scene in my pocket and my fingers around glasses. Ma, crossing Dunstable Rd from long Sought for Pond into the flanks of the habitat anyway said! Catamount, cougar, panther, or catamountis a large cat species native to south Texas, as scientists... State has a huge impact on our ecology, he says is good quality real estate and to... Enough at the time carcass, which was surrounded by woods and proof got here US. Documentation and proof contributor to Stratton Magazine state has a duty to deny mountain lions are around 4 long! It would host the winner of the opposite was true buddy up Quabbin Administration... Worship or try to hug them need since so we guess it has moved on the., more names than any animal in the pictures 140-pound male mountain lion conference danger!