mountain lion in ct 2020

Its closest living relative is the cheetah. Body length: 5 - 8 feet Ear length: 3 - 4 inches Tail length: 21 - 35 inches Weight: 90 - 160 pounds Behavior: Mountain lions are solitary animals except during the breeding season or when females are raising kittens. About two years ago in July 2020, there were around 1,500 reports of bobcat sightings in the state, with some bobcat sightings in Brookfield and Ridgefield that year. When a group of officers arrived at a neighborhood in Loveland, Colorado . Bobcats top out at about 40 pounds (most are much lighter than that) and are only. 2439 Adams Farm Ct, Snow Camp, NC 27349 $299,000 MLS# 2479163 PRICE REDUCTION!! But sometimes, instead of mountain lions, people thought they saw other creatures in the Connecticut woods, of which authorities were supposedly aware. In support of the Longmeadow sighting mentioned above1984, Granville, MA. There was no mistake. 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. And Im assuming whatever were doing right now, its not working. We also had bobcats that we saw quite often but I am positive that these were mountain lions! The cat is dead. An expert said it was probably a basking shark. community-supported public media service, Connecticut Public has relied on donor support for more than 50 years. However, the population declined in the early 1900's due to unregulated hunting and bounties were placed on mountain lions until 1966. Spatz and Sue dont want to go where were going.. 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. No doubt of what it was; size, color and recognizable tail. Probably because of all the hunters that would be out trying to get their trophy and endangering others. Then in June 2011, there were reports of a mountain lion in Greenwich and, for the first time, a photo. Morse, 70, comports herself in a friendly and no-nonsense manner. This is a carousel. As unlikely as it sounds, it was a more believable theory than some of the alternatives, among them that the cat was evidence of a breeding population in the state that was being kept secret by, . If you believe you have seen a mountain lion and want to report it to NH Fish and Game, please contact the Wildlife Division at (603) 271-2461 or [email protected] to request an observation report form. 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. The Department of Environmental . Today marks the date of our inception. Patrick Skahill is a reporter and digital editor at Connecticut Public. 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. October 12, 2020 10:47 pm ET. We hope their support inspires you to donate so that we can continue telling stories that inform, educate, and inspire you and your neighbors. According to Jason Hawley, a wildlife biologist for the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protections Wildlife Division, the department gets around 100 sighting reports of mountain lions each year, but upon further investigation, a good proportion of the sightings end up being bobcats. There have been several sightings of mountain lions in New Hampshire recently. Bobcats are most frequently misidentified by the public as mountain lions, but theyre not the only animals mislabeled. Females ranges are much smaller so it will take reintroduction or a few savvy wildlife biologist in the dead of night. ), or someones coworkers mother had seen one from the back porch of a summer camp back in 07 or maybe 08, and shed tried to get a picture but this was before she got her first iPhone, and by the time shed retrieved her camera from the living room, the cat was long gone. 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. But other hard evidence of the big cats presence is elusive. We have people eating dinner in their kitchen, they hear a noise, all of a sudden a bear walks in, so they run into their bedroom to get away from the bear, while the bears out ransacking their refrigerator. Height at shoulder: 25-30 in. Im always amazed at the sheer volume of people who are interested in cougars, more even than wolves, she says. They usually either don't disperse at all or they'll kind of overlap their mother's home range, or they'll disperse very short distances.. are larger and heavier than females (60 to 100 lbs.). The restrictions/regulations surrounding management of an endangered species is incredibly cumbersome, and would be difficult to manage. The Great Divide | Are There Mountain Lions in New England. Because he lives among them, Harrigan understands that no one knows the woods better. The average annual population estimate from 2004-2020 of 2,876 total mountain lions, based on the statistical population . Ive seen tracks (Downeast Maine) and others have seen them, plain as day. Those are the two closest populations that we have here. It's rare to see an up-close look at mountain lion behavior out in the wild, let alone a whole family. He drove me out to the spot. As I looked at my daughter and then turned to follow the direction she was looking, I saw the animal in my side mirror. The journey is chronicled in the 2016 book Heart of a Lion: A Lone Cats Walk Across America by William Stolzenburg. He published his first book in 1959, Joel Samberg: I-95 is the highway from hell CT loves to hate, A CT gadget guru offers tips on the latest devices, Non-alcoholic wines to try for Dry January, This Stamford home is a stylish, indoor-outdoor oasis, CT film professor's new book is an oral history of Hollywood, A CT novelist seeks to shed light on a centuries-old hanging, Nmade in Westport is a globe-wandering culinary adventure, Connecticut Magazine's 40 Under 40: Meet the Class of 2023, Longtime CT lawyer's passion project is music from the heart, UConn athletics operated at $53 million deficit following Kevin Ollie payment. Out & About | Best New England Holiday Events for 2019. McEnroe: Scientifically, this is a case where absence of evidence is kind of evidence of absence, right? But further inspection revealed it was a very large coyote. The animal was shot in the town of Barnard on Thanksgiving Day 1881 by a man named Alexander Crowell. Mountain lions, also known as cougars or pumas, are a big cat species native to the Americas. The next week, on June 11, the cat was hit and killed by an SUV on the Wilbur Cross Parkway in Milford. However, that doesnt mean that mountain lion sightings are all false or that there havent been roaming cats sighted. I think they never left, Ottmann piped in. Public opinion surveys show many more would support reintroduction, than oppose. This is the second mountain lion sighting in North Texas in less than a month. Yet I also remembered something Sue Morse had told me months before, as we sat in her living room drinking beer and chatting cats. Based on this blurry photo and pawprints, confirmed it was likely a mountain lion. We witnessed a mountain lion stalking a herd of deer. Hawley said the last confirmed mountain lion sighting in the state was one that was killed on the Merritt Parkway in 2011 when a car struck the animal near Exit 55. 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. One day I most certainly watched him/her being chased up and down our chain link fence by a neighbors large dog who was barking insanely and couldnt quite catch the cougar, who finally made it away from the fence to escape the determined dog whod had him trapped up against it. Nearby grocery stores include Food Lion, Star Food. We know that the closest established breeding population is in either the Everglades of Florida theres a small population down there and then out in South Dakota and Nebraska. Initially, officials believed it had been released from a private handler. Respect predators, protect them but dont worship or try to hug them! Learn More . 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. The CDFW defines a mountain lion attack as an incident resulting in direct physical contact between a human and a mountain lion resulting in physical injury or death to the person. The 2-year-old male cougar, dubbed P-89, was found dead early Monday on a shoulder along U.S. Big kitty. Im not an expert on human psychology, but if youre looking for something, you have a greater chance of actually seeing it. Weight. Honestly, leaving this out of your article would seem to perpetuate the notion that there is a conspiracy to keep us all in ignorance. 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. A 140-pound male mountain lion was hit by a car and killed in 2011 in Milford, Connecticut. To date, no footage of a mountain lion has surfaced. And theyre not going to find one, because the females don't disperse like that. Betsy started as an intern at WNPR in 2011 after earning a Master's Degree in American and Museum Studies from Trinity College. For instance, a favorite food for deer is the seedlings of forest tree species. We dont have extra money to do secret projects, he says. I wasnt planning to shoot her unless she moved in my direction. She was also the voice behind the weekly Connecticut Real Estate newsletter by CT Insider. She had seen an animal on foot in broad daylight. Tim Abbott, the regional land conservation and greenprint director for the Housatonic Valley Association, says that during a lecture on mountain lions last winter at Housatonic Valley Regional High School in Falls Village, when the speaker asked if anyone had seen a mountain lion, half of the roughly 400 people in attendance raised their hands. They certainly have, you know, lower levels of conflicts and home entries than we do here in Connecticut. This is always been a debate however as someone who is an avid Outdoorsman I can say with certainty I know of at least 12 people that have personal accounts of seeing mountain lion in Central and Western Massachusetts. He coined the term landscape of fear to describe the relationship between predator and prey in the wild. The recent social media posting of what was thought to be an image of a mountain lion in Prairie du Rocher brought skepticism . By Cameron Arcand October 3, 2021 at 2:07pm. So, traffic had been slowed from both ends for a good 3-5 minutes. These highlights have been edited and condensed for length and clarity. Its quite an uphill challenge for us to manage that situation right now. The females are where its at, she said. Length of body. They also generally have spots on their fur. Even though the experts say there arent any mountain lions in CT, there are. But a high-profile sighting in 2011 stirred up renewed interest in the animals here, when a mountain lion from South Dakota was hit and killed by a car on a Connecticut highway. 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. The Mountain Lion will return to feed on the prey for up to 10 days. An attack is verified only when a physician, law enforcement officer or CDFW personnel determine the injuries were caused by a . 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 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. Jason Hawley says his office gets lots of calls about mountain lions each year. As a carnivore biologist, Hawley says he would love it if mountain lions were here. UConn women's basketball's Dorka Juhsz, Amari DeBerry play 'word sneak' at press conference, Fight breaks out after CT high school basketball game between Bassick, Wilbur Cross, Guide to Legal Cannabis Dispensaries in CT, The Best Bathroom Remodeling Companies in CT, recent mountain lion sightings in Connecticut have not been confirmed, 10 criminal cases to watch in Connecticut in 2023, Haar: Pepperidge Farm HQ to exit CT for NJ with 170 jobs, After 350 years, the name of a CT river could be changed. When 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. The image has since been deleted from social media. The U.S. Department of Agricultures Forest Service reports that mountain lions typical habitat is steep, rocky canyons or mountainous terrain, but they generally can be found wherever deer are present. Give today at any amount and join the 50,000 members who are Colin McEnroe is a radio host, newspaper columnist, magazine writer, author, playwright, lecturer, moderator, college instructor and occasional singer. Patrick's reporting has appeared on NPR's Morning Edition, Here & Now, and All Things Considered. Also known as cougars, panthers or pumas, mountain lions range in color from tan to grey, according to the U.S. Department of Agricultures Forest Service. 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. 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. But what about the sightings in Connecticut that are made by experienced outdoorsmen and women, people who know the difference between bobcats and mountain lions? Eastern cougars (mountain lions) do not have a native, self sustaining population in New York State. The next week, on June 11, the cat was hit and killed by an, on the Wilbur Cross Parkway in Milford. Mountain lion hunting tags were sold in 2013 through a lottery system for the state's first lion hunt. More recently, unexplained animal sightings in Connecticut and other states became more and more associated with mountain lions. Your donation today will allow us to continue this work on your behalf. These sightings are so persistent that there is a conspiracy theory that says DEEP officials know mountain lions are in the state but cover up their existence. 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. Still, there are those of us who know what weve seen. Please. Updated . A trail camera was set up and confirmed the presence of a mountain lion on February 16, 2020. 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. Its documented through track surveys, aerial surveys, trapping and collaring surveys. Instead, the responsne I heard were nonchalant, Oh, yes, lots of people have seen that mountain lion around here; pretty isnt it?. Colin McEnroe is a radio host, newspaper columnist, magazine writer, author, playwright, lecturer, moderator, college instructor and occasional singer. He set down his cigarette and looked me in the eye. (Throughout history, people have had a deep fear of these creatures, hounding and hunting them mercilessly.) His Tail was very long almost touching the ground and as thick as velvet rope. 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. It is also the most common wild cat found in North America. But as Eastern cougar search efforts became more organized and still there were no concrete signs of the creatures, many became more skeptical. Mr. Betty and Mr.Ottomans passion and efforts are impressive. Check out 4 Seconds Until Impact by Bruce Hemming, or Cat Urbigkits books about predator attacks in unlikely places . It jumped 28 feet across the road. 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! What time of day was it? By now, I knew the answer to that one. If theres a middle ground in the cougar debate, it belongs to John Harrigan, a veteran outdoorsman, newspaper reporter, and widely read syndicated columnist. But it also sort of instills that fear, a healthy fear of humans and bears. She favors plaid shirts, green Dickies work pants, and hiking boots, and she chided me for shaking her hand too gently. Could UConn women's basketball be back to 'square one' with seven available players at Seton Hall? Of course. Sign up for our newsletter to get our latest and greatest content delivered right to your inbox. But what might be his most compelling argument is that since this is Connecticut, the budget is too limited. 60-108 inches. Massachusetts and several other New England states have bear hunting, or harvest, seasons, which proponents say help control populations. They can be seen at any time of the day or night, but are most active at dawn and dusk, corresponding with deer activity. On another large animal that is most definitely here: bears. People like you are the problem and cause of extinctions. Time changes all and Im not going to shut the door on the future and say that a breeding population of cougars is not here because the day after tomorrow they could be here its just a matter of time., Though a deer hunter herself, Morse is opposed to the way mountain lions have been hunted in the western U.S., where they are found. on the regular. According to the Smithsonians National Zoo, bobcats are part of the lynx genus, which means they are related to other cats like the Canadian lynx, Iberian lynx and Eurasian lynx. Deleted from social media posting of what was thought to be an image of a mountain lion mountain lion in ct 2020 du... Trapping and collaring surveys at 2:07pm to that one her hand too.... Both ends for a good 3-5 minutes: bears both ends for a good 3-5 minutes, because females. 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