Mountain Lion Sightings Near the AT

[Old_Man]

proch panther.jpg

This just appeared on my FB newsfeed, literally right after I posted the above comment. This lovely surprise was sitting on someone's porch outside Ft. Meyers a few days ago.

[jbbweeks]

I have heard that some of the northeastern states encouraged the coyote's return and in some areas actively reintroduced them. Not sure if this is true, but it's been told to me several times.

When Inwas a kid there were no wild turkeys and almost no hawks in southern Connecticut, now we're flush with both. 120 years ago there were no whitetail deer in Connecticut either, now we can't thin them out fast enough. Nature is cool like that.

Actually, banning DDT did more to bring back hawks than any thing else - Turkey & deer populations have been manipulated by humans since the early 70s for their hunting enjoyment. Coyotes are an unintended consequence of those actions.

[Pedaling Fool]

Not on the AT but check this out...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvNq...ature=youtu.be

It seems like the Florida Panther population is growing, see here in this sad article -- sad to see these animals killed, but it may be an indication of a growing population, but sadly also maybe a sign of growing habitat destruction.

This also may lead to more sighting on the southern portions of the AT, but I don't believe it's the only answer (along with escaped pets) as the only thing in all the sightings up and down the Appalachians.

This April will go down as the bloodiest month yet for the Florida panther.So far, nine of the endangered cats have died, all but one killed along Southwest Florida highways and roads. Seven were males, almost all of them at the young age when they start looking to establish their own territory. Altogether, 20 panthers have died this year, a number on track to outpace last year’s record-breaking 41 fatalities.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/loca...#storylink=cpy

[show me the monkey]

I seem to recall that there was a sighting right on the AT in Vermont of a family with cub back in the early 90's?

Here in the Jersey Pine Barrens, occasional sightings were always fodder for ridicule, that is until about 10 years ago when New Jersey Fish and Wildlife officers confirmed a cougar attack on a horse, soon after that a school was shut down because one was sitting in a tree nearby. Here's an article: http://web.archive.org/web/200708191...43/detail.html
Unless they've learned to swim across the Delaware river, it amazes me that they could get through the much more populated northern part of the state to get here.

[Old Grouse]

See Post # 17 of this thread. I remember the event well. So there's one cougar theat crossed many rivers, obviously including the Hudson.

[Pedaling Fool]

I seem to recall that there was a sighting right on the AT in Vermont of a family with cub back in the early 90's?

Here in the Jersey Pine Barrens, occasional sightings were always fodder for ridicule, that is until about 10 years ago when New Jersey Fish and Wildlife officers confirmed a cougar attack on a horse, soon after that a school was shut down because one was sitting in a tree nearby. Here's an article: http://web.archive.org/web/200708191...43/detail.html
Unless they've learned to swim across the Delaware river, it amazes me that they could get through the much more populated northern part of the state to get here.

That link says they were trying to trap it. Do you know if they ever did?

[show me the monkey]

That link says they were trying to trap it. Do you know if they ever did?

I didn't hear that they did, however there was another horse attack a few years later that was possibly another big cat: The video of the news report is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FOTgktCeBU

[Secondmouse]

so what's the difference between a mountain lion, cougar, and panther? or they all just regional names for the same thing?..

[Pedaling Fool]

so what's the difference between a mountain lion, cougar, and panther? or they all just regional names for the same thing?..

No difference, all the same animal by a different regional/local name and there other others, such as puma, catamount, ghost cat... http://mountainlion.org/FAQfrequentl...tions.asp#Same


And this is kind of interesting...there is some debate if there actually ever was a eastern cougar subspecies...I guess we'll never know http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/03/sc...ugar.html?_r=0

Excerpt:

Seven decades after the last reported sighting of the Eastern cougar, the federal Fish and Wildlife Service declared it extinct Wednesday and recommended that it be removed from the nation’s endangered species list.There’s one wrinkle, though: it may not be extinct, exactly.

Scientists are moving toward the conclusion that the Eastern cougar was erroneously classified as a separate subspecies in the first place. As a result of a genetic study conducted in 2000, most biologists now believe there is no real difference between the Western and Eastern branches of the cougar family.

[Old Grouse]

so what's the difference between a mountain lion, cougar, and panther? or they all just regional names for the same thing?..

Also "painter," an obvious corruption of Panther, and in northern New England in years past, a "catamount."

[Pringles]

Just for a sense of numbers, how many of you have a cougar as a pet, or know someone who does?

[GoldenBear]

Just for a sense of numbers, how many of you have a cougar as a pet, or know someone who does?

Just be aware that 21 states (most with large populations) completely ban having ANY large felines as pets
http://bigcatrescue.org/state-laws-exotic-cats/
and many others outlaw private possession of a cougar.
And there's reasons for this ban
http://2ndchance.info/big_cats.htm
Thus, anyone mentioning this fact to a friend or on a public internet forum would (likely) be confessing to a crime.

So don't expect to get any realistic numbers from your question.

But do note that anyone who illegally owns a large feline pet would have an EXTREME incentive to eventually abandon the animal in the wild.

[show me the monkey]

But do note that anyone who illegally owns a large feline pet would have an EXTREME incentive to eventually abandon the animal in the wild.

That exact thing happened here not too long ago with a full grown Bengal Tiger.

[Pringles]

Actually, that's exactly the kind of information I was hoping for. I used to live in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and people were seeing cougars regularly. The DNR kept saying that there were no cougars, and that any cougars were escaped pets. But that begs the questions... How many people have pet cougars? Where do you keep a pet cougar? How do you hide this pet cougar from your friends and neighbors?

Just be aware that 21 states (most with large populations) completely ban having ANY large felines as pets
http://bigcatrescue.org/state-laws-exotic-cats/
and many others outlaw private possession of a cougar.
And there's reasons for this ban
http://2ndchance.info/big_cats.htm
Thus, anyone mentioning this fact to a friend or on a public internet forum would (likely) be confessing to a crime.

So don't expect to get any realistic numbers from your question.

But do note that anyone who illegally owns a large feline pet would have an EXTREME incentive to eventually abandon the animal in the wild.

[Pedaling Fool]

Actually, that's exactly the kind of information I was hoping for. I used to live in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and people were seeing cougars regularly. The DNR kept saying that there were no cougars, and that any cougars were escaped pets. But that begs the questions... How many people have pet cougars? Where do you keep a pet cougar? How do you hide this pet cougar from your friends and neighbors?

Yes, how many pets are out there? Sure some do own these animals as pets, but when you have the number of sightings that we currently have with this animal, then you gotta look past the escaped pet/mis-identification explanations -- sure there are some escaped pets and mis-identifications, but still not a viable explanation for the number of sightings.

However, we need to stop looking inside our borders at this issue, just look a little to the north in Ontario, which was/is part of the range of the Eastern Cougar (if there were/is such a sub-species). http://toronto.ctvnews.ca/big-cat-ca...town-1.1910607

Cougars don't need passports

Quite a lot of sightings in Ontario http://www.torontosun.com/2015/04/03...astern-ontario

http://www.muskokaregion.com/communi...ck-in-ontario/


Ontario's view on this subject is very much in contrast to ours https://www.ontario.ca/page/mountain-lion-cougar

On the "extinction" of the E. Cougar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_cougar

Eastern cougar or eastern puma (Puma concolor couguar) is the name given to the extirpated cougars that once lived in northeastern North America. They were part of thesubspecies of the North American cougar.^[2][3] The eastern cougars were deemed "extinct" (sic) by a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) evaluation in 2011, while a parallel Canadian organization has taken no position on the question.

[Traveler]

Lots of sightings of Bigfoot as well all over North America too, probably more than cougar sightings in the eastern US. I don't compare cougars to bigfoot, as we know cougars do exist, however the Ontario information is not conclusive and does not claim anything other than many people may believe they live in the northern part of the Province. The sentence, "Cougars are most likely believed to live in Northern Ontario because of the remoteness" is not real strong in its advocacy or conviction.

Periodically a few make it into the eastern forests from the western US, as we saw happen a few years back with a cat from the Dakotas making out to CT where it met its end. I suspect a few sightings could be these wandering animals with the majority being misidentification or other optical illusion. Theres no evidence of a breeding population of cougar in the eastern US, though there may be room for them in the environment.

I think the Ontario information is mostly accurate, that sightings and captured cats are either wanderers from the west or escaped captivity. There is very little to support a different conclusion, though I leave room for the possibility.
Where it’s been found in Ontario

The species has a very wide range, encompassing large areas of North, Central and South America. In Ontario, Cougars are most likely believed to live in northern Ontario because of the remoteness of the habitat.
However, there have been many reports from the southern part of the province.
Cougars found in Ontario may be escaped or released pets, animals dispersing from western North America, native animals or a combination of those factors. The population size is unknown."

[Grunt]

On a section hike in the Spring of 2015... on our way down to Daleville.... we were on top of Hay Rock overlooking the Roanoke reservoir when we came across what was IMO a fresh set of LARGE cat tracks. I'm no nimrod and have been an outdoor kind of guy and former hunter for most of my 60+ years. That being said.... there was no doubt in my mind that these were from a mountain lion and it was directly on the AT.

[martinb]

If you can find coyotes in Central Park, there a very good chance you can find mountain lions on the AT.

[Traveler]

If you can find coyotes in Central Park, there a very good chance you can find mountain lions on the AT.

We know coyotes exist in NYC, they have been photographed, captured, tagged, tracked, and observed to have a breeding population. There is a very good chance you may see one if you know what you are looking for and where to look. Mountain lions on the AT are mostly anecdotal, much as other things that are witnessed in the forest that cannot be demonstrated. There is no breeding population that has been detected in the Appalachian Mountains for many, many years, the argument that the Eastern Cougar (said to be now extinct) is a separate species from other cougars is an on-going debate.

There may be a cat or two that managed to get across the Missouri and Mississippi river, several highways and urban areas, finding themselves in the eastern mountains. Some have managed to do that over the past few decades. However the chance of seeing one of these is about as remote as getting hit by lightning as you were buying the winning powerball lottery.

[Deer Hunter]

http://www.whsv.com/content/news/Mou...385246261.html