Deer, snowshoe hare, turkey, and small mammals are all important prey for coyotes and other predators. Like many farms in Vermont, the house was on one side of the road and the farm buildings on the other. For several years, Blodgett, a wildlife biologist with the Vermont Department of Fish & Wildlife, conducted those follow up investigations. I started this blog for people to discuss mountain lion sightings and reports in the Green Mountain State of Vermont. Umbrella species is a term sometimes used in the world of environmental conservation. February 19, 2021. The map shows two things: how far dispersing mountain lions … Spring Loaded to See Something I was curious enough at the time to do a little research. I’d splurged on them. They have been absent from this state since the late 1800s; however, there have been a few isolated sightings. It refers to a species who’s protection inadvertently benefits many other species. It fled when I resumed my walk down the logging road and on to my truck. (Photo courtesy of Vermont Historical Society) Some with cameras. “These things happen suddenly and they are over quickly. 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. It was pretty neat to see. Two of the known mountain lions in New Hampshire have spent their 15 years in close proximity to humans. Reported catamount sightings all over Vermont. The U.S. I had a clear look, through the glasses at … a bobcat. People said that the catamount—as the animal is called in Vermont—was still around and you heard stories about someone who would swear to having seen one. Or, if it does, when that will be. 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. And, furthermore, the animal still had its claws, though those have usually been removed from captive animals. A far less likely environment for finding a mountain lion than just about anywhere in Vermont. You may also like: Armadillos in Tennessee (Facts, Info, and Pictures) 7. It was pretty neat to see. As land was cleared for farming and the cat’s prey species declined in number, it went after livestock. In this project, I set out to learn whether it is possible that mountain lions have returned to Vermont. O'Donnell claims they were taken recently near Corinth. It is also known as cougar, panther, mountain lion, and puma, though catamount is the preferred regional vernacular. But I don’t think it will happen any time soon.”. I wished it were a camera with a long lens to document the sighting. They may not be looking, specifically, for a catamount. This is a site for people to discuss mountain lion sightings in the Green Mountain... Jump to. “They knew what they were doing,” Blodgett says. I had seen bear, deer, coyotes, foxes, that one bobcat … all the usual suspects. Sections of this page. 6 talking about this. All with eyes to see and spring loaded to see something. Sign up for daily emails with local updates and other important news. I got the glasses to my eyes and focused on the animal. Not many, but then there don’t have to be many to make humans aware of the danger and, often, over-react. Wildlife management programs succeeded in reintroducing species to areas where they had not been seen for years. Hearst Television participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on purchases made through our links to retailer sites. This year has brought exciting insight into the distribution of Canada lynx in the Green Mountain State. As cleared lands became reforested, many species that had been squeezed into small regions where there was still habitat, or hunted to near extinction, could be replanted in their former range. And why not? The light was failing and I was on my way out of the woods. Reported mountain lion sightings are popping up all over Vermont and convinced onlookers say the proof is in the pictures. Until 2011, that question rested upon a hypothetical. Face to face, maybe, with a sure enough catamount. He never found the evidence. 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. It kills to eat but does not necessarily practice any sort of conservation ethic. There is also a small population in southern Florida. Try to spot the mountain lion in this unnerving wildlife-cam picture. People could have been looking at a catamount that was not, in fact, a wild animal. The last wild mountain lion in New Hampshire may have been killed in the White Mountains in 1885. Mountain Lions became scarce in the East after a bounty system wiped out most predatory animals. Still, I wanted to believe those sightings were real. The animal was too small and it lacked the long, sinuous tail of the catamount. However, the … Something I had not expected ever to experience. A journey of nearly 2,000 miles. Also moose. Nostalgia for the Wild The old logging road was easy enough to navigate and I let my feet follow it while I kept my eyes up and scanning. He said it's possibly Photoshopped.Officials at the Department of Fish and Wildlife were skeptical for different reasons. The animal in the picture could be a bobcat, he said. Norwich residents were understandably sad, when they learned in January that Norwich Police Chief, Jennifer Frank, would be moving on to a new job as Chief of Police in Windsor, Vermont at the end of February. Photo courtesy of Dave O'Donnell. And, now, here I was. One wonders just how tolerant Vermonters would be of a healthy population of mountain lions after one attacked a child waiting for the school bus. Geoffrey Norman is a Dorset author and a frequent contributor to Stratton Magazine. 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. “We got a picture of our culprit,” he says, “that very first night.”. I had seen only one in my life and it was not in Vermont, where the mountain lion was officially “extinct,” the last one having been killed in 1881. 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. Re: Vermont Mountain Lion — In the early 1970s my wife and I were driving up the then dirt road from her family’s camp on the Milton Shore in Vermont. In 2010, a young male mountain lion from South Dakota, in search of territory and a … It is so strikingly similar," said Trudo, looking at the pictures. Several years of doing the follow-ups, then, convinced Blodgett that there were no catamounts in Vermont. But this requires a “breeding pair.” Ordinary, the lone males do not range much more than 100 miles. In the few seconds that this took, I had convinced myself that I was looking at a mountain lion. These sightings usually took place at night or in fading light, like that of my bobcat encounter. 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. And, according to people who swear they know what they saw… the catamount. Blodgett and I were returning from a day spent looking for—and finding— timber rattlesnakes, a species that is endangered in Vermont. Whatever it is, Trudo hopes to encounter it again. 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. Maybe, I thought, but the shape seemed wrong. "It had this cool tail. It really was," said Trudo.Officials said they do investigate all catamount sightings reported to them. Mountain lions are nocturnal and they are shy and typically are stealthy and afraid of humans and therefore stay out of the way of humans, she … The mountain lion can weigh upwards of 200 pounds and it can move like … well, like a cat. I had seen only one in my life and it was not in Vermont, where the mountain lion was officially “extinct,” the last one having been killed in 1881. “There is a lot of good habitat between here and the places where there are established populations of mountain lions,” he said. 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. This animal was too long in the body and blunt in the head. In the states where there are robust mountain lion populations, they are a threat to livestock, pets and, occasionally, humans. It was a good thick tail, long. The arrival of the European settlers brought about significant changes in the environment. Officials at the Department of Fish and Wildlife were skeptical for different reasons. 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. You are left pondering: "But, are there mountain lions in New Hampshire?" But through resource extraction and other acts of man, mountain lions, have been extirpated from much of their original territory, including the Northeast. I had a pair of good binoculars in my coat pocket. Puma, cougar. According to official estimates, as many as 1,000 people own, in spite of legal prohibitions, captive animals. In Vermont, the extirpation of the wolf, mountain lion, and fisher left a predator void that was quickly filled by the bobcat. 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. You need breeding pairs and they’d probably settle down long before they got here.”. Interesting how tree stumps or boulders assume the shape of an animal in this kind of light. “It looked real promising,” Blodgett remembers. What is an “umbrella species”? Everglades Panther He said it's possibly Photoshopped. According to the Department of Environmental Conservation, “mountain lions do not have a native, self-sustaining population in New York State. And there have been fatal attacks. 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. Until recently, it was thought that the last mountain lion (a very big cat -- aka a catamount) disappeared from our state decades ago. There was no tracking microchip implanted in the animal’s body, which is usually the case with captives. ©2021, Hearst Television Inc. on behalf of WPTZ-TV. Having predominantly only been observed in the northeastern-most portion of the state, biologists now have two compelling pieces of evidence to suggest this federally listed species is roaming the wilderness of southern Vermont. They were inevitably fleeting. The animal, I learned, is called many things: mountain lion, panther, catamount, puma, cougar and more. Things seem to move at twilight and you never know. “Some of them,” he says, “we could close the books on pretty quickly. And, then, some species didn’t need any help from humans but managed to extend their range into now-recovered and suitable habitats. Vermont offers plenty of habitat in which mountain lions could thrive. There are an estimated 3,000 – 7,000 Mountain lions in Colorado. “The animal that was killed in Connecticut proved that. By Stephen Flanders. 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 Rio Mora National Wildlife Refuge found more than an elk in a photo snapped in the wilderness. (The cat I saw when I was a young boy was on the Gulf Coast.). Lacked, almost any tail at all, for that matter. “They may get here,” Doug Blodgett said to me one afternoon. Colorado and California have the highest estimated populations of mountain lions in the United States. When that last catamount was killed by a deer hunter, the state was paying a $20 bounty for pelts or carcasses. I’d need proof if I wanted people to believe me. But examination of the carcass raised suspicions. 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. And, if those people who said they were seeing catamounts were wrong, and not just making it up, then what were they seeing? "This has got to be the one though! In addition, there was a greater abundance of prey species, such as deer and snowshoe hare, resulting from huge acres of brushy habitat created as farms reverted to forestland. "This has got to be the one though! Mountain lions are also known for their eery “screaming” which occurs during mating. 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