mountain lions in new hampshire mountain lions in new hampshire

It's not a skinny rope like tail like a housecat. JavaScript must be enabled for some features to display properly. That's the real story is they can't follow up on every one of these sightings. And now that everyone and their mother has a remote camera in their back yard its just so, so unlikely that there are resident, breeding mountain lions in New England that are living invisibly among us, he says, Its become Big Foot.. New Hampshire Fish and Game Department says there's no proof. Patrick Tate: So Cougar Mountain Lion katama. The term is because mascots notwithstanding right that they're referred to with a lot of different terms and sometimes they can be confused with a lot of different terms. Well let's hear from from Sue Morse again science director for the organization keeping track. nh.gov | privacy policy | accessibility policy Well they are the same. And those and that's how you can go from a story that Pat says I have nothing to say about that to a story that you know could be the first verified sighting in over 100 years. John you're on the air. Patrick Tate: My line being a large predator a cat watch ambush his prey animal that hasn't been. But if you were to get Western dispersing mountain lions just would just sort of expanding into New Hampshire. But if you do if you think you're looking at a wild Puma their tail is very thick and especially in the winter is very thick and ponderous looking. Peter Biello: So a little bit of nostalgia maybe for it for a better world embodied in the mountain lion. So I reached down to grab the camera and looked back and like a ghost it's gone. Some of the reports that I looked into that were actually on file at the local fish and game office were even from people who did not live locally. I'm gonna send you a letter that we researched this report and we spoke with those labs and the lab wrote in their letter to us that they could only say that Scott contained white Tea Party fur and that they could not say what deposited the scout because it's far too degraded listeners we'd love to hear from you about your mountain lion sightings if you have seen one or if you if you think you have give us a call we'd love to hear your story 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7. Thank you very much for being here. Peter Biello: Yeah well what do you think Pat is. Well just that I have evidence and it was not it was denied by fishing game at the time and I you know there's I don't need to prove to anybody that I saw one just like some of your callers said okay. So before we get to the the the the stories of sightings we're getting a lot of calls. Thank you very much for listening. And it was unmistakable. If you missed part of today's program listen to the exchange. I was at the Sentinel as a reporter there for about four years and during that time I probably wrote close to a half dozen stories or so on this topic including a lengthy feature at one point that in which I spoke to several people from around the banana region claimed to have seen mountain lions that at one time or another. Peter Biello: Ok weird question but do they make good pets. So we're fixated on natural but there's other possibilities. You need you need either a really good photograph or you need you know fresh scat that can be sent to a lab out West that can they can be identified there. So try to take photographs if you see something like this. Well thanks for sharing. Reviewing the evidence, the U.S. We we hear that there is allegedly a government conspiracy to deny the existence of mountain lions here in New Hampshire so I guess a local government conspiracy. But before I go any further I want to say we do not have sufficient game. 235 or nhandy@ledgertranscript.com. Its actually fairly reasonable to believe that mountain lions do, at least, pass through occasionally. We'd love to have you in the queue. Lions Clubs Int'l Links: LionNet NH Links 2011 -2012 . Today, their range stretches from the Yukon Territory in Canada along the western coast of the United States, all the way to the Southern Andes in Chile. If so that's for us as an agency. As far as I could tell there was a positive DNA sequence coming from the scat sample Patrick. The Lions of New Hampshire: MD44 Links. No evidence and other states where Mountain lights have turned up. I've seen him in the woods and that was not a bobcat but I was looking at. But are there mountain lions living in New Hampshire? But you won't find evidence of their existence in paw prints in the snow or a deer carcass in a tree. Is there something particularly hospitable about New Hampshire Forests that make them want to come here. Join as a $8 per month sustainer and get our brand-new owl umbrella! County road and all of a sudden a big cat jumps out of the woods over a stone wall stood in the middle of the dirt road as I rode towards it. And so maybe before I go to you recommend I ask you Patrick Tate is the standard too high. Peter Biello: From New Hampshire Public Radio I'm Peter Biello in for Lark Knoy and this is the exchange. Pat ruse and he was sampling doing DNA samples from cats in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Have you seen one. Almost all species disperse greater distances than females. Women control our lives. OK. That location they just described we had two or three Bobcats radio collared on just off the runway in Laconia airport. I wasn't employed as biologists at the time of a situation that's been reported but so I started digging into this report and spoke with another wildlife biologist with the agency and said Do you know anything about this. So now what's going on. Peter Biello: So Rick seems like you agree that the tail is a big giveaway whether or not it's a mountain lion Absolutely. From came from out west they tracked it all the way back to the Black Hills in the Dakotas. Maps of Trapping Take by Town 1994 to 2004. Well within there. I came to a stop and it was and I've seen a lot of bobcats in my time and I just came to a stop it was just sort of confused about what I was seeing. And they used to be this whole list of the different subspecies of mountain lion and it has since been reduced to just to the North American and the South American. Can we go to the site. I would just suggest that in my experience as a reporter covering this covering this issue for a few years at least at what point do we reach a certain critical mass for lack of a better term of accounts where I'm not to suggest that you guys aren't taking this possibility seriously. Tim Yeah. Long before NASA was asked to put a man on the moon one engineer had already figured out how to get there. It was not a bobcat. Peter Biello: And that will make identification for a layperson rather difficult. There'd be there'd be all sorts of you know basically a lot of hassle required if that were to happen. It's not an emerging endangered species no work no there are there are populations in specific states so the Florida panther is is an endangered species that sub population is in fact listed under the Endangered Species Act. I had a resident in New Hampshire tell me a story of a mountain lion in the 1960s where a person who would come summer in New Hampshire and then live in a different part of the country in the winter had a trailer that was housing his mount line. Today she talked with us a little bit before the show about why the mountain line is so compelling and why we want it to be part of our world. So one thing I'll add we're talking about natural dispensers but talking with the conservation officer in the 1980s they recall going to a residence telling a person you can live here but your mountain lion can't. It all used to be based on measurable physical traits color, skull size, paw size, etc but now its based on whether an animal can be shown to be genetically distinct from others. Yeah 13 to 15 years ago 13 to 15 years ago. Sam Evans-Brown: What he would have stopped as well I think is way way that the reason that mountain lion kept moving is because he wasn't finding anybody. Absolutely. In my New Hampshire career I have written several, and seen at least 20, stories along the lines of "local person thinks they saw a mountain lion but there's no actual evidence aside from. No doubt in my mind it was. What do you think that. So so do what you can get to do what you can to get proof. So that that's more or less I think why I'm here and why I got into this in nineteen ninety nine I found a what appeared to be a print of a mountain lion and that was in the Osprey mountains and I thought well OK that's that's a print. That's pretty elaborate. Is this kind of a typical story. Okay. There was a lot of DNA evidence. The species that once inhabited the Northeast, known as the eastern mountain lion, is now extinct. So they're not afraid of humans and they'll show up like a regular housecat. Now Bobcat is a completely different species. Peter Biello: Give us a call 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 you can also send us an email exchange at an HP morgue. Peter Biello: Wow. Yes and you want to share what you learned. The Connecticut Mountain Lion is the best documented wild Mountain Lion in New England. 50 feet above the most. They get a lot of media attention but compared to the the amount of times that a mountain lion could attack a person but doesn't because they don't typically view us as prey. So for those reasons I don't believe the standards are too high the amount of game cameras out on the landscape to record images department alone through contracts had over 150 throughout the state biologists go through various deer yards throughout the year. As wildlife biologists, wed be fascinated to say 'look look what was found in our state.'. But I do think that it's appropriate that a fishing game agency would recognize verifiable proof if they could. Give today. The American Lion The Saber tooth Tiger and this was the one that survived. Mountain lions leave a lot of sign. Pat do they typically just move around a lot. Your support makes this news available to everyone. Sunny today high temperatures low to mid 80s it'll be clear tonight overnight lows in the 50s for tomorrow sunshine with high temperatures mid to upper 80s. To date, the Department has not received any verifiable evidence (photographic or DNA)of mountain lions existing in New Hampshire. People go through great lengths to create hoaxes like this. It's listed as population of least concern. He writes As a farmer I come across many outdoorsman looking to hunt our property had a conversation with one who believed very strongly that we had mountain lions in New Hampshire. Phone number 1 800. HOLDERNESS, N.H. (AP) Two of the known mountain lions in New Hampshire have spent their 15 years in close proximity to humans. Mountain lions live in the state. They're just moving around freely. Thanks also to Rick van de Poll naturalist and founder of ecosystem management consultants of New England and Sam Evans Brown host of an HP podcast outside in about the natural world and how we use it. The way that we define species has undergone a revolution with the advent of DNA testing. So I will just say this is a big reason why there have not been confirmed sightings I think is that the evidence required first. NH Fish and Game Wildlife Biologist Patrick Tate reports that so far, mountain lion reports accompanied byphotographs have been misidentified bobcats or housecats, or pictures of mountain lions taken from the Internet and reported as being recorded in New Hampshire. However if if and when it does happen it takes up a lot of resources looking at that situation and identifying what's going on because when you start out you don't know it's a hoax. The Eastern mountain lion is extinct in the eastern United States and Canada, but in 2011, a . From: Boomerdog in OK 08-Oct-07 We are the second most-forested state in the country, and those forests can be impenetrable snarls (part of why the Northeast is notoriously a difficult place to hunt deer), and while there are people in a lot of those woods, because the cats have been absent for a few generations now, most of those people dont know what a cougar scrape or latrine look and smell like. They sent it already. The unheralded hero of Apollo John Hubble the man who knew the way to the moon. Rick van de Poll: Well the mountain lion of course has been sort of an enigma in the wildlife suite for years and years. Less successful males roam further. Fish and Wildlife Service decided all of the cougars, pumas, and mountain lions in the country are actually the same species, and that species hasnt had a breeding population anywhere near the Northeast for at least 70 years. Sam Evans-Brown: Well first I want to sort of explain why what the theory is but then also throw a bit of cold water on it because I don't think there's much much logic behind it but essentially is that if fish and game were to acknowledge that there was a population of Mount lions in the state there's a chance that something like a listing under the federal Endangered Species Act might happen and then there'd be you know some they'd have to put a plan in place to protect the species there'd be you know restrictions put on development. Mountain lions (especially males) have incredibly large ranges that they defend from rivals. Hunting is legal, but closely regulated by the state. Caller: I got home to my wife that a gene that you should have seen the cat. We actually have the largest subspecies of bobcat in the northern part of our state which they can get up to 40 and over 40 pounds which looks like an 80 pound the animal to visually and quite large. Second when I when they did forward it from Wyoming to to Michigan you know this was coming right from sample 18 and 19 had no remarkable differences from known mountain lions from Michigan or Wyoming. So it's there was no question in my mind. That's what we're seeing is dispersing mountain lions from the West who are just making their way through. But having read a bit of information about his cougar there are a darker subspecies. Does not test random Scouts. And when provoked no animal could stand before him elegantly put. I just saw the head and the tail that was leaving. 10 things to do in NH this weekend: Dartmouth Dance, Hamilton De Holanda & more, Turkish restaurant in the Upper Valley aims to help those affected by recent earthquakes, RFK Jr. tells NH crowd hes considering a presidential run, Epping woman pleads guilty to threatening Michigan election official in 2020. There were several sightings in CT over the last few months. The 17-year-old Kiger mustang mare was born in Bend, Oregon, said Hodskins, who got her . Peter Biello: And Carl before you continue I think Patrick Tate just give me a second. Well let me ask maybe Pat and Rick about this. When you talk about a bobcat Bobcat maybe 80 90 pounds and then a mountain lion could be between 130 and 180 pounds. I hope she's listening and she had spoke to a lot of different people ended up having a couple of sightings of her alone without sort of by accident. And I I have this great text history of New Hampshire game and fir bears and I think by Helen Silver who used to work for fish and game and she sort of I kind eyes this animal in one of the quotes from 1892 stating that the catamaran was the most ferocious of all the wild beasts of New Hampshire his great size strength and agility of movement together with his formidable weapons rendered him the terror both of man and beast. So I did a bunch of research and all the documentation I found was there art are not any pieces of DNA of Eastern online. So for our scientists to do the lumping and whatnot. Which which I think Pat and I have both experienced. So take care of this problem. We mentioned that one cat that was hit by a car where it has it that it was a male looking for me. Caller: It had just left that field and was out. All they think it traveled north through Canada up you know crossed across the Great Lakes and then and then down again through New York State. If youd like to submit a question (or send a mountain line photo) you can record it as a voice memo on your smart phone and send it tooustidein@nhpr.org, OR call our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (1-844-466-8837) and leave a message. And there's there's no evidence of that cat's movement in that entire you know 12 hundred miles stretch of its journey. Peter Biello: So Patrick today Fish and Game no downward pressure on you to deny the existence at all costs of mountain lions here in New Hampshire. for some excitement. But Absence of Evidence Is Not Evidence of Absence, Right? Caller: Oh hi. Sue Morse: First and foremost if you have color or if you could see details of color look at the front of the face around the Pumas muzzle the muzzle itself is pure white. Thank you very much for that story really appreciate it. For all the men out there that don't realize it. Patrick Tate: If I could just say one thing. John Holt's ideas were at first dismissed but he refused to be silent. I've had a number of people call up and say I found a scout in the woods and I want it DNA identified. If you go on YouTube and search mount lion Pat you can see people patent their hundred pound kiddie like its regular mascot cat. New Hampshire Public Radio | Right. He played a pivotal role and he battled for recognition. So I've been convinced the whole time that I saw a big cougar plume or whatever you want to call it standing there in the road in Greenfield. Peter Biello: Today on the program Patrick Tate New Hampshire Fish and Game Wildlife biologist and far better project leader Sam Evans Brown host of an HP podcast outside in which is about the natural world and how we use it. Why are there so many false positives? They lived perhaps elsewhere in New England and they were just passing through and happened to have an encounter of some sort. A 140-pound male mountain lion was hit by a car and killed in 2011 in Milford, Connecticut. Gotcha, so the Deep State is suppressing mountain lion news in order to prop up New Hampshire tourism? We did a short segment about mountain lion sightings earlier this year and and after which I was sent a photo and also a video recording that was mostly just audio because it was so dark the photo just a quick reverse Google image search you can put images online and see where else where else they've been posted revealed that the photo had been taking out taken out in Wyoming and has been used you know hundreds of times to claim and the person who sent it to me said it had been taken New Hampshire. And what was really remarkable about the whole thing was I was maybe a half mile down on all buildings. We had six copies printed out each. Yeah I did. Theres a project called the Cougar Network that tracks verified sightings, and they are all around us: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, New York and New Brunswick have all had verified sightings over the past 20 years or so. 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 wildlife@wildlife.nh.gov to request an observation report form. Verifiable pictures recorded by the observing person or a trail camera. BRADFORD, N.H. - All that snow in parts of the Northeast has more than just kids jumping for winter joy. And today we're talking about the mysterious elusive mountain line with folks who know something about it. (Cue the X-Files music: The Government is denying the cougars exist!) This decision was primarily for nerdy phylogeny reasons, though, because the eastern cougar probably never existed. No I saw a camel. Over a period of a year and a half, this Mountain Lion left DNA evidence in at least four states. Caller: So I've been telling this story for five years or so and very few people believe me. And the cougar embodies that. Listeners we'd love to hear some of your thoughts on this. He shifted gears in 2016 and began producing Outside/In, a podcast and radio show about the natural world and how we use it. His work has won him several awards, including two regional Edward R. Murrow awards, one national Murrow, and the Overseas Press Club of America's award for best environmental reporting in any medium. You saw what you saw. Information that weed family automotive dot com sunny for today high temperatures low to mid 80s clear tonight overnight lows in the 50s tomorrow sunny highs in the upper 80s. Patrick Tate: Yeah yeah. So you know until I found those two scats I didn't think that mountain lions were here in the east. I can't tell you what you saw but it sounds like a mountain lion. Like why would you want one wildlife. Author of The last woman in the forest on Saturday July 13th at 7 p.m. at Warner town hall Warner historical dawg. Mountain lions ( Puma concolor) are one of the six native species of wild cats in North America. I was a Bobcat we saw it and I have a picture of it. If you have them email exchange at an HP board or give us a call to tell us your story. My wife and I saw a mountain lion. The current estimate is 2,000 - 2,700 throughout Arizona. Sam Evans-Brown: Pretty well I was going to say it is nice to hear about how to identify the facial markings but probably I'd being a to identify the tracks is probably the more useful useful tool that one can have in their tool box. I've actually had to walk in on one or two now and look at what was going on and figured out what was going on. They create these scrapes where theyre communicating with each other with scent. Enable JavaScript by changing your browser options, and then try again. Sam Evans-Brown: So Tim so this cat's been been referenced a couple of times I think we should talk about it specifically lay the whole story out for folks who haven't heard the story because it's actually I think really indicative of a lot of stuff for talking about. So what those ranges. There are corollaries in other states. They're very loyal to what the handler which makes them very dangerous to everyone else. About two years ago I was at the Laconia airport on the way home from the airport and there's a big lake on one side called Lily Pond. There's never, ever, ever, ever been a documented case of a black mountain lion. We're gonna talk about sightings in this part of the program as well we'd love to hear your story. Information online ad an age student loans dawg. It doesn't make much sense because you know mountain lions are as we as we said before. I mean it wasn't your idea. Is that typically what was happening there. Caller: Oh yeah. The big cat has been extinct here since the mid-1800s. And you know it's rather interesting because certainly there are those you as a case of mistaken identity or they wanted to see something that perhaps they actually didn't. Good morning guys. One was in Shelton. So so it is possible in Maine to still to to to have one but you have to be sort of professional handler as it were. Can you tell us about that story. So what counts as verifiable evidence? Thanks for taking my call. Patrick Tate: It became a very interesting investigation over time because it started becoming. Peter Biello: And then it ran away okay. 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 wildlife@wildlife.nh.gov to request an observation report form. But I was riding a mountain bike not far from my house. The second one was not only fresh but when I actually put my hand on it it was you know smelled like cat and I it's there's no denying a fresh mountain lions get if you can tell it every story that KOAT. www.wildlife.state.nh.us, Buy or Renew Your Saltwater Fishing License, Great Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. Part II. If it's just in the middle of a greenfield you can't prove anything. She quotes a biologist in Lyme New Hampshire who who is keeping two mountain lions himself so in the not too distant past in the early nineteen hundreds it was perhaps more common and still in Maine. People were calling the New Hampshire Fish and Game director's office saying why are you dragging your feet on this. John if you're still on the line here I was going to I don't. M from Tree Hill author series presenting Diane lay back. The supervisor that hired me in the game division in October of 1978 passed on to me this whole big folder of mountain lion information and sightings going back probably a couple decades. Mountain lions don't usually travel more than 100 miles from where they are born. Rick shaking his head so Rick now correct me please. I just don't understand the mechanism for how that would happen. So. Are there other powers that be worried that scary mountain lions will scare off people from camping in New Hampshire. Have it reported down in the Keene area. Pat humans people leave deer carcasses up in trees. You've got you've got biologists right who are trying to make their make their way in the world make a career if you are the biologists who confirmed a sighting of mountain lions in the state that would be very good for you like you would be all over the news. Thank you for visiting the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department website. Peter Biello: Ok. So one thing I'll add. We'd be inundated with scouts in the past when newspaper articles have been written about DNA and scouts. Support for an age PR comes from you our listeners. It's bigger but bigger and better world. And it came out we could see it had and we could see its long swooping tail. I mean I that said I've lived out west for nine years. Think you've seen a mountain lion. There have been several sightings of mountain lions in New Hampshire recently. Ive received pictures of dogs at odd angles, says Tate. Let us know your story and share your photos. That's next time on one day. These young males are tracking looking for mates and if they don't find a mate they just keep moving and moving and moving. It's got a a smudge of black and bobcats and links just don't have that we don't have any other cards. And boy it was big it had to be at least 200 pounds the thing was you and and it just made a little bit of noise and it was gone. The report came in from a conservation officer. Chartered: 1973 . That's too big for Bobcat. The best documentation we have in New Hampshire suggests there hasnt been a mountain lion killed by a hunter in this state since 1885. NHFG Wildlife Biologist Patrick Tate identifies this cat as a bobcat. On a dirt road. They're the generalists that made it through both the arrival of the Clovis people with their with their spears and then the Europeans with their guns. We want answers. It's completely possible that it may have spent time in New Hampshire and went undetected but had it stayed in the area ultimately it would have been detected over time.