We'll hear from her periodically through the show. If youve got photo trap evidence of a Mountain Lion, send it in, and we'll send it along to the appropriate state or federal agency! In Vermont, it was 1881. It was killed in Lee New Hampshire in 1853. They lived perhaps elsewhere in New England and they were just passing through and happened to have an encounter of some sort. By, March 2023 Fund Drive Rules and Regulations, Persons with disabilities who need assistance accessing NHPR's FCC public files, please contact us at publicfile@nhpr.org. Patrick Tate: So Cougar Mountain Lion katama. Patrick Tate: My line being a large predator a cat watch ambush his prey animal that hasn't been. Since then, there have been a handful of confirmed mountain. Patrick Tate: So I'm not sure what subspecies of cat they're using to differentiate by those markings but once she was describing the White other face in the black. Really appreciate you guys being here as well. There's a lot of photographs that you can see that it's very clearly a tabby cat that someone has thought was a mountain lion. 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. New Hampshire Fish and Game Department says there's no proof. What's interesting about Bobcats is here in the Northeast we have some very large bobcats. Have you seen one. It was determined that Mountain Lion came from the Dakotas across the Northern part of our country . But along the lines of the conspiracy theories as you mentioned earlier there there was a bit of a sense on behalf of what I'll call the promo online community who felt that fishing gain maybe not even so much in a spoken policy but maybe sort of an unspoken policy did not want to find themselves in a situation where they had to spend money to create a management plan and so forth. I can't. But if you were to get Western dispersing mountain lions just would just sort of expanding into New Hampshire. Sam Evans Brown. Do they travel. New York on Easter Sunday. Peter Biello: Wow. More recently, in 2011, a mountain lion roamed Connecticut before being hit and killed by a car. It's good to talk to you. Peter Biello: Mm hmm. What gets confusing is when you have a large adult animal and a smaller juvenile animal of a different species you can now step start beginning talking about overlapping body weights and sizes. I think that you probably are. Rick van de Poll: Yes. They reported seeing the big tail and everything everything. The DNA the DNA that they were able to pull from the cat suggested that it was a dispersed mountain lion that came. And trying to figure out the little pieces to identify him so I bring up the names the differences but the appearances can be confusing for some. So yeah as far as wildlife species that put deer and trees know there aren't any others that I know of that put deer in trees just just humans might be responsible for that. Peter Biello: Hmm. Part II. So now what's going on. They are the same thing. The states never denied mountain lions are here, and theyve never admitted mountain lions are here. Really appreciate it. I mean no doubt a seen Bobcat seen his stuff. I saw a mountain lion on my property in NE corner of Dutchess County about 6 years ago -- the cat (or a cat) had been spotted many times over the years and was believed to have been introduced and escaped from a nearby Hunting Preserve. 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. Deer manages to free itself from the claws of a mountain lion in Alpine, California. So I don't understand really how how this this idea came to be but it is the main reason why folks believe that fishing game is is covering up the fact that there are mountain lions in the state again with no evidence. Peter Biello: But clearly you know you're saying like hoaxes people who claim to have seen a mountain lion but knowingly have not or are appropriating photos taken elsewhere of legit mountain lion say out West where they people acknowledge that they exist certainly knowingly or unknowingly in this case the person who sent it to me said hey a friend of mine sent me this photo and said he took it on his back porch also. But are there mountain lions living in New Hampshire? Michael Brindley is our program manager our producers our Jessica Hunt and Christina Phillips and our theme music was composed by Bob Lord. The New Hampshire lion has become something of the state's own Big Foot, commonly discussed and rumored but never confirmed; at least, not since the 1850s, when the last mountain lion in the . John if you're still on the line here I was going to I don't. It's listed as population of least concern. But but I've also seen it cited the opposite way that look they're very secretive. I mean I that said I've lived out west for nine years. And we want to know your stories if you have them 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 or email exchange at an HP bar dot org we'll talk about conspiracy theories when we come back. 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. The sub-population in Florida is known as the Florida panther . The one confirmed case, sometimes referred to as the " Connecticut Mountain Lion " happened in June 2011 when an SUV struck and killed a cougar in Milford. Part II. He said matter of fact I do. So here we have you know a very qualified biologist who who found a print took a plaster cast found a scat send it to a university. Caller: Yeah. And the second question is this a behavior mountain lions exhibit. And maybe it's a no holds barred nostalgia for a better world a wild or Fuller world not a world that's constrained by our boundaries and our taxes and our highways. And I can recall its information but I can't confirm or verify anything. Peter Biello: Sam I wanted to ask you a little bit about that first and then turn to Patrick Tate efficient game. From came from out west they tracked it all the way back to the Black Hills in the Dakotas. And it came out we could see it had and we could see its long swooping tail. Not one picture of him online while the person meet with us. Still, it's been over 100 years since the last mountain lion was killed east of the Mississippi, except for a patch of them down in Florida, where there are supposed to be 100 to 200 still living. We rely on readers like you to support the local, national, and international coverage on this website. And I was probably about a half a mile from downtown all village on the right. Do you get a lot of these these these things that end up being hoaxes. and territorial animals are much more inclined to create a problem with passer bys than dispersing animals in fact I'd be totally shocked if a dispersal would encounter with a human purposefully unless they had already had some type of training to do so. Cougars are believed to have died off in New Hampshire in the 1880s after deforestation and hunting drove them to extinction, according to the 1950s book "A History of New Hampshire Game. Peter Biello: And that will make identification for a layperson rather difficult. Peter Biello: Yeah. State officials have said, over and over in recent years, that the eastern mountain lion has been completely wiped out from the Northeast. So when we talk about the threshold of evidence required to say for sure you have seen a mountain lion it is rather high. People go through great lengths to create hoaxes like this. And then just up behind it you know at about 11 o'clock on one side and whatever that would be on the other side it's black. These young males are tracking looking for mates and if they don't find a mate they just keep moving and moving and moving. I've seen him in the woods and that was not a bobcat but I was looking at. They create these scrapes where theyre communicating with each other with scent. The American Lion The Saber tooth Tiger and this was the one that survived. So they're not afraid of humans and they'll show up like a regular housecat. 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. This is a list of known or suspected fatal cougar attacks that occurred in North America by decade in chronological order. Peter Biello: They make great mascots at least. Every other Friday on Morning Edition NHPRs Sam Evans-Brown tracks down answers to questions about the environment and outdoors for our listeners in a segment we call Ask Sam.. So. Caller: Hi. So it's there was no question in my mind. for some excitement. Does not test random Scouts. 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. Peter Biello: This is the exchange on an HP yard today we're talking about the mysterious elusive majestic Mystic Mountain Lion. 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. Rick shaking his head so Rick now correct me please. Sam Evans-Brown: Certainly that is a thing I've heard but again you have to think of the incentives involved here. Caller: Absolutely. Wed love to be part of the first verified sighting. If so that's for us as an agency. And why would they what. 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. 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. So hey, just me shooting from the hip, maybe there are a couple mountain lions skulking about. Had great trees behind it beautiful ferns on the ground so it brought me down on the site and the ferns on the ground matched. They peaked in . Anytime at any HP broad dot org or subscribe to our podcast search Apple podcasts Google Play or stitcher for an HP bar exchange. Someone's got to see one they're very secretive. 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. PublishedNovember 16, 2018 at 6:16 AM EST. I'm Peter Biello. The big cat has been extinct at least the eastern mountain lion has been extinct here since the mid. The sightings have not been confirmed; in fact, there have been no confirmed mountain lion sightings in New Hampshire since one was shot and killed on the seacoast in the 1850s, said Patrick Tate . According to the Nebraska Game and Parks report, a homeowner heard growling coming from underneath his porch while working outside. Patrick Tate: So the individuals can say that but for an agency that's based on science and what not to to go off with no evidence and then get into that giant debate and all these other issues and put credibility at risk I don't think that would be a great path to take. Osga's group of volunteers sent hair samples. And you know all that. And there's there's no evidence of that cat's movement in that entire you know 12 hundred miles stretch of its journey. So and so they so they do get pretty involved. Or years or so. Patrick Tate: Well I've never seen an Easter cougar so I can't say when I've handled these 10 cougars and whatnot. And it was you know 10 or 12 people saw it all at once. 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. We send out DNA samples to the U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station. But my experience was that the majority of these accounts could not be taken lightly. Your support makes this news available to everyone. So so in 2011 a mountain lion was killed in a car accident in Connecticut a car hit a mountain lion and killed it. Peter Biello: What about the idea of tourism like us leaving aside the fact that it is not on the Endangered Species Act is it. Mountain lions leave a lot of sign. So in fact, maybe a decade ago now there was a mountain lion killed in Connecticut and through DNA analysis of that mountain lion and scat that had been left in various places. As I tried to get a picture of it so there was it was definitely we looked up all the pictures and it was definitely not a bobcat or anything else being it looked just like a mountain lion. Fish and Game then deny the evidence. So. Well thanks for sharing. Thanks very much. You know one of the the biggest questions I have about that is it points to how much we don't know and if in fact we don't know enough. There's these animals aren't coming with a map saying oh I want to go here. It was killed in Lee New Hampshire in 1853. People were calling the New Hampshire Fish and Game director's office saying why are you dragging your feet on this. Which goes back to the Connecticut Connecticut cat and what not. Give us a call if you have a question or comments or story about perhaps seeing a mountain lion here in New Hampshire. I think as Pat was saying you know 35 to 50 pounds on a male be reasonable range whereas mountain lions you're up to 100 110 maybe even 130 pounds on a big male. 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