Zeus, an 11-year-old Maine coon cat, had a curious encounter with a young mountain lion.
The cats checked each other out — from opposite sides of a sliding glass door — about 6:30 p.m. Thursday in the Pine Brook Hills area of Boulder.
Gail Loveman, Zeus' owner, said she was busy in the office of her home when she heard a noise and turned to see a young mountain lion on the porch.
"There was this cat 4-feet away from me!" Loveman recalled during an interview Tuesday.
That's when Zeus entered the room and got into a stare down with the mountain lion. Another house cat, Bacchus, a litter mate of Zeus, peeked in but decided he was better off staying in the hallway out of sight, Loveman said.Loveman, a volunteer firefighter with the Boulder Mountain Fire Protection District, grabbed a camera and started taking photographs.
The interaction between the cats went on for about 5 minutes.
Zeus typically stands tall, hisses and acts fairly aggressive when he sees other animals - mostly squirrels, other house cats or even dogs - through the glass door. But Zeus remained calm as he appraised the big cat.
"I think he thought 'Hmmm! This is different,' " Loveman said.
When the lion left the porch, Loveman went to an upstairs balcony and spotted a second lion, which Loveman thought was likely the mother of the first lion.
Read on...
Showing posts with label mountain lion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mountain lion. Show all posts
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Friday, September 16, 2011
Mountain Lion sightings on the rise in the Ozarks (via Chad Arment)
Although Missouri's mountain lion sightings have increased in the past 15 years, wildlife experts say no attacks to livestock, pets or people have been reported.
The increase in sightings also may be attributed to technological advancements.
The most recent confirmed sighting, near the junction of highways 160 and 19 in Alton, was captured on a game camera.
Missouri Department of Conservation biologist Jeff Beringer said experts could not determine by the camera image the age or sex of the mountain lion, although he suspects it to be a male passing through in search of a mate.
It is the third confirmed sighting in the Missouri Ozarks since March, and the ninth in the past 10 months. On March 9, a motorist near Rover in Oregon County saw a mountain lion cross the road and get tangled briefly in a barbed wire fence. A cotton ball-sized tuft of hair taken from the fence traced that cat to South Dakota.
Both August sightings were images caught by game cameras -- one near Mountain View on the western edge of Shannon County and the latest sighting near Alton in Oregon County.
Beringer, who is with the states's mountain lion response team, said the two sightings could be the same animal, but without physical evidence to check DNA, it is only speculation.
Mountain lions have been traced from a Black Hills, S.D., colony of mountain lions to as far east as Connecticut. Beringer speculates the cats are likely young males moving through in search of females and hunting territory.
"Typically, they don't stay around,"Beringer said. "If they don't find a mate, they keep moving."
The two camera images from August did not capture the animals at the right angle to determine if they are male. The shots also were too dark to see if barring still is present on the cats' front legs. The barring is most evident on young animals, and is gone by the time they reach two years.
Young cats disperse from their natal homes at about 15 months of age. Depending on her health, a mother cat can have four or five kittens in one litter annually. The kittens do not have a high survival rate, however, Beringer said.
When the young cats leave South Dakota, they must go a long way before they find suitable habitat, such as remote Ozarks' areas, where game and shelter is ample. Mountain lions are typically shy, and will avoid humans and barking dogs.
Rex Martensen, also with the conservation department's mountain lion response team, said the images on the cameras do not appear to be that of captive lions that have escaped.
Thirty-two mountain lions are licensed for captivity in Missouri.
Captive cats tend to be overweight, Martensen said. They also will have wear marks on their elbows, such as a dog has, from laying on concrete or other hard surfaces.
Captive mountain lions also have plaque on their teeth from eating commercially prepared food. Mountain lions actually prefer to kill their food, Martensen said, although they also will eat dead game in captivity, Martensen said.
Sometimes, owners have arrangements with local conservation agents to acquire road kill, Martensen said.
Besides mountain lions, about six black bears are licensed for captivity in Missouri, as are about a dozen wolves. Black bears are probably the easiest to feed in captivity, Martensen said, because they will eat anything, such as scraps, although they need a lot of it. Black bears can reach 400-500 pounds.
Wild animals held in captivity must be caged at all times, Martensen said. The cages are inspected by conservation agents to verify sturdiness and that the animals have adequate space.
Martensen said Missouri did not begin protecting mountain lions until about the 1940s or 1950s. The last wild mountain lion killed in the state was in 1927 in the bootheel.
The next mountain lion sighting was not reported in Missouri until 1994 when two raccoon hunters treed and shot a small adult female near Peck Ranch Conservation Area in Carter County.
The carcass was never recovered, but a photo was obtained of the animal on a truck tailgate. The hunters were fined $2,000 each.
Mountain lions are a protected species that may only be killed if they attack or kill livestock or domestic animals or threaten human safety.
From 1996-2006, about one mountain lion per year was reported in Missouri. In November 2010, a landowner in Platte County photographed a mountain lion.
Since then, eight more confirmed sightings have taken place, two of which were in Oregon County and one in Shannon County. Most of the sightings are by motion-activated game cameras.
Beringer said game cameras could be contributing to the increase in sightings because inexpensive cameras are readily available, and not necessarily an indication that more mountain lions are in the area.
"Every other deer hunter out there now has a game camera," Beringer said.
Beringer said it is possible the mountain lions have always been in the Ozarks, and have remained hidden for generations.
Martensen said people should not run if they encounter a mountain lion, which can trigger a response mechanism in the cat to chase.
The best thing to do is to make yourself appear larger by spreading out your arms and backing away slowly, Martensen said.
"They don't like to fight with something if they don't think they can win," Martensen said.
For more information, go to www.missouriconservation.org and search for "mountain lion."
Linda Greer, Assistant Editor
http://www.areawidenews.com/story/1761815.html
The increase in sightings also may be attributed to technological advancements.
The most recent confirmed sighting, near the junction of highways 160 and 19 in Alton, was captured on a game camera.
Missouri Department of Conservation biologist Jeff Beringer said experts could not determine by the camera image the age or sex of the mountain lion, although he suspects it to be a male passing through in search of a mate.
It is the third confirmed sighting in the Missouri Ozarks since March, and the ninth in the past 10 months. On March 9, a motorist near Rover in Oregon County saw a mountain lion cross the road and get tangled briefly in a barbed wire fence. A cotton ball-sized tuft of hair taken from the fence traced that cat to South Dakota.
Both August sightings were images caught by game cameras -- one near Mountain View on the western edge of Shannon County and the latest sighting near Alton in Oregon County.
Beringer, who is with the states's mountain lion response team, said the two sightings could be the same animal, but without physical evidence to check DNA, it is only speculation.
Mountain lions have been traced from a Black Hills, S.D., colony of mountain lions to as far east as Connecticut. Beringer speculates the cats are likely young males moving through in search of females and hunting territory.
"Typically, they don't stay around,"Beringer said. "If they don't find a mate, they keep moving."
The two camera images from August did not capture the animals at the right angle to determine if they are male. The shots also were too dark to see if barring still is present on the cats' front legs. The barring is most evident on young animals, and is gone by the time they reach two years.
Young cats disperse from their natal homes at about 15 months of age. Depending on her health, a mother cat can have four or five kittens in one litter annually. The kittens do not have a high survival rate, however, Beringer said.
When the young cats leave South Dakota, they must go a long way before they find suitable habitat, such as remote Ozarks' areas, where game and shelter is ample. Mountain lions are typically shy, and will avoid humans and barking dogs.
Rex Martensen, also with the conservation department's mountain lion response team, said the images on the cameras do not appear to be that of captive lions that have escaped.
Thirty-two mountain lions are licensed for captivity in Missouri.
Captive cats tend to be overweight, Martensen said. They also will have wear marks on their elbows, such as a dog has, from laying on concrete or other hard surfaces.
Captive mountain lions also have plaque on their teeth from eating commercially prepared food. Mountain lions actually prefer to kill their food, Martensen said, although they also will eat dead game in captivity, Martensen said.
Sometimes, owners have arrangements with local conservation agents to acquire road kill, Martensen said.
Besides mountain lions, about six black bears are licensed for captivity in Missouri, as are about a dozen wolves. Black bears are probably the easiest to feed in captivity, Martensen said, because they will eat anything, such as scraps, although they need a lot of it. Black bears can reach 400-500 pounds.
Wild animals held in captivity must be caged at all times, Martensen said. The cages are inspected by conservation agents to verify sturdiness and that the animals have adequate space.
Martensen said Missouri did not begin protecting mountain lions until about the 1940s or 1950s. The last wild mountain lion killed in the state was in 1927 in the bootheel.
The next mountain lion sighting was not reported in Missouri until 1994 when two raccoon hunters treed and shot a small adult female near Peck Ranch Conservation Area in Carter County.
The carcass was never recovered, but a photo was obtained of the animal on a truck tailgate. The hunters were fined $2,000 each.
Mountain lions are a protected species that may only be killed if they attack or kill livestock or domestic animals or threaten human safety.
From 1996-2006, about one mountain lion per year was reported in Missouri. In November 2010, a landowner in Platte County photographed a mountain lion.
Since then, eight more confirmed sightings have taken place, two of which were in Oregon County and one in Shannon County. Most of the sightings are by motion-activated game cameras.
Beringer said game cameras could be contributing to the increase in sightings because inexpensive cameras are readily available, and not necessarily an indication that more mountain lions are in the area.
"Every other deer hunter out there now has a game camera," Beringer said.
Beringer said it is possible the mountain lions have always been in the Ozarks, and have remained hidden for generations.
Martensen said people should not run if they encounter a mountain lion, which can trigger a response mechanism in the cat to chase.
The best thing to do is to make yourself appear larger by spreading out your arms and backing away slowly, Martensen said.
"They don't like to fight with something if they don't think they can win," Martensen said.
For more information, go to www.missouriconservation.org and search for "mountain lion."
Linda Greer, Assistant Editor
http://www.areawidenews.com/story/1761815.html
Friday, July 15, 2011
Man stumbles across mountain lion in garage
A man was left startled after he found a mountain lion making himself at home in his garage.
Father-of-five Jesse Taylor, of Hesperia, Southern California, came face to face with the lion after hearing strange noises coming from the garage on Tuesday morning.
Suspecting only a raccoon or a smaller animal hiding in there, he searched around only to find a large paw and a lion’s face staring back at him.
Wife Michelle Taylor thought that the animal - which police told Yahoo! News was only 18-months-old - had been hiding there since Saturday.
Local newspaper, the Victorville Daily Press reported residents of the town, located 80 miles north east of Los Angeles, claim that they had seen the large cat roaming around the neighbourhood.
Mr Taylor explained to the newspaper how he came to find the lion: “I pulled a bucket down off the top shelf and I saw a big paw print. Then I knew that it wasn’t a raccoon problem.”
The police arrived along with animal control to lure it out of the garage.
Once the animal was seized two hours later, it was tranquilised by wildlife experts.
Speaking with Yahoo! News, a spokeswoman from San Bernadino County Sheriff’s Office said: “The lion wasn’t trapped. It went into the garage on his own free will. When the homeowner discovered it, he immediately closed the door back up and called us.”
She added that Mr Taylor had done the right thing to get out of the garage and shut the door.
The male lion was found healthy with no injuries and later released in the San Bernadino Forest.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/man-stumbles-across-mountain-lion-in-garage.html
Father-of-five Jesse Taylor, of Hesperia, Southern California, came face to face with the lion after hearing strange noises coming from the garage on Tuesday morning.
Suspecting only a raccoon or a smaller animal hiding in there, he searched around only to find a large paw and a lion’s face staring back at him.
Wife Michelle Taylor thought that the animal - which police told Yahoo! News was only 18-months-old - had been hiding there since Saturday.
Local newspaper, the Victorville Daily Press reported residents of the town, located 80 miles north east of Los Angeles, claim that they had seen the large cat roaming around the neighbourhood.
Mr Taylor explained to the newspaper how he came to find the lion: “I pulled a bucket down off the top shelf and I saw a big paw print. Then I knew that it wasn’t a raccoon problem.”
The police arrived along with animal control to lure it out of the garage.
Once the animal was seized two hours later, it was tranquilised by wildlife experts.
Speaking with Yahoo! News, a spokeswoman from San Bernadino County Sheriff’s Office said: “The lion wasn’t trapped. It went into the garage on his own free will. When the homeowner discovered it, he immediately closed the door back up and called us.”
She added that Mr Taylor had done the right thing to get out of the garage and shut the door.
The male lion was found healthy with no injuries and later released in the San Bernadino Forest.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/man-stumbles-across-mountain-lion-in-garage.html
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Claims of Mountain Lions Roaming in Connecticut Drew Groans ... Until Saturday
Claims of Mountain Lions Roaming in Connecticut Drew Groans ... Until Saturday
MOSI SECRET
June 12, 2011
In the not-so-wilds of Connecticut, the sightings have come with some regularity for years: Immense, muscled cats, with tails nearly as long as their torsos, emerging out of the forest, appearing first as a flash in the corner of the eye, and then suddenly, shockingly, in front of a motorist's car.
And for years, the responses to those who said they saw a mountain lion were as if they had said they had seen Bigfoot ripping through the Appalachians: You must have been mistaken. A wild eastern cougar? Never. Those are extinct.
Last week was no different, as various reports began trickling in of a mountain lion roaming around, in of all places, Greenwich, Conn.
There was a sighting near the Brunswick School on June 5. In another incident, a paramedic and an emergency medical technician were driving in an ambulance when they said a large cat jumped in front of them. A homeowner made a report around the same time.
A town conservation officer said the sightings were unlikely. But then someone came forward with a photograph. And early Saturday came indisputable evidence: flesh and bone.
Someone driving a Hyundai S.U.V. struck an animal on the Wilbur Cross Parkway in Milford, about 45 miles east of Greenwich. The authorities were called, and the animal was confirmed dead. More to the point, it was also confirmed to be a mountain lion.
Officials took the mountain lion, a 140-pound male, to a state Department of Environmental Protection office; officials said they believed that the dead animal was the same one that had been seen around Greenwich.
The discovery and confirmation of the mountain lion's existence was an undeniable told-you-so moment for all those whose accounts of encountering a mountain lion were ever questioned, laughed at or worse.
Jeremy Joyell, 68, of Bristol, Conn., said he saw one in 2004. "I was driving up Route 63 in the evening," he recalled.
"It was August, so the sun was an hour away from setting in the west. I saw this animal come bounding down about 200 yards away. For once in my life I was driving at the speed limit. I saw it and it stopped.
"He ran right in front of the car. And I saw him. He was about eight feet long. Four feet of body and four feet of tail."
Mr. Joyell said that even though his sighting was never officially verified, the news that an actual mountain lion was found left him feeling vindicated.
"When I saw that today I felt better because those of us that have seen them know damn well what we saw," he said.
Patricia Sheeran, of Bloomfield, Conn., said she also saw a mountain lion about a quarter-mile from her home in 2007. "I was driving very slowly. And something caught my eye, and it was a mountain lion. It stopped, and I stopped. It had the standard black tip to its tail. It was big. And it walked off, and it walked back into the woods."
Earlier this year, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service released a report that said the eastern cougar was extinct. Other varieties of cougars, which are called mountain lions in some areas, can be found in Manitoba, Canada, North and South Dakota, Eastern Texas, Florida and possibly Oklahoma..
"We recognize that many people have seen cougars in the wild within the historical range of the eastern cougar," said Martin Miller, the service's Northeast region chief of endangered species. "However, we believe those cougars are not the eastern cougar subspecies. We found no information to support the existence of the eastern cougar."
During the review, the federal agency reviewed 108 confirmed accounts of cougar sightings from 1900 to 2010 and concluded that all the cougars were not native to the Northeast. They were different species mostly from South America or the West Coast.
The agency says there are thousands of unconfirmed reports of cougar sightings in the Eastern United States.
Officials suggested the lion killed in Milford may have been released or escaped from captivity.
"We still believe there is no native population," said Dennis Schain, a spokesman for the state's Department of Environmental Protection.
"We've never been presented with any credible evidence of a native population," he added. "There is a school of thought out there that we are knowingly denying it, but there is no reason the Department of Environmental Protection would do that."
Mr. Schain said the state was conducting tests to determine definitively that the dead cat was the same one that was spotted in Greenwich. They can compare paw prints and samples of the cat's droppings.
They were also fielding calls of new sightings: On Sunday, the Greenwich Police Department announced that a homeowner and his family saw "a large tan cat" in their backyard Sunday morning. "The cat was described by the family as a mountain lion," a statement said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/13/nyregion/mountain-lion-is-found-in-connecticut.html?_r=1
MOSI SECRET
June 12, 2011
In the not-so-wilds of Connecticut, the sightings have come with some regularity for years: Immense, muscled cats, with tails nearly as long as their torsos, emerging out of the forest, appearing first as a flash in the corner of the eye, and then suddenly, shockingly, in front of a motorist's car.
And for years, the responses to those who said they saw a mountain lion were as if they had said they had seen Bigfoot ripping through the Appalachians: You must have been mistaken. A wild eastern cougar? Never. Those are extinct.
Last week was no different, as various reports began trickling in of a mountain lion roaming around, in of all places, Greenwich, Conn.
There was a sighting near the Brunswick School on June 5. In another incident, a paramedic and an emergency medical technician were driving in an ambulance when they said a large cat jumped in front of them. A homeowner made a report around the same time.
A town conservation officer said the sightings were unlikely. But then someone came forward with a photograph. And early Saturday came indisputable evidence: flesh and bone.
Someone driving a Hyundai S.U.V. struck an animal on the Wilbur Cross Parkway in Milford, about 45 miles east of Greenwich. The authorities were called, and the animal was confirmed dead. More to the point, it was also confirmed to be a mountain lion.
Officials took the mountain lion, a 140-pound male, to a state Department of Environmental Protection office; officials said they believed that the dead animal was the same one that had been seen around Greenwich.
The discovery and confirmation of the mountain lion's existence was an undeniable told-you-so moment for all those whose accounts of encountering a mountain lion were ever questioned, laughed at or worse.
Jeremy Joyell, 68, of Bristol, Conn., said he saw one in 2004. "I was driving up Route 63 in the evening," he recalled.
"It was August, so the sun was an hour away from setting in the west. I saw this animal come bounding down about 200 yards away. For once in my life I was driving at the speed limit. I saw it and it stopped.
"He ran right in front of the car. And I saw him. He was about eight feet long. Four feet of body and four feet of tail."
Mr. Joyell said that even though his sighting was never officially verified, the news that an actual mountain lion was found left him feeling vindicated.
"When I saw that today I felt better because those of us that have seen them know damn well what we saw," he said.
Patricia Sheeran, of Bloomfield, Conn., said she also saw a mountain lion about a quarter-mile from her home in 2007. "I was driving very slowly. And something caught my eye, and it was a mountain lion. It stopped, and I stopped. It had the standard black tip to its tail. It was big. And it walked off, and it walked back into the woods."
Earlier this year, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service released a report that said the eastern cougar was extinct. Other varieties of cougars, which are called mountain lions in some areas, can be found in Manitoba, Canada, North and South Dakota, Eastern Texas, Florida and possibly Oklahoma..
"We recognize that many people have seen cougars in the wild within the historical range of the eastern cougar," said Martin Miller, the service's Northeast region chief of endangered species. "However, we believe those cougars are not the eastern cougar subspecies. We found no information to support the existence of the eastern cougar."
During the review, the federal agency reviewed 108 confirmed accounts of cougar sightings from 1900 to 2010 and concluded that all the cougars were not native to the Northeast. They were different species mostly from South America or the West Coast.
The agency says there are thousands of unconfirmed reports of cougar sightings in the Eastern United States.
Officials suggested the lion killed in Milford may have been released or escaped from captivity.
"We still believe there is no native population," said Dennis Schain, a spokesman for the state's Department of Environmental Protection.
"We've never been presented with any credible evidence of a native population," he added. "There is a school of thought out there that we are knowingly denying it, but there is no reason the Department of Environmental Protection would do that."
Mr. Schain said the state was conducting tests to determine definitively that the dead cat was the same one that was spotted in Greenwich. They can compare paw prints and samples of the cat's droppings.
They were also fielding calls of new sightings: On Sunday, the Greenwich Police Department announced that a homeowner and his family saw "a large tan cat" in their backyard Sunday morning. "The cat was described by the family as a mountain lion," a statement said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/13/nyregion/mountain-lion-is-found-in-connecticut.html?_r=1
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Another big cat seen in El Paso
Rrrowr! Another big cat spotted
Another wildcat has been spotted in El Paso, just days after a mountain lion strolled through downtown and passed a busy school playground before being shot and killed near a car wash. El Paso police spokesman Mike Baranyay said officers responded to a call Friday about a bobcat showing up at a warehouse a few miles north of downtown.
Baranyay says the bobcat disappeared before officers showed up. He says animal control officers left traps.
The incident came three days after a mountain lion roamed downtown for nearly two hours. It was fatally shot by officers after an attempt to tranquilize the animal failed.
Biologist Richard Heilbrun says wild animals normally avoid humans but will visit urban areas when looking for food and water in drought conditions.
http://www.statesman.com/news/texas/texas-digest-woman-gets-life-for-killing-newborn-1474110.html
Another wildcat has been spotted in El Paso, just days after a mountain lion strolled through downtown and passed a busy school playground before being shot and killed near a car wash. El Paso police spokesman Mike Baranyay said officers responded to a call Friday about a bobcat showing up at a warehouse a few miles north of downtown.
Baranyay says the bobcat disappeared before officers showed up. He says animal control officers left traps.
The incident came three days after a mountain lion roamed downtown for nearly two hours. It was fatally shot by officers after an attempt to tranquilize the animal failed.
Biologist Richard Heilbrun says wild animals normally avoid humans but will visit urban areas when looking for food and water in drought conditions.
http://www.statesman.com/news/texas/texas-digest-woman-gets-life-for-killing-newborn-1474110.html
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Big cat researchers take Santa Cruz sixth-graders to the mounts on research mission
By Nadia Drake - Santa Cruz Sentinel
Posted: 03/28/2011 07:39:49 PM PDT
SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS - While the skies unleashed torrents of water on Saturday morning, a group of enthusiastic sixth-graders squelched through mud, jumped into puddles and stopped to stare at poop in the hills above Santa Cruz.
They were on a field trip designed to teach them about the mountain lion, one of Santa Cruz County's most notorious and elusive inhabitants.
"I'm having fun," said Gabby White, 12. "We're learning about poo!"
Yes, among other facts, the group learned that carnivore poop contains fur and bones, but otherwise can look quite similar to doggy-doo. Often, poop and paw prints are the only signs anyone will ever see of the shy, nocturnal mountain lions.
"They live right next to us but keep themselves hidden," said UC Santa Cruz graduate student and biologist Yiwei Wang, one of the students' guides for the day.
Spotting scat along the trail became a source of shrieking amusement for the kids, who also listened closely to Wang and Yasaman Shakeri, both of whom work with UC Santa Cruz environmental scientist Chris Wilmers. Wilmers' group is tracking pumas in the Santa Cruz mountains using high-tech collars that allow scientists to learn not only about lion location, but lion activity.
"The collars let you see if the cat is doing stuff like flicking its tail or hunting prey or resting," said Craig Schroeder, public outreach manager for the Felidae Conservation Fund and organizer of Saturday's field trip.
Learning about the pumas' behavior will help scientists understand the role pumas play in the Santa Cruz Mountain ecosystem. As humans move into mountain lion habitat, encounters and sightings are becoming more frequent - and the mountains have become a habitat island, isolated by roads and water. Animal movement into and out of the mountains is limited.
"When you cut off a population, over time that contributes to extinctions," Schroeder said. "We're trying to mitigate that before it's too late."
The Felidae Conservation Fund, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving populations of big cats worldwide, includes field trips as part of their new educational outreach program. Using funds from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, they designed a three-pronged lesson plan aimed toward teaching middle and high school students about pumas. The students learn through lectures, a predator-prey lab exercise, and a field trip led by researchers such as Wang and Shakeri.
"We'd like to get in front of every school we can," Schroeder said. "These kids can see amazing animals right here, and you can see their excitement when they're out in the field."
This group, from Branciforte Middle School, is the fourth class to follow classroom learning with field excursions.
"This is the way to tie together what they've seen in the classroom," said teacher Erin Petersen-Lindberg. "These opportunities are fantastic. The timing is perfect. We're just starting to learn about ecology now."
At the beginning of the field trip, Wang and Shakeri showed students how project biologists catch pumas using 6-foot long cages normally baited with deer legs. When the trap snaps shut, a radio transmitter on the cage emits a characteristic beeping sound that lets project scientists know an animal is inside.
"We sit about half a mile away and check to see if the transmitter is going off," Wang said. "We don't want to leave the cat in there."
Kids tested the cage trap by crawling in. Then they learned how scientists put radio-emitting collars on the cats that let them track animals and remotely download data.
Then they headed into the woods - swathed in ponchos and armed with umbrellas - while Wang and Shakeri spoke about how mountain lions move through natural habitats and stalk prey.
"A lot of times, mountain lions will just wait right off the trail for the opportunity to jump on a deer," said Wang.
That might sound alarming, but pumas rarely attack humans. Six people have been killed by mountain lions in California since 1890.
"You definitely want to treat the lions with respect because they're predators, but they're not something to be fearful of all the time," Wang said. "Hitting a deer in your car is a lot more dangerous."
Indeed, deer are the puma's preferred meal, and Wang and Shakeri led students to a grove of trees about 50 feet off the trail. There, they showed students an old deer-kill site - a months-old pile of bones in the brush beneath a tree - dragged there by a puma so it could dine undisturbed.
"Is that the head right there? I want to see the head!" said White, who appeared fascinated by the skeletal bits near her feet. She prodded the bones with a stick while asking non-stop questions of the researchers. Other kids took pictures.
Then it was time to head back, and students stopped along the way to learn how biologists set up motion-activated cameras to snap photos of pumas walking in the wild. They watched while Shakeri demonstrated how pumas mark territories by scraping leaves into piles with their back feet.
"I had fun, but my feet didn't. They're soaked," said Jessie Martines, 12, as she returned to the school bus. "But I would do this again. Just wear rain boots next time."
http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_17720989?nclick_check=1
Posted: 03/28/2011 07:39:49 PM PDT
SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS - While the skies unleashed torrents of water on Saturday morning, a group of enthusiastic sixth-graders squelched through mud, jumped into puddles and stopped to stare at poop in the hills above Santa Cruz.
They were on a field trip designed to teach them about the mountain lion, one of Santa Cruz County's most notorious and elusive inhabitants.
"I'm having fun," said Gabby White, 12. "We're learning about poo!"
Yes, among other facts, the group learned that carnivore poop contains fur and bones, but otherwise can look quite similar to doggy-doo. Often, poop and paw prints are the only signs anyone will ever see of the shy, nocturnal mountain lions.
"They live right next to us but keep themselves hidden," said UC Santa Cruz graduate student and biologist Yiwei Wang, one of the students' guides for the day.
Spotting scat along the trail became a source of shrieking amusement for the kids, who also listened closely to Wang and Yasaman Shakeri, both of whom work with UC Santa Cruz environmental scientist Chris Wilmers. Wilmers' group is tracking pumas in the Santa Cruz mountains using high-tech collars that allow scientists to learn not only about lion location, but lion activity.
"The collars let you see if the cat is doing stuff like flicking its tail or hunting prey or resting," said Craig Schroeder, public outreach manager for the Felidae Conservation Fund and organizer of Saturday's field trip.
Learning about the pumas' behavior will help scientists understand the role pumas play in the Santa Cruz Mountain ecosystem. As humans move into mountain lion habitat, encounters and sightings are becoming more frequent - and the mountains have become a habitat island, isolated by roads and water. Animal movement into and out of the mountains is limited.
"When you cut off a population, over time that contributes to extinctions," Schroeder said. "We're trying to mitigate that before it's too late."
The Felidae Conservation Fund, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving populations of big cats worldwide, includes field trips as part of their new educational outreach program. Using funds from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, they designed a three-pronged lesson plan aimed toward teaching middle and high school students about pumas. The students learn through lectures, a predator-prey lab exercise, and a field trip led by researchers such as Wang and Shakeri.
"We'd like to get in front of every school we can," Schroeder said. "These kids can see amazing animals right here, and you can see their excitement when they're out in the field."
This group, from Branciforte Middle School, is the fourth class to follow classroom learning with field excursions.
"This is the way to tie together what they've seen in the classroom," said teacher Erin Petersen-Lindberg. "These opportunities are fantastic. The timing is perfect. We're just starting to learn about ecology now."
At the beginning of the field trip, Wang and Shakeri showed students how project biologists catch pumas using 6-foot long cages normally baited with deer legs. When the trap snaps shut, a radio transmitter on the cage emits a characteristic beeping sound that lets project scientists know an animal is inside.
"We sit about half a mile away and check to see if the transmitter is going off," Wang said. "We don't want to leave the cat in there."
Kids tested the cage trap by crawling in. Then they learned how scientists put radio-emitting collars on the cats that let them track animals and remotely download data.
Then they headed into the woods - swathed in ponchos and armed with umbrellas - while Wang and Shakeri spoke about how mountain lions move through natural habitats and stalk prey.
"A lot of times, mountain lions will just wait right off the trail for the opportunity to jump on a deer," said Wang.
That might sound alarming, but pumas rarely attack humans. Six people have been killed by mountain lions in California since 1890.
"You definitely want to treat the lions with respect because they're predators, but they're not something to be fearful of all the time," Wang said. "Hitting a deer in your car is a lot more dangerous."
Indeed, deer are the puma's preferred meal, and Wang and Shakeri led students to a grove of trees about 50 feet off the trail. There, they showed students an old deer-kill site - a months-old pile of bones in the brush beneath a tree - dragged there by a puma so it could dine undisturbed.
"Is that the head right there? I want to see the head!" said White, who appeared fascinated by the skeletal bits near her feet. She prodded the bones with a stick while asking non-stop questions of the researchers. Other kids took pictures.
Then it was time to head back, and students stopped along the way to learn how biologists set up motion-activated cameras to snap photos of pumas walking in the wild. They watched while Shakeri demonstrated how pumas mark territories by scraping leaves into piles with their back feet.
"I had fun, but my feet didn't. They're soaked," said Jessie Martines, 12, as she returned to the school bus. "But I would do this again. Just wear rain boots next time."
http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_17720989?nclick_check=1
Friday, February 18, 2011
New Missouri Mountain Lion Sighting Confirmed
 |
| Mo. Dept. of Conservation |
POSTED: 5:18 pm CST February 16, 2011
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- The Missouri Department of Conservation has confirmed that a cat sighted in central Missouri in December is a mountain lion.
A landowner in southern Linn County contacted the MDC on Feb. 15 with two photos of the animal taken by a trail camera on Dec. 29.
“The photo is clearly of a mountain lion and we have confirmed the location,” said Jeff Beringer, resource scientist with the MDC’s Mountain Lion Response Team. “It may be wearing a radio collar based on what appears to be an antenna extending from the cat’s neck.”
The Linn County location is about 25 miles from where a mountain was shot and killed in Macon County on Jan. 22. This latest confirmed sighting makes five confirmed reports of a mountain lion in Missouri since November and 15 confirmed reports over the past 16 years.
Beringer said the lions appear to be young males roaming from other states.
“It is very difficult to determine exactly where these individual cats are coming from, but we do know that young male mountain lions go in search of new territories at about 18 months of age and during this time of year,” he explained. “And it makes sense that these big cats could roam into Missouri from the west and use the Missouri river and other river corridors to move throughout the state without being easily detected.”
He said mountain lion populations in Texas, Colorado, South Dakota and Nebraska are also increasing.
Mountain lions are nocturnal, secretive and generally avoid contact with humans.
“We have no documented cases in Missouri of mountain lions attacking livestock, people or pets,” he said. “There is a much greater risk of harm from automobiles, stray dogs and lightning strikes than from mountain lions.”
Beringer explained that the MDC’s Mountain Lion Response Team gets hundreds of calls and emails each year from people who believe they have seen mountain lions. When there is some type of physical evidence, the team investigates.
“More than 90 percent of these investigations turn out to be bobcats, house cats, or dogs,” he said. “Our investigations involving claims of pets or livestock being attacked by mountain lions typically turn out to be the work of dogs. And most of the photos we get of mountain lions turn out to be doctored photographs circulating on the Internet.”
Watch KMBC 9 News at 10 p.m. Thursday for a special report on mountain lion sightings in the region.
http://www.kmbc.com/news/26892073/detail.html
Friday, January 21, 2011
Mountain lion sighting confirmed in Chesterfield
 |
| This photo of a mountain lion was taken Jan. 12 by a Chesterfield resident. Photo courtesy of Missouri Department of Conservation. |
CHESTERFIELD • The Missouri Department of Conservation has examined photos of a mountain lion taken Jan. 12 in a wooded area and says they are valid.
"While we did not find further evidence, such as tracks, we can confirm that the photos are of a mountain lion at the reported location," Jeff Beringer, a resource scientist with the department, said in a statement released this afternoon. "We don't know anything else about this cat other than it was here."
The photos were taken by Garrett Jensen of Chesterfield with a trail camera. The Department of Conservation did not release the exact location, saying it does not want people flocking to the site. It would say only that the site was near the Missouri River.
This is the 13th confirmed report of a mountain lion in Missouri since 1994, and the first in the St. Louis area in that time. But the Department of Conservation pointed out that it has no documented cases of mountain lions attacking livestock, pets or people. Mountain lions are nocturnal and tend to avoid humans.
The Department of Conservation gets hundreds of calls and e-mails from people claiming to have seen mountain lions. Most turn out to be bobcats, house cats or dogs.
Beringer said mountain lions seen in Missouri are probably young males roaming from surrounding states, searching for new territory, usually along a river.
Mountain lions are also called cougars, panthers and pumas.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/article_e08c1c9e-24e5-11e0-a8e6-0017a4a78c22.html
Mountain lion sighting confirmed in Chesterfield
|
| This photo of a mountain lion was taken Jan. 12 by a Chesterfield resident. Photo courtesy of Missouri Department of Conservation. |
CHESTERFIELD • The Missouri Department of Conservation has examined photos of a mountain lion taken Jan. 12 in a wooded area and says they are valid.
"While we did not find further evidence, such as tracks, we can confirm that the photos are of a mountain lion at the reported location," Jeff Beringer, a resource scientist with the department, said in a statement released this afternoon. "We don't know anything else about this cat other than it was here."
The photos were taken by Garrett Jensen of Chesterfield with a trail camera. The Department of Conservation did not release the exact location, saying it does not want people flocking to the site. It would say only that the site was near the Missouri River.
This is the 13th confirmed report of a mountain lion in Missouri since 1994, and the first in the St. Louis area in that time. But the Department of Conservation pointed out that it has no documented cases of mountain lions attacking livestock, pets or people. Mountain lions are nocturnal and tend to avoid humans.
The Department of Conservation gets hundreds of calls and e-mails from people claiming to have seen mountain lions. Most turn out to be bobcats, house cats or dogs.
Beringer said mountain lions seen in Missouri are probably young males roaming from surrounding states, searching for new territory, usually along a river.
Mountain lions are also called cougars, panthers and pumas.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/article_e08c1c9e-24e5-11e0-a8e6-0017a4a78c22.html
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Jack Russell chases mountain lion up tree
A 150lb mountain lion found it was no match for a Jack Russell terrier which trapped it up a tree on a farm in the US state of South Dakota.
The dog's owner, Chad Strenge, heard frantic barking near the family's farm in Colman, Moody County.
He discovered the large male lion, also known as a cougar, clinging to the top of a tree while the 17lb terrier Jack barked from the bottom.
Mr Strenge used a shot gun to knock the mountain lion from the tree before he chased it - assisted by his dog Jack, and shot it dead.
"He trees cats all the time," Mr Strenge told The Argus Leader newspaper. "I suppose he figured it was just a cat."
Professor Jonathan Jenks, who tracks cougar migration patterns, said hunters usually required two or three hounds to chase mountain lions up trees.
He said the cougar was probably not hungry enough to attack Jack.
"It very well could have lost a territory and decided to take off from the Black Hills and head this way," he told The Argus Leader.
Arden Petersen, of the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks department, said that no charges would be filed for shooting the animal.
People in South Dakota have the right to kill mountain lions which they feel are a threat to themselves, their livestock or their pets.
The lion was taken to South Dakota State University, where it will be studied.
It is not the first time a potentially dangerous north American wild animal has been brought to heel by a family pet.
In 2006, a ginger cat - also called Jack - chased a black bear up a tree in West Milford, New Jersey.
When the bear eventually climbed down, Jack the cat chased it up another tree.
The bear only escaped when Jack's owner called him into the house.
The dog's owner, Chad Strenge, heard frantic barking near the family's farm in Colman, Moody County.
He discovered the large male lion, also known as a cougar, clinging to the top of a tree while the 17lb terrier Jack barked from the bottom.
Mr Strenge used a shot gun to knock the mountain lion from the tree before he chased it - assisted by his dog Jack, and shot it dead.
"He trees cats all the time," Mr Strenge told The Argus Leader newspaper. "I suppose he figured it was just a cat."
Professor Jonathan Jenks, who tracks cougar migration patterns, said hunters usually required two or three hounds to chase mountain lions up trees.
He said the cougar was probably not hungry enough to attack Jack.
"It very well could have lost a territory and decided to take off from the Black Hills and head this way," he told The Argus Leader.
Arden Petersen, of the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks department, said that no charges would be filed for shooting the animal.
People in South Dakota have the right to kill mountain lions which they feel are a threat to themselves, their livestock or their pets.
The lion was taken to South Dakota State University, where it will be studied.
It is not the first time a potentially dangerous north American wild animal has been brought to heel by a family pet.
In 2006, a ginger cat - also called Jack - chased a black bear up a tree in West Milford, New Jersey.
When the bear eventually climbed down, Jack the cat chased it up another tree.
The bear only escaped when Jack's owner called him into the house.
Jack Russell chases mountain lion up tree
A 150lb mountain lion found it was no match for a Jack Russell terrier which trapped it up a tree on a farm in the US state of South Dakota.
The dog's owner, Chad Strenge, heard frantic barking near the family's farm in Colman, Moody County.
He discovered the large male lion, also known as a cougar, clinging to the top of a tree while the 17lb terrier Jack barked from the bottom.
Mr Strenge used a shot gun to knock the mountain lion from the tree before he chased it - assisted by his dog Jack, and shot it dead.
"He trees cats all the time," Mr Strenge told The Argus Leader newspaper. "I suppose he figured it was just a cat."
Professor Jonathan Jenks, who tracks cougar migration patterns, said hunters usually required two or three hounds to chase mountain lions up trees.
He said the cougar was probably not hungry enough to attack Jack.
"It very well could have lost a territory and decided to take off from the Black Hills and head this way," he told The Argus Leader.
Arden Petersen, of the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks department, said that no charges would be filed for shooting the animal.
People in South Dakota have the right to kill mountain lions which they feel are a threat to themselves, their livestock or their pets.
The lion was taken to South Dakota State University, where it will be studied.
It is not the first time a potentially dangerous north American wild animal has been brought to heel by a family pet.
In 2006, a ginger cat - also called Jack - chased a black bear up a tree in West Milford, New Jersey.
When the bear eventually climbed down, Jack the cat chased it up another tree.
The bear only escaped when Jack's owner called him into the house.
The dog's owner, Chad Strenge, heard frantic barking near the family's farm in Colman, Moody County.
He discovered the large male lion, also known as a cougar, clinging to the top of a tree while the 17lb terrier Jack barked from the bottom.
Mr Strenge used a shot gun to knock the mountain lion from the tree before he chased it - assisted by his dog Jack, and shot it dead.
"He trees cats all the time," Mr Strenge told The Argus Leader newspaper. "I suppose he figured it was just a cat."
Professor Jonathan Jenks, who tracks cougar migration patterns, said hunters usually required two or three hounds to chase mountain lions up trees.
He said the cougar was probably not hungry enough to attack Jack.
"It very well could have lost a territory and decided to take off from the Black Hills and head this way," he told The Argus Leader.
Arden Petersen, of the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks department, said that no charges would be filed for shooting the animal.
People in South Dakota have the right to kill mountain lions which they feel are a threat to themselves, their livestock or their pets.
The lion was taken to South Dakota State University, where it will be studied.
It is not the first time a potentially dangerous north American wild animal has been brought to heel by a family pet.
In 2006, a ginger cat - also called Jack - chased a black bear up a tree in West Milford, New Jersey.
When the bear eventually climbed down, Jack the cat chased it up another tree.
The bear only escaped when Jack's owner called him into the house.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
NH Mountain Lion Sightings (via Chad Arment)
At 6:20 on the morning of Aug. 20, Cheri Mazerall had just let her cat out the back door when she saw what she describes as a “beautiful, large beige/yellow” animal with “large feet and a long tail” come over her stone wall on Center Road in Lyndeborough.
“I waved my arms into the air,” she said, “and went ‘shoo, shoo,’ and then it walked up the hill” away from the house.
Mazerall, who is a rural mail carrier for the Lyndeborough Post Office, said people try to tell her the animal couldn’t be what she’s convinced it is: a mountain lion.
It definitely wasn’t a bobcat, she says. She used to live in Michigan, and she saw bobcats there.
“They have tufted ears and spots,” Mazerall said.
Kim Bradford, another Lyndeborough rural carrier, believes her.
Bradford says she was driving up Baldwin Hill Road last summer when she glanced down and saw a mountain lion in front of her mail vehicle.
Its color resembled a golden retriever’s, she said, and it trotted across the road in front of her, its long tail “swooped up” and its belly hanging low.
A short while later, she delivered a package to a woman who lives nearby, and the woman told her she, too, had seen a mountain lion in the neighborhood.
Bradford and Mazerall aren’t alone. Many people in New Hampshire have claimed to have seen mountain lions.
David Erler says some of them probably have.
Erler is a senior naturalist at the Squam Lakes Natural Science Center in Holderness. On Oct. 10, he gave a slide talk called “Wild Cats of New Hampshire,” which included the bobcat and the lynx.
But the biggest cat that might be in New Hampshire, he said, is the mountain lion, also know by many other names, including cougar, puma and catamount.
Unfortunately, there is no “irrefutable evidence,” he said.
They were extirpated in the 19th century. The last one was said to be killed in Lee around 1850.
Since then, there have been no known road-killed or hunter-killed mountain lions. There have been no photos, no DNA evidence and no confirmed tracks or scat, Erler said.
“We have enough deer and moose” to feed a cougar population, he said, “but not enough evidence to say they are here.”
The state Fish and Game Department investigates up to 100 sightings a year, and also says none of them offer positive proof.
Erler thinks people do see mountain lions in New Hampshire, “But I don’t think there is a viable population” – meaning there aren’t enough healthy animals in breeding pairs to sustain a population.
Fish and Game goes too far in saying there are no mountain lions here, he told an audience of about three dozen people, and for understandable reasons.
If Fish and Game said yes, it would have to come up with a management plan, the cats would have to be protected and “elements of the hunting population” would object, Erler said.
Saying there are mountain lions in New Hampshire, Erler said, would “create a hornets’ nest I wouldn’t want to step into.”
But Eric Orff, a retired wildlife biologist with Fish and Game who kept track of sighting reports for 30 years, said all reports proved to be false, and if there have ever been any of the animals on the loose, they were escapees from private owners.
Every animal leaves lots of signs of its presence, Orff said, and definite signs of mountain lions have never been found in New Hampshire since 1940, when Fish and Game began investigating reports.
Lynx, on the other hand, although rare in New Hampshire, have definitely made a modest comeback since they were wiped out in the mid-1880s.
Lynx are somewhat larger than bobcats, with longer legs and similar stubby tails, but more pronounced ear tufts and bigger feet. One was found dead on a road in 1966 and another in 1993, Orff said. More recently, there has been “good tracking evidence” of one at the base of Mount Washington.
Mountain lions, however, “have never been documented here,” he said. No one has ever found fur, tracks or scat that could be confirmed as coming from mountain lion.
Nevertheless, every year, and all across the state, come reports from people who say they saw the big felines.
“There are as many (sightings) from the Manchester area as from the Pittsburg area,” Orff said. In southern New Hampshire, most of the reports come from Lyndeborough and towns west.
It’s easy to see why people are fascinated with the animals. The Squam Lakes Natural Science Center has two gorgeous mountain lions, a male and a female, that are on permanent loan from Montana, where they were orphaned in 2003.
They came to Holderness as blind kittens and now prowl a steep rocky enclosure.
Earlier this month, visitors were treated to a demonstration designed to help the cats “get used to presenting their claws and their bellies” for health checks, Erler said, and to stimulate them and exercise their minds.
The training and monitoring is for “practical purposes and not entertainment,” he said, and also gets the animals to present their bodies in such a way that they can be given injections if they need them.
On Oct. 10, Kate Mokkosian, the primary trainer, easily engaged the female cougar, which rose up on its haunches over an open metal grid and presented its shoulder to Mokkosian, who touched it with a fake syringe and then rewarded the animal with a rat.
The male wouldn’t play along, however, and seemed to be irritated by the crowd, Mokkosian said.
The female – the center doesn’t name its animals to avoid making them seem like pets – “is very laid back, very sweet, and she purrs and chirps,” Mokkosian said. While “the male growls, hisses and spits,” the female “is more relaxed in a large group, and is getting good at presenting her shoulder for the pretend inoculations.”
Squam Lakes opened the mountain lion training session to the public on Tuesdays and Thursdays through the summer.
The center also has black bear, fisher, bobcat and other New Hampshire animals and bird species on exhibit, in line with its mission “to advance understanding of ecology by exploring New Hampshire’s natural world.”
KATHY CLEVELAND
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/livinglifestyles/889130-224/while-state-denies-mountain-lions-are-in.html
“I waved my arms into the air,” she said, “and went ‘shoo, shoo,’ and then it walked up the hill” away from the house.
Mazerall, who is a rural mail carrier for the Lyndeborough Post Office, said people try to tell her the animal couldn’t be what she’s convinced it is: a mountain lion.
It definitely wasn’t a bobcat, she says. She used to live in Michigan, and she saw bobcats there.
“They have tufted ears and spots,” Mazerall said.
Kim Bradford, another Lyndeborough rural carrier, believes her.
Bradford says she was driving up Baldwin Hill Road last summer when she glanced down and saw a mountain lion in front of her mail vehicle.
Its color resembled a golden retriever’s, she said, and it trotted across the road in front of her, its long tail “swooped up” and its belly hanging low.
A short while later, she delivered a package to a woman who lives nearby, and the woman told her she, too, had seen a mountain lion in the neighborhood.
Bradford and Mazerall aren’t alone. Many people in New Hampshire have claimed to have seen mountain lions.
David Erler says some of them probably have.
Erler is a senior naturalist at the Squam Lakes Natural Science Center in Holderness. On Oct. 10, he gave a slide talk called “Wild Cats of New Hampshire,” which included the bobcat and the lynx.
But the biggest cat that might be in New Hampshire, he said, is the mountain lion, also know by many other names, including cougar, puma and catamount.
Unfortunately, there is no “irrefutable evidence,” he said.
They were extirpated in the 19th century. The last one was said to be killed in Lee around 1850.
Since then, there have been no known road-killed or hunter-killed mountain lions. There have been no photos, no DNA evidence and no confirmed tracks or scat, Erler said.
“We have enough deer and moose” to feed a cougar population, he said, “but not enough evidence to say they are here.”
The state Fish and Game Department investigates up to 100 sightings a year, and also says none of them offer positive proof.
Erler thinks people do see mountain lions in New Hampshire, “But I don’t think there is a viable population” – meaning there aren’t enough healthy animals in breeding pairs to sustain a population.
Fish and Game goes too far in saying there are no mountain lions here, he told an audience of about three dozen people, and for understandable reasons.
If Fish and Game said yes, it would have to come up with a management plan, the cats would have to be protected and “elements of the hunting population” would object, Erler said.
Saying there are mountain lions in New Hampshire, Erler said, would “create a hornets’ nest I wouldn’t want to step into.”
But Eric Orff, a retired wildlife biologist with Fish and Game who kept track of sighting reports for 30 years, said all reports proved to be false, and if there have ever been any of the animals on the loose, they were escapees from private owners.
Every animal leaves lots of signs of its presence, Orff said, and definite signs of mountain lions have never been found in New Hampshire since 1940, when Fish and Game began investigating reports.
Lynx, on the other hand, although rare in New Hampshire, have definitely made a modest comeback since they were wiped out in the mid-1880s.
Lynx are somewhat larger than bobcats, with longer legs and similar stubby tails, but more pronounced ear tufts and bigger feet. One was found dead on a road in 1966 and another in 1993, Orff said. More recently, there has been “good tracking evidence” of one at the base of Mount Washington.
Mountain lions, however, “have never been documented here,” he said. No one has ever found fur, tracks or scat that could be confirmed as coming from mountain lion.
Nevertheless, every year, and all across the state, come reports from people who say they saw the big felines.
“There are as many (sightings) from the Manchester area as from the Pittsburg area,” Orff said. In southern New Hampshire, most of the reports come from Lyndeborough and towns west.
It’s easy to see why people are fascinated with the animals. The Squam Lakes Natural Science Center has two gorgeous mountain lions, a male and a female, that are on permanent loan from Montana, where they were orphaned in 2003.
They came to Holderness as blind kittens and now prowl a steep rocky enclosure.
Earlier this month, visitors were treated to a demonstration designed to help the cats “get used to presenting their claws and their bellies” for health checks, Erler said, and to stimulate them and exercise their minds.
The training and monitoring is for “practical purposes and not entertainment,” he said, and also gets the animals to present their bodies in such a way that they can be given injections if they need them.
On Oct. 10, Kate Mokkosian, the primary trainer, easily engaged the female cougar, which rose up on its haunches over an open metal grid and presented its shoulder to Mokkosian, who touched it with a fake syringe and then rewarded the animal with a rat.
The male wouldn’t play along, however, and seemed to be irritated by the crowd, Mokkosian said.
The female – the center doesn’t name its animals to avoid making them seem like pets – “is very laid back, very sweet, and she purrs and chirps,” Mokkosian said. While “the male growls, hisses and spits,” the female “is more relaxed in a large group, and is getting good at presenting her shoulder for the pretend inoculations.”
Squam Lakes opened the mountain lion training session to the public on Tuesdays and Thursdays through the summer.
The center also has black bear, fisher, bobcat and other New Hampshire animals and bird species on exhibit, in line with its mission “to advance understanding of ecology by exploring New Hampshire’s natural world.”
KATHY CLEVELAND
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/livinglifestyles/889130-224/while-state-denies-mountain-lions-are-in.html
NH Mountain Lion Sightings (via Chad Arment)
At 6:20 on the morning of Aug. 20, Cheri Mazerall had just let her cat out the back door when she saw what she describes as a “beautiful, large beige/yellow” animal with “large feet and a long tail” come over her stone wall on Center Road in Lyndeborough.
“I waved my arms into the air,” she said, “and went ‘shoo, shoo,’ and then it walked up the hill” away from the house.
Mazerall, who is a rural mail carrier for the Lyndeborough Post Office, said people try to tell her the animal couldn’t be what she’s convinced it is: a mountain lion.
It definitely wasn’t a bobcat, she says. She used to live in Michigan, and she saw bobcats there.
“They have tufted ears and spots,” Mazerall said.
Kim Bradford, another Lyndeborough rural carrier, believes her.
Bradford says she was driving up Baldwin Hill Road last summer when she glanced down and saw a mountain lion in front of her mail vehicle.
Its color resembled a golden retriever’s, she said, and it trotted across the road in front of her, its long tail “swooped up” and its belly hanging low.
A short while later, she delivered a package to a woman who lives nearby, and the woman told her she, too, had seen a mountain lion in the neighborhood.
Bradford and Mazerall aren’t alone. Many people in New Hampshire have claimed to have seen mountain lions.
David Erler says some of them probably have.
Erler is a senior naturalist at the Squam Lakes Natural Science Center in Holderness. On Oct. 10, he gave a slide talk called “Wild Cats of New Hampshire,” which included the bobcat and the lynx.
But the biggest cat that might be in New Hampshire, he said, is the mountain lion, also know by many other names, including cougar, puma and catamount.
Unfortunately, there is no “irrefutable evidence,” he said.
They were extirpated in the 19th century. The last one was said to be killed in Lee around 1850.
Since then, there have been no known road-killed or hunter-killed mountain lions. There have been no photos, no DNA evidence and no confirmed tracks or scat, Erler said.
“We have enough deer and moose” to feed a cougar population, he said, “but not enough evidence to say they are here.”
The state Fish and Game Department investigates up to 100 sightings a year, and also says none of them offer positive proof.
Erler thinks people do see mountain lions in New Hampshire, “But I don’t think there is a viable population” – meaning there aren’t enough healthy animals in breeding pairs to sustain a population.
Fish and Game goes too far in saying there are no mountain lions here, he told an audience of about three dozen people, and for understandable reasons.
If Fish and Game said yes, it would have to come up with a management plan, the cats would have to be protected and “elements of the hunting population” would object, Erler said.
Saying there are mountain lions in New Hampshire, Erler said, would “create a hornets’ nest I wouldn’t want to step into.”
But Eric Orff, a retired wildlife biologist with Fish and Game who kept track of sighting reports for 30 years, said all reports proved to be false, and if there have ever been any of the animals on the loose, they were escapees from private owners.
Every animal leaves lots of signs of its presence, Orff said, and definite signs of mountain lions have never been found in New Hampshire since 1940, when Fish and Game began investigating reports.
Lynx, on the other hand, although rare in New Hampshire, have definitely made a modest comeback since they were wiped out in the mid-1880s.
Lynx are somewhat larger than bobcats, with longer legs and similar stubby tails, but more pronounced ear tufts and bigger feet. One was found dead on a road in 1966 and another in 1993, Orff said. More recently, there has been “good tracking evidence” of one at the base of Mount Washington.
Mountain lions, however, “have never been documented here,” he said. No one has ever found fur, tracks or scat that could be confirmed as coming from mountain lion.
Nevertheless, every year, and all across the state, come reports from people who say they saw the big felines.
“There are as many (sightings) from the Manchester area as from the Pittsburg area,” Orff said. In southern New Hampshire, most of the reports come from Lyndeborough and towns west.
It’s easy to see why people are fascinated with the animals. The Squam Lakes Natural Science Center has two gorgeous mountain lions, a male and a female, that are on permanent loan from Montana, where they were orphaned in 2003.
They came to Holderness as blind kittens and now prowl a steep rocky enclosure.
Earlier this month, visitors were treated to a demonstration designed to help the cats “get used to presenting their claws and their bellies” for health checks, Erler said, and to stimulate them and exercise their minds.
The training and monitoring is for “practical purposes and not entertainment,” he said, and also gets the animals to present their bodies in such a way that they can be given injections if they need them.
On Oct. 10, Kate Mokkosian, the primary trainer, easily engaged the female cougar, which rose up on its haunches over an open metal grid and presented its shoulder to Mokkosian, who touched it with a fake syringe and then rewarded the animal with a rat.
The male wouldn’t play along, however, and seemed to be irritated by the crowd, Mokkosian said.
The female – the center doesn’t name its animals to avoid making them seem like pets – “is very laid back, very sweet, and she purrs and chirps,” Mokkosian said. While “the male growls, hisses and spits,” the female “is more relaxed in a large group, and is getting good at presenting her shoulder for the pretend inoculations.”
Squam Lakes opened the mountain lion training session to the public on Tuesdays and Thursdays through the summer.
The center also has black bear, fisher, bobcat and other New Hampshire animals and bird species on exhibit, in line with its mission “to advance understanding of ecology by exploring New Hampshire’s natural world.”
KATHY CLEVELAND
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/livinglifestyles/889130-224/while-state-denies-mountain-lions-are-in.html
“I waved my arms into the air,” she said, “and went ‘shoo, shoo,’ and then it walked up the hill” away from the house.
Mazerall, who is a rural mail carrier for the Lyndeborough Post Office, said people try to tell her the animal couldn’t be what she’s convinced it is: a mountain lion.
It definitely wasn’t a bobcat, she says. She used to live in Michigan, and she saw bobcats there.
“They have tufted ears and spots,” Mazerall said.
Kim Bradford, another Lyndeborough rural carrier, believes her.
Bradford says she was driving up Baldwin Hill Road last summer when she glanced down and saw a mountain lion in front of her mail vehicle.
Its color resembled a golden retriever’s, she said, and it trotted across the road in front of her, its long tail “swooped up” and its belly hanging low.
A short while later, she delivered a package to a woman who lives nearby, and the woman told her she, too, had seen a mountain lion in the neighborhood.
Bradford and Mazerall aren’t alone. Many people in New Hampshire have claimed to have seen mountain lions.
David Erler says some of them probably have.
Erler is a senior naturalist at the Squam Lakes Natural Science Center in Holderness. On Oct. 10, he gave a slide talk called “Wild Cats of New Hampshire,” which included the bobcat and the lynx.
But the biggest cat that might be in New Hampshire, he said, is the mountain lion, also know by many other names, including cougar, puma and catamount.
Unfortunately, there is no “irrefutable evidence,” he said.
They were extirpated in the 19th century. The last one was said to be killed in Lee around 1850.
Since then, there have been no known road-killed or hunter-killed mountain lions. There have been no photos, no DNA evidence and no confirmed tracks or scat, Erler said.
“We have enough deer and moose” to feed a cougar population, he said, “but not enough evidence to say they are here.”
The state Fish and Game Department investigates up to 100 sightings a year, and also says none of them offer positive proof.
Erler thinks people do see mountain lions in New Hampshire, “But I don’t think there is a viable population” – meaning there aren’t enough healthy animals in breeding pairs to sustain a population.
Fish and Game goes too far in saying there are no mountain lions here, he told an audience of about three dozen people, and for understandable reasons.
If Fish and Game said yes, it would have to come up with a management plan, the cats would have to be protected and “elements of the hunting population” would object, Erler said.
Saying there are mountain lions in New Hampshire, Erler said, would “create a hornets’ nest I wouldn’t want to step into.”
But Eric Orff, a retired wildlife biologist with Fish and Game who kept track of sighting reports for 30 years, said all reports proved to be false, and if there have ever been any of the animals on the loose, they were escapees from private owners.
Every animal leaves lots of signs of its presence, Orff said, and definite signs of mountain lions have never been found in New Hampshire since 1940, when Fish and Game began investigating reports.
Lynx, on the other hand, although rare in New Hampshire, have definitely made a modest comeback since they were wiped out in the mid-1880s.
Lynx are somewhat larger than bobcats, with longer legs and similar stubby tails, but more pronounced ear tufts and bigger feet. One was found dead on a road in 1966 and another in 1993, Orff said. More recently, there has been “good tracking evidence” of one at the base of Mount Washington.
Mountain lions, however, “have never been documented here,” he said. No one has ever found fur, tracks or scat that could be confirmed as coming from mountain lion.
Nevertheless, every year, and all across the state, come reports from people who say they saw the big felines.
“There are as many (sightings) from the Manchester area as from the Pittsburg area,” Orff said. In southern New Hampshire, most of the reports come from Lyndeborough and towns west.
It’s easy to see why people are fascinated with the animals. The Squam Lakes Natural Science Center has two gorgeous mountain lions, a male and a female, that are on permanent loan from Montana, where they were orphaned in 2003.
They came to Holderness as blind kittens and now prowl a steep rocky enclosure.
Earlier this month, visitors were treated to a demonstration designed to help the cats “get used to presenting their claws and their bellies” for health checks, Erler said, and to stimulate them and exercise their minds.
The training and monitoring is for “practical purposes and not entertainment,” he said, and also gets the animals to present their bodies in such a way that they can be given injections if they need them.
On Oct. 10, Kate Mokkosian, the primary trainer, easily engaged the female cougar, which rose up on its haunches over an open metal grid and presented its shoulder to Mokkosian, who touched it with a fake syringe and then rewarded the animal with a rat.
The male wouldn’t play along, however, and seemed to be irritated by the crowd, Mokkosian said.
The female – the center doesn’t name its animals to avoid making them seem like pets – “is very laid back, very sweet, and she purrs and chirps,” Mokkosian said. While “the male growls, hisses and spits,” the female “is more relaxed in a large group, and is getting good at presenting her shoulder for the pretend inoculations.”
Squam Lakes opened the mountain lion training session to the public on Tuesdays and Thursdays through the summer.
The center also has black bear, fisher, bobcat and other New Hampshire animals and bird species on exhibit, in line with its mission “to advance understanding of ecology by exploring New Hampshire’s natural world.”
KATHY CLEVELAND
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/livinglifestyles/889130-224/while-state-denies-mountain-lions-are-in.html
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Mountain lion sighted in Red Bluff, California
By Record Searchlight staff
Posted August 27, 2010 at 2:06 p.m.
A Red Bluff woman reported seeing a mountain lion in Red Bluff near Forward Park.
The woman, who was not identified, told police that she was looking out her bedroom window shortly before 9 a.m. and saw a mountain lion walking along an access road behind her residence, according to Red Bluff police.
The woman said she lives on Lassen View Drive near the park. Police checked the area for the mountain lion but were unable to find it, according to a news release.
Thursday's sighting was the fourth in a month, police said. Police have asked anyone who sees a mountain lion in the Red Bluff vicinity to call 527-3131.
http://www.redding.com/news/2010/aug/27/mountain-lion-sighted-red-bluff/
Posted August 27, 2010 at 2:06 p.m.
A Red Bluff woman reported seeing a mountain lion in Red Bluff near Forward Park.
The woman, who was not identified, told police that she was looking out her bedroom window shortly before 9 a.m. and saw a mountain lion walking along an access road behind her residence, according to Red Bluff police.
The woman said she lives on Lassen View Drive near the park. Police checked the area for the mountain lion but were unable to find it, according to a news release.
Thursday's sighting was the fourth in a month, police said. Police have asked anyone who sees a mountain lion in the Red Bluff vicinity to call 527-3131.
http://www.redding.com/news/2010/aug/27/mountain-lion-sighted-red-bluff/
Monday, June 28, 2010
Lion decides to play through at Mont. golf course
Jun 27, 9:53 PM EDT
BOZEMAN, Mont. (AP) -- Golfers at a western Montana golf course faced a hazard with real teeth - and claws - when a mountain lion decided to play through. Golfers said they spotted the elusive predator while teeing off at Valley View Golf Club Friday morning in Bozeman.
Bozeman animal control officer Kathy Middleton said the lion was first sighted near Aspen Pointe senior living center before other callers later saw it at the golf course.
Joe Knarr with Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks said the agency has been receiving calls about lions all through the south of town. He said mountain lions sightings are common in the area, though there have been more reports this year than previous years.
Middleton said the lion spotted Friday most likely was just passing through.
---
Information from: Bozeman Daily Chronicle, http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ODD_MOUNTAIN_LION_GOLF
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Mountain lion believed sighted near Georgetown
MISTY MAYNARD, Staff Writer
Thursday, May 27, 2010
GEORGETOWN, Ohio -- The Brown County Sheriff's Office has received two reports in two days of a mountain lion sighting near Georgetown, Ohio.
Police believe the animal may have escaped from a resident on Western Run Avenue in Mount Orab, Ohio who had purchased it at a flea market in Lucasville, Ohio. Sheriff Dwayne Wenninger said the owner indicated the animal had become aggressive and they planned to dispose of it. However, it escaped approximately a month ago and was never located.
Wenninger said it is unknown if the recent sightings could be the same animal but stressed the importance of obtaining proper wildlife permits and having the proper facilities to keep wild animals if a person is going to purchase the animals from flea markets.
"You may think it is neat to own an animal such as this and it is cute when it is little, but you have to remember that it is a wild animal and not a house pet," Wenninger said.
The mountain lion was reported sighted on Sunshine Road near Georgetown on Wednesday around 8:30 a.m. When deputies arrived at the scene, they were unable to locate the animal.
The person who reported the animal said she observed it through binoculars and was positive it was a mountain lion. She said it was in her open field and was the size of a small calf, according to the sheriff's office.
On Thursday, the sheriff's office received a report of a loud growling noise on Barnes Road near the Rumpke landfill. The call was placed at about 8:30 a.m., and the subject thought it may have been the mountain lion. Deputies were again unable to locate the animal on arrival, Wenninger said.
Wenninger said the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Division was notified Wednesday of the possible mountain lion sighting.
Anyone who comes into contact with the animal and is threatened by it has permission to dispose of it, if it can be done safely, Wenninger said.
If the animals is seen in a residential area, Wenninger asks the Brown County Communications Center be called at 937-378-4155.
http://www.maysville-online.com/news/local/article_eaaa2e50-6a00-11df-bef9-001cc4c03286.html
(Submitted by Chad Arment)
Thursday, May 27, 2010
GEORGETOWN, Ohio -- The Brown County Sheriff's Office has received two reports in two days of a mountain lion sighting near Georgetown, Ohio.
Police believe the animal may have escaped from a resident on Western Run Avenue in Mount Orab, Ohio who had purchased it at a flea market in Lucasville, Ohio. Sheriff Dwayne Wenninger said the owner indicated the animal had become aggressive and they planned to dispose of it. However, it escaped approximately a month ago and was never located.
Wenninger said it is unknown if the recent sightings could be the same animal but stressed the importance of obtaining proper wildlife permits and having the proper facilities to keep wild animals if a person is going to purchase the animals from flea markets.
"You may think it is neat to own an animal such as this and it is cute when it is little, but you have to remember that it is a wild animal and not a house pet," Wenninger said.
The mountain lion was reported sighted on Sunshine Road near Georgetown on Wednesday around 8:30 a.m. When deputies arrived at the scene, they were unable to locate the animal.
The person who reported the animal said she observed it through binoculars and was positive it was a mountain lion. She said it was in her open field and was the size of a small calf, according to the sheriff's office.
On Thursday, the sheriff's office received a report of a loud growling noise on Barnes Road near the Rumpke landfill. The call was placed at about 8:30 a.m., and the subject thought it may have been the mountain lion. Deputies were again unable to locate the animal on arrival, Wenninger said.
Wenninger said the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Division was notified Wednesday of the possible mountain lion sighting.
Anyone who comes into contact with the animal and is threatened by it has permission to dispose of it, if it can be done safely, Wenninger said.
If the animals is seen in a residential area, Wenninger asks the Brown County Communications Center be called at 937-378-4155.
http://www.maysville-online.com/news/local/article_eaaa2e50-6a00-11df-bef9-001cc4c03286.html
(Submitted by Chad Arment)
Friday, May 28, 2010
No doubt about it: There are mountain lions in state
RIGHT: For real: A motion-sensitive camera in Greene County caught this image of a mountain lion early on May 1. - Indiana Department of Natural Resources photoPosted: May 16, 2010
Until the early morning hours of May 1, Indiana Department of Natural Resources officials had treated reported mountain lion sightings in the state as either inconclusive or an Internet hoax.
Since March 1, there had been 19 unconfirmed reports of a mountain lion, cougar, puma, panther or catamount -- whatever you want to call it -- seen prowling Indiana landscapes.
There were even rumors that the DNR had secretly released cougars across Indiana to combat the overpopulation of white-tailed deer.
Claralene Schlehuser, Plainfield, had heard those rumors. She gave them credibility when her son Bruce Schlehuser, 54, Putnamville, told her in April that he saw a cougar casually walking across a field about 50 to 75 yards west of Ind. 243 in Putnam County.
She relayed the information to me. I told her that I didn't doubt that her son had seen what he believed to be a cougar, but that the DNR was not releasing cougars to kill deer.
No, she insisted, her son, an avid hunter, tracker, angler and outdoorsman for 48 years, did not see what he believed to be a cougar. He saw a cougar. Not Bigfoot. Not the Loch Ness Monster. Not a UFO. A cougar.
I told her I'd check it out, and I did. There were no confirmed cougar sightings in Putnam County and the DNR was not releasing cougars.
Then at 2:30 a.m. on May 1, a motion-sensitive camera on a Greene County rural trail east of Bloomfield began clicking images.
Click. Mountain lion. Click. Mountain lion. Click. Mountain lion. There were multiple images.
The DNR posted two of the photos on its website. To view the photos, go to dnr.in.gov/images/co-dnr-lion1.jpg or dnr.in.gov/images/co-dnr-lion2.jpg.
The camera was placed in an area where there was evidence of a mountain lion's behavior, including a gutted deer carcass buried beneath leaves.
So the DNR had what it needed to confirm that at least one mountain lion, or cougar, is on the loose in Indiana. Most certainly there are others, as people from White County all the way south to Greene County and in between have seen them.
Bruce Schlehuser didn't have to see the photos to confirm the presence of cougars in Indiana. He stopped his vehicle, and he and a friend stood and watched what they knew was a cougar.
"It was walking across a stubble field and there was nothing to impair what I was seeing. It was out in the open. There was other traffic, and about six other people stopped and watched it for about five minutes," he said.
The cougar seemed to have no fear of the people who watched it from less than the length of a football field away.
Schlehuser said people at a service station near I-70 and Ind. 243 also reported watching it for a half-hour.
A former U.S. Army Ranger, Schlehuser said he was not surprised to see the cougar. When hunting in the winter, he said he had seen large paw prints in the snow, those of a cat in the 100- to 200-pound range. Where he hunts in Putnam County is perfect habitat for a cougar or mountain lion, he said.
According to DNR spokesman Gary Langell, mountain lions, a protected species in Indiana, do not normally stalk their prey. Instead, they lie in wait, usually along an active game trail, for their favorite meal -- deer.
Although rare, cougars have been known to stalk, attack and wound or kill humans. Most vulnerable are people who hike or bike alone on trails.
Wildlife experts say to never approach a mountain lion; give it a way to escape; never run, but stand upright, face the animal, make eye contact, raise your arms slowly, open your jacket or shirt to appear larger, speak firmly in a loud voice, keep children or pets near you, and if attacked, fight back.
The average adult cougar is a plain yellowish to red-brown color, five to six feet long with a two- or three-foot tail, and weighs from 75 to 180 pounds.
http://www.indystar.com/article/20100516/SPORTS/5160347/1004/SPORTS/No-doubt-about-it-There-are-mountain-lions-in-state
(Submitted by Chad Arment)
Mountain lion: Several more unconfirmed Greene County sightings reported
Monday, May 10, 2010By Nick Schneider, Assistant Editor
This photograph of a mountain lion was caught on an infrared motion-activated camera during the early morning hours of May 1 in a Highland Township wooded area not far from County Road 450E in Greene County. DNR officials say it's confirmed as a mountain lion, and they are investigating the sighting.
(Photo Courtesy of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources)
Indiana State Department of Natural Resources wildlife specialists and State Conservation Officers continue to receive unconfirmed reports of a mountain lion roaming in a rural area of Greene County -- about five to six miles northeast of Bloomfield in Highland Township.
"There have been at least three or four (reports) since Friday," said Mike Gregg, a conservation officer from the DNR Division of Law Enforcement, told the Greene County Daily World on Monday.
A confirmed image of a mountain lion was caught on an infrared motion-activated camera during the early morning hours of May 1 in a wooded area not far from County Road 450E, according to Scott Johnson, DNR's non-game mammal biologist and member of the DNR Division of Fish and Wildlife's team that assists in reviewing reports having credible evidence.
The photo and a news report was issued by DNR on Friday.
Johnson made the determination from photographs take in the area after a preliminary investigation found evidence consistent with mountain lion behavior, including an eviscerated deer carcass buried under a pile of leaves.
Johnson says he also got a report of another sighting over the weekend, but has not had a chance to look into it.
A couple of mushroom hunters walked up on the mountain lion devouring a deer carcass April 27 and later notified Greg Swanson, a conservation officer from the DNR Division of Law Enforcement, who then contact DNR officials.
"They (the mushroom hunters) heard this squalling sound and it was a deer. When they went up to see what was going on, this mountain lion was on it," Gregg stated. "Mountain lions, whenever they kill something like a deer, they actually cover it with leaves and stuff. They call it a cache."
Cameras were set on April 30, and multiple images of a mountain lion were captured at approximately 2:30 a.m. on May 1.
Conservation officers helped Johnson set the trail cameras and have been informing local residents of the mountain lion's presence.
"This is the first time we've been able to confirm it," Gregg said. "We've had reports where there was a couple of them together and they don't generally travel that way ... most of the time it's really hard to tell what the person saw, if it was late at night."
Gregg said there was a reported sighting on May 2 closer to Bloomfield, not far from State Road 157.
"This lady said it (the mountain lion) jumped right out in front of her in the road. It was in flight by the time she saw it. It could have been headed toward the river bottoms. It's hard to say where this thing is going to end up or where it actually stays most of the time," Gregg stressed.
Mountain lions are known by many names, including cougar, puma, catamount and panther.
Historically, mountain lions lived in most of the eastern United States, including Indiana.
Different published reports cite the last documented case of a wild mountain lion in Indiana as somewhere between 1850 and 1865.
Gregg said male mountain lions vary in size with a male weighing up to 150 pounds and females about 90 pounds. The males have a range of 150 miles while a female generally won't travel more than 60 miles.
"It's going to be anywhere in the county potentially or in other counties around us," Gregg said. "It may come from another county, so this may not be where it hangs out all of the time, it's hard to say."
The conservation officer says mountain lions generally don't stalk their prey and rarely harm livestock.
"They don't like to just walk up on an animal. They'll actually find heavy deer trails and just lay and wait for a deer to walk by and pounce on it," Gregg explained. "That's what it appears this one is doing."
Without additional evidence, Johnson and Gregg both said it's impossible to say if the mountain lion photographed in Greene County is wild or is a formerly captive cat. They also can't determine from the photo if the animal is male or female.
"We're still trying to work on its origin," Johnson said. "I know the law enforcement folks have got a few leads they are trying to work on."
Johnson said a female mountain lion escaped from the Exotic Feline Center near Center Point in Clay County, but there is no determination of whether there is a link with the local incident.
He also said there have been confirmed reports of mountain lions in Greene, Clay, Monroe and Vigo counties for a number of years.
The DNR occasionally receives reports of mountain lion sightings around the state, but typically the evidence has turned out to be something other than a mountain lion, has been inconclusive, or has proved to be part of an Internet hoax.
Since a new DNR policy's inception March 1, 19 mountain lion sightings have been reported.
However, the report in Greene County is the only one confirmed to be a mountain lion.
Prior to implementing the policy, a DNR biologist investigated and confirmed in late 2009 a mountain lion in Clay County based on evidence submitted by a hunter who had taken photographs from an elevated hunting stand. Another biologist investigated a report near Idaville in White County in December, but evidence was inconclusive.
Mountain lions are a protected species in Indiana, but state law allows a resident landowner or tenant to kill a mountain lion while it is causing damage to property owned or leased by the landowner/tenant. If the landowner/tenant wishes to have someone else take the mountain lion, that person is required to secure a permit from the DNR Division of Fish & Wildlife.
http://gcdailyworld.com/story/1633400.html
(Submitted by Chad Arment)
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Mountain lion shot near Big Bear school (Via Paul Cropper)
Mountain lion shot near Big Bear school
RICHARD BROOKS
THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE
7 May 2010
The Press-Enterprise
© 2010 The Press-Enterprise. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All Rights Reserved.
Deputies shot a mountain lion Thursday near a school beside Big Bear Lake just days after the same cat killed a dog in the area and another lion treed a Lake Arrowhead jogger, officials say. "If you live in mountain or foothill communities in Southern California, there's a possibility of a mountain lion showing up at any time," warns California Department of Fish & Game biologist Kevin Brennan. "Usually, they'll go after a pet or livestock before they'll go after a person."
A motorist summoned a deputy sheriff early Thursday after spotting a mountain lion crossing North Shore Drive in a residential area and near a school along the east end of Big Bear Lake. The sighting was only about a mile from where a mountain lion killed a pet dog Friday along Panamint Mountain Drive, said Brennan.
Deputies killed the animal at 9:35 a.m.
Authorities said the critter was an obviously underweight female weighing about 70 pounds. "Our on-scene biologist is of the opinion that it's definitely the same lion that killed the dog on Friday," said Brennan, who told of two other sightings since then. "Last night, the county trapper was out there with the hounds, but he was unable to find the lion. It obviously has been frequenting the area since it killed the dog."
About 30 miles to the east, what is believed to be a different mountain lion chased and tried to attack a female jogger Tuesday near the Willow Creek Treatment Plant in the forest along the north shore of Lake Arrowhead.
"There was a standoff. She backed away and sought refuge in a tree," said Brennan, who could only guess why the animal didn't climb the tree after her. "Maybe because she was shaking a stick at it and squirting water at it."
Workers from the water treatment plant heard her screams and drove to help her, scaring away the animal.
A federal hunter and his hounds were assigned to kill the animal, but the dogs couldn't find the scene. And the big cat didn't return to the area, though authorities set out animal carcasses as lures, Brennan said.
As a result, officials have called off the hunt.
"We don't have any indication that there's a mountain lion still in the area," Brennan said. "It can no longer be considered an imminent threat to public safety." Anyone confronted by a mountain lion or bear should resist the urge to run and, instead, try to appear exceptionally large and intimidating by raising their arms over their head or spreading open their jacket or shirt, Brennan said.
"If you are attacked by a wild animal, fight back," he said. "People have successfully repelled mountain lions with whatever they had at hand: baseball caps, cups, jackets." The motorist who spotted the ill-fated lion near Big Bear Lake says such sightings are becoming increasingly common. "They (seldom) come into the populated areas," said Ray Bowling, of 31-year resident of Big Bear City and a north shore business owner. "But in the last couple of years, I've started to see them."
He believes deputies had to open fire on the Big Bear Lake mountain lion because it was in a residential area near an elementary school and had repeatedly returned to the neighborhood after killing the dog. "The deputies were pretty brave to run down in front of this animal and keep it from escaping," Bowling said. "They put themselves in harms way."
Reach Richard Brooks at 951-368-9463 or rbrooks@PE.com
RICHARD BROOKS
THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE
7 May 2010
The Press-Enterprise
© 2010 The Press-Enterprise. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All Rights Reserved.
Deputies shot a mountain lion Thursday near a school beside Big Bear Lake just days after the same cat killed a dog in the area and another lion treed a Lake Arrowhead jogger, officials say. "If you live in mountain or foothill communities in Southern California, there's a possibility of a mountain lion showing up at any time," warns California Department of Fish & Game biologist Kevin Brennan. "Usually, they'll go after a pet or livestock before they'll go after a person."
A motorist summoned a deputy sheriff early Thursday after spotting a mountain lion crossing North Shore Drive in a residential area and near a school along the east end of Big Bear Lake. The sighting was only about a mile from where a mountain lion killed a pet dog Friday along Panamint Mountain Drive, said Brennan.
Deputies killed the animal at 9:35 a.m.
Authorities said the critter was an obviously underweight female weighing about 70 pounds. "Our on-scene biologist is of the opinion that it's definitely the same lion that killed the dog on Friday," said Brennan, who told of two other sightings since then. "Last night, the county trapper was out there with the hounds, but he was unable to find the lion. It obviously has been frequenting the area since it killed the dog."
About 30 miles to the east, what is believed to be a different mountain lion chased and tried to attack a female jogger Tuesday near the Willow Creek Treatment Plant in the forest along the north shore of Lake Arrowhead.
"There was a standoff. She backed away and sought refuge in a tree," said Brennan, who could only guess why the animal didn't climb the tree after her. "Maybe because she was shaking a stick at it and squirting water at it."
Workers from the water treatment plant heard her screams and drove to help her, scaring away the animal.
A federal hunter and his hounds were assigned to kill the animal, but the dogs couldn't find the scene. And the big cat didn't return to the area, though authorities set out animal carcasses as lures, Brennan said.
As a result, officials have called off the hunt.
"We don't have any indication that there's a mountain lion still in the area," Brennan said. "It can no longer be considered an imminent threat to public safety." Anyone confronted by a mountain lion or bear should resist the urge to run and, instead, try to appear exceptionally large and intimidating by raising their arms over their head or spreading open their jacket or shirt, Brennan said.
"If you are attacked by a wild animal, fight back," he said. "People have successfully repelled mountain lions with whatever they had at hand: baseball caps, cups, jackets." The motorist who spotted the ill-fated lion near Big Bear Lake says such sightings are becoming increasingly common. "They (seldom) come into the populated areas," said Ray Bowling, of 31-year resident of Big Bear City and a north shore business owner. "But in the last couple of years, I've started to see them."
He believes deputies had to open fire on the Big Bear Lake mountain lion because it was in a residential area near an elementary school and had repeatedly returned to the neighborhood after killing the dog. "The deputies were pretty brave to run down in front of this animal and keep it from escaping," Bowling said. "They put themselves in harms way."
Reach Richard Brooks at 951-368-9463 or rbrooks@PE.com
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Mountain lion photographed in Greene County
RIGHT: This photograph of a mountain lion was taken by a Department of Natural Resources motion-sensitive camera in Greene County on May 1. Courtesy photoBy Christy Mullins
May 7, 2010
It’s true. A mountain lion lives in Greene County, officers with the Department of Natural Resources announced today, after years of taking dead-end reports of big cat sightings in the area.
This time they have proof, according to a DNR news release.
On May 1, a motion-sensitive game camera snapped a photo of a large cat in rural land just east of Bloomfield, the statement says. Biologist Scott Johnson had set up the camera where preliminary studies showed “mountain lion behavior” had occurred, including a deer carcass buried under a pile of leaves. Four images were captured around 2:30 a.m., and all look relatively the same.
MAY 31, 2006: Local reports of cougars, panthers conflict with conventional wisdom on habitat, behavior
RIGHT: This photograph of a mountain lion was taken by a Department of Natural Resources motion-sensitive camera in Greene County on May 1. Courtesy photoConservation officers have been informing local residents of the likelihood that a mountain lion lives and hunts near their homes, according to the release. Now that it’s been confirmed, officers are warning the public that mountain lions, also known as cougars, pumas and panthers, are dangerous.
Encountering a mountain lion in Indiana is non-existent, according to the release, but in the case of an encounter, officers advise:
• Do not approach a mountain lion. Give it a way to escape.
• Do not run from a mountain lion. Instead, stand and face the animal. Make eye contact.
• Do not crouch or bend over. Do all you can to appear larger. Raise your arms, open your jacket or shirt. Wave your arms slowly and speak firmly in a loud voice.
• Hold children and pets near you.
• Fight back if attacked using big sticks, stones, or any other available items.
This month’s discovery was the result of a new DNR policy designed to collect data and evaluate sightings of mountain lions. It was prompted by increased reports of mountain lions migrating east, specifically out of South Dakota, said DNR’s Gary Langell, private land manager and developer of the mountain lion policy.
Since the policy’s inception in March, 19 mountain lion sightings have been reported around the state. Two of those reports were confirmed by biologists as animals other than a mountain lion. Sixteen cases went unsolved. DNR officers also have received reports of mountain lion sightings in Michigan and Chicago, Langell said.
“At this point,” he said, “it becomes more apparent we could have mountain lions show up in Indiana.”
Langell said without additional evidence, it’s impossible to say whether the mountain lion photographed in Greene County is wild or is formerly a captive cat.
In January 2007 a shy, female mountain lion named Donner escaped a 14-foot fence at the Exotic Feline Rescue Center in Clay County. Three and a half years later, the center still hasn’t found its missing cougar, but director Joe Taft confirmed this afternoon after meeting with DNR officials that the mountain lion in Greene County isn’t Donner.
Mountain lions are a protected species in Indiana, but state law allows a resident landowner or tenant to kill a mountain lion while it is causing property damage owned or leased by the landowner or tenant.
http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2010/05/07/outdoors.qp-4421270.sto
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