You need you need either a really good photograph or you need you know fresh scat that can be sent to a lab out West that can they can be identified there. The next day I crossed the river and took pictures of a paw print he left behind . Give today. She is renowned for tracking. Caller: I do. So we're fixated on natural but there's other possibilities. Sue Morse: The big cat really commands the utmost respect not so much fear but fascination. Peter Biello: Ok. The cougar is also commonly known as mountain lion, puma, mountain cat, catamount, or panther. A trail of DNA evidence collected over the years shows this particular mountain lion had traveled through New York, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Rick van de Poll: Well I didn't. So here we have you know a very qualified biologist who who found a print took a plaster cast found a scat send it to a university. You know one of the the biggest questions I have about that is it points to how much we don't know and if in fact we don't know enough. Sean McDonald. So now what's going on. We did a short segment about mountain lion sightings earlier this year and and after which I was sent a photo and also a video recording that was mostly just audio because it was so dark the photo just a quick reverse Google image search you can put images online and see where else where else they've been posted revealed that the photo had been taking out taken out in Wyoming and has been used you know hundreds of times to claim and the person who sent it to me said it had been taken New Hampshire. I just stood there just a second and I came to a complete stop and then I ran away. Patrick Tate: I've from all the situations I've read and learned about wildlife. According to the Nebraska Game and Parks report, a homeowner heard growling coming from underneath his porch while working outside. Patrick Tate: It's wow interesting that you brought this up because I've had people report I saw cardamom. Caller: I cannot recall or see the tail in my in my image of it. Let's look for other evidence. These young males are tracking looking for mates and if they don't find a mate they just keep moving and moving and moving. Mountain lions leave a lot of sign. Thank you very much for that story really appreciate it. But also I think it proves the opposite point which is that sometimes they're pretty secretive because all the way from Minnesota where the where was the first time was picked up on a game camera to New York. Well let me ask maybe Pat and Rick about this. Patrick Tate: Nice talk to you too. So. As wildlife biologists, wed be fascinated to say 'look look what was found in our state.'. It doesn't make much sense because you know mountain lions are as we as we said before. Through DNA they approximate area in the United States or North America where I was born. So if you were to ask me has a mountain lion ever passed through New Hampshire and been spotted by somebody who wasnt able to get hard evidence? Id personally be willing to say "probably, yes.". Peter Biello: This is the exchange on an HD PR fine Peter Biello and today we're talking with folks who can tell us about the mysterious elusive mountain line and whether or not it is actually here in New Hampshire. Peter Biello: And Carl before you continue I think Patrick Tate just give me a second. Peter Biello: Well Karl Jarvis a former reporter for The King's son Nile thank you very much for for calling in and sharing your perspective and to his point Patrick T. I mean yes we haven't met the scientific burden of proof here in New Hampshire as far as physical evidence is is concerned but is there room at Fish and Game For A kind of an informal nod to all of the people who have somehow convinced themselves and possibly some others that yeah there may be occasional sightings here. "There is a very low possibility of seeing them in the. Fear for others and those two polarizing opinions on the situation is what I believe brings out mystique and Sam you know I take kind of a long view on this. Peter Biello: And that will make identification for a layperson rather difficult. Well let's hear from from Sue Morse again science director for the organization keeping track. Tonight, Sean McDonald . Ecosystem Management Consultants of New England, Ask Sam, and recently fielded question about mountain lions, In latest school funding trial, state attorneys argue NH districts' budgets are bloated, Lawmakers, advocates, families in NH react to Biden Admin's proposed Title IX change, Give Back NH: The New England Grassroots Environment Fund, NHs housing crisis is pushing more older adults to seek help, We also hear excerpts from an interview with, Read about the most recent cougar "sightings". Share. And trying to figure out the little pieces to identify him so I bring up the names the differences but the appearances can be confusing for some. We discuss what residents may have been seeing and what breeding mountain lion pairs would mean for our ecosystem. Sam Evans-Brown: Well this might be a good moment to talk about hoaxes. So. brings a lot of. So I know it's another unconfirmed report but you string enough of these together. (Cue the X-Files music: The Government is denying the cougars exist!) This decision was primarily for nerdy phylogeny reasons, though, because the eastern cougar probably never existed. Peter Biello: We mentioned that the eastern cougar and the Western cougar are they were separate eastern cougar believed to be extinct. County road and all of a sudden a big cat jumps out of the woods over a stone wall stood in the middle of the dirt road as I rode towards it. And I think this is a really interesting story for a couple of reasons one is that it proves what Pat was saying which that basically from New York state where its traces was really picked up on a game camera around Lake George all the way down to Connecticut there was numerous. And it's not really strong. That's why we always go back to the physical evidence to support what they're reporting. They sent it already. People were calling the New Hampshire Fish and Game director's office saying why are you dragging your feet on this. Patrick Tate: So it's very typical. Do we have native species that could have exhibited this type of behavior leaving leaving a deer carcass up in a tree. So I would put this in the category of sort of like shark attacks right. Well they are the same. Rick van de Poll: Well the mountain lion of course has been sort of an enigma in the wildlife suite for years and years. What do you think that. A 140-pound male mountain lion was hit by a car and killed in 2011 in Milford, Connecticut. We're gonna cue you up and bring into the program listeners in just a moment but I want to ask about the role that Mountain Lions play in the ecosystem we've been talking a lot about mountain lions traveling and being sort of hard to track as they move. Yes. This is a machine-generated transcript, and may contain errors. The engineers Dan Colgan our senior producer is Allan Grimm. Patrick Tate: Yes. So I don't understand really how how this this idea came to be but it is the main reason why folks believe that fishing game is is covering up the fact that there are mountain lions in the state again with no evidence. Peter Biello: Yeah some of what she was saying sounds like it would require getting pretty close or at least having a nice zoom lens right Sam like. 8 9 2 6 4 7 7. Are there other powers that be worried that scary mountain lions will scare off people from camping in New Hampshire. But along the lines of the conspiracy theories as you mentioned earlier there there was a bit of a sense on behalf of what I'll call the promo online community who felt that fishing gain maybe not even so much in a spoken policy but maybe sort of an unspoken policy did not want to find themselves in a situation where they had to spend money to create a management plan and so forth. Peter Biello: Let's talk to Ron and where Ron thanks very much for calling. Really appreciate you guys being here as well. The nonbelievers are going to say Show us your evidence and show us prove this to us. Wed love to be part of the first verified sighting. 50 feet above the most. m from a weed family Automotive on store Street in Concord is serving the Concord area families automotive needs since 1995. We speculate they dont want us to screw up tourism we dont know whats going on. A monthly donation of $5 makes a real difference. Your support makes this news available to everyone. They get a lot of media attention but compared to the the amount of times that a mountain lion could attack a person but doesn't because they don't typically view us as prey. But no proof was offered. Fish and Wildlife Service decided all of the cougars, pumas, and mountain lions in the country are actually the same species, and that species hasnt had a breeding population anywhere near the Northeast for at least 70 years. Rick van de Poll: Yes. So you want identifiable backgrounds. It was determined that Mountain Lion came from the Dakotas across the Northern part of our country . All they think it traveled north through Canada up you know crossed across the Great Lakes and then and then down again through New York State. If it's just in the middle of a greenfield you can't prove anything. The New Hampshire lion has become something of the state's own Big Foot, commonly discussed and rumored but never confirmed; at least, not since the 1850s, when the last mountain lion in the . The way that we define species has undergone a revolution with the advent of DNA testing. We actually have the largest subspecies of bobcat in the northern part of our state which they can get up to 40 and over 40 pounds which looks like an 80 pound the animal to visually and quite large. Pat do they typically just move around a lot. That's pretty elaborate. Rick your thoughts. Author of The last woman in the forest on Saturday July 13th at 7 p.m. at Warner town hall Warner historical dawg. But you've done some reporting on this. Infinite Scroll Enabled. Peter Biello: From New Hampshire Public Radio I'm Peter Biello in for Lark Knoy and this is the exchange. NHPR is nonprofit and independent. For all the men out there that don't realize it. The exchange is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio. Mountain Lions are a mythical creature in New Hampshire with strong feelings on both sides of the question: are there Mountain Lions in New Hampshire? The last Massachusetts Mountain Lion was killedaround 1858. I wasn't employed as biologists at the time of a situation that's been reported but so I started digging into this report and spoke with another wildlife biologist with the agency and said Do you know anything about this. Incredible sighting and I called him the fish and game and they immediately sent me to a website to look at all the bobcat pictures. Peter Biello: Listeners give us a call if you have a question or a story of a sighting 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7. Residents from Bedford to Berlin have been reporting sightings for years. Join as a sustainer and support independent local news for your community. Oh you saw him online. On a dirt road. So what a neat experience. We'd be inundated with scouts in the past when newspaper articles have been written about DNA and scouts. After apparently trying unsuccessfully to get the young lion to leave, the man decided to shoot it. Mike Guyton pressure was almost Greyhound like very muscular large back legs on it and the coloration on it was almost an orange brownish orange color and so I stop and I look at this thing in the field and as the animal looks at me the face was very chiseled definitely not a bobcat. I believe I saw one that's fine and I'm not looking for an immediate story. Yes and you want to share what you learned. My YouTube Channel NH Fish and Game YouTube Channel My Facebook Page My Weekly Live Stream on the NH Wildlife Federation FB Page Home About Eric 2022 NH Nature Notes NH Wildlife NH Wildlife Deer Deer in NH The big cat has been extinct at least the eastern mountain lion has been extinct here since the mid. What Really Caused Washington's Cougar Attack. And the cougar embodies that. It all used to be based on measurable physical traits color, skull size, paw size, etc but now its based on whether an animal can be shown to be genetically distinct from others. Its closest living relative is the cheetah. They just end up in these places. #4. Had great trees behind it beautiful ferns on the ground so it brought me down on the site and the ferns on the ground matched. So I learned about what Rick just reported through a heart of heart of New Hampshire a letter and. Using DNA and physical evidence, state environmental officials said they determined that the animal . But the state always denies it, and none of us know why they deny it. We've met Fish and Game's BURDEN OF PROOF. And so a mountain lion is actually quite large right. We mentioned that one cat that was hit by a car where it has it that it was a male looking for me. Which which I think Pat and I have both experienced. I've had a number of people call up and say I found a scout in the woods and I want it DNA identified. Peter Biello: Well Mike thanks very much for sharing your story. Patrick Tate: Exactly I was gonna bring that up juvenile male of. It's completely possible that it may have spent time in New Hampshire and went undetected but had it stayed in the area ultimately it would have been detected over time. You could trace that was this same cat from point to point to point. There's just one subspecies of North American mountain lion. And there are thousands of mountain lions killed every year legally through hunting, and there have been untold tens of thousands of mountain lions killed by hunters over the last hundred. Peter Biello: Oh okay. Some of the reports that I looked into that were actually on file at the local fish and game office were even from people who did not live locally. Peter Biello: They make great mascots at least. Patrick Tate: No downward pressure at all I think actually Sean turned up and we found the evidence there a number of people would finally say finally we can put this debate to bed. Peter Biello: But clearly you know you're saying like hoaxes people who claim to have seen a mountain lion but knowingly have not or are appropriating photos taken elsewhere of legit mountain lion say out West where they people acknowledge that they exist certainly knowingly or unknowingly in this case the person who sent it to me said hey a friend of mine sent me this photo and said he took it on his back porch also. Just. Now that to me seemed to indicate that they had done the secondary workup that in my opinion proved the existence of probably a disperse or possibly from South Dakota like the one in 2011. John if you're still on the line here I was going to I don't. Yeah I did. Sam Evans-Brown has been working for New Hampshire Public Radio since 2010, when he began as a freelancer. Our guests today Patrick Tate New Hampshire Fish and Game Wildlife biologist Sam Evans Brown host of an HP podcast outside in. Peter Biello: When did you allegedly see a mountain lion. You know I'm like seriously I can't get a picture of the thing but what it what it is. And I was probably about a half a mile from downtown all village on the right. Since then, there have been a handful of confirmed mountain lion sightings in the Northeast, although most have been thought to be escaped captive animals. Peter Biello: This is the exchange on an PR. She was having a garden party on her back porch and everybody in the party saw this mountain lion across the field down below the porch. No doubt in my mind it was. There's never, ever, ever, ever been a documented case of a black mountain lion. Mark Elbroch doesnt think so. So in fact, maybe a decade ago now there was a mountain lion killed in Connecticut and through DNA analysis of that mountain lion and scat that had been left in various places. Thanks also to Rick van de Poll naturalist and founder of ecosystem management consultants of New England and Sam Evans Brown host of an HP podcast outside in about the natural world and how we use it. Caller: So I've been telling this story for five years or so and very few people believe me. Its actually fairly reasonable to believe that mountain lions do, at least, pass through occasionally. Think you've seen a mountain lion? For me as a person who's handled many bobcats and looked at many pictures Bobcat the White chin Bobcat right off is what comes out to me and then the black the the roughs on our Bobcats we'll have sometimes have black fringes on them. That's next time on one day. They're just moving around freely. About two years ago I was at the Laconia airport on the way home from the airport and there's a big lake on one side called Lily Pond. And I saw you cat about four feet long from nose to tail come across from the water across the road and just leap over a six foot perimeter fence in a single bound. And so maybe before I go to you recommend I ask you Patrick Tate is the standard too high. We'll hear from her periodically through the show. I mean I that said I've lived out west for nine years. What gets confusing is when you have a large adult animal and a smaller juvenile animal of a different species you can now step start beginning talking about overlapping body weights and sizes. So let's let's go to the phones. John is calling from Bennington. So before we get to the the the the stories of sightings we're getting a lot of calls. Absolutely there are a lot of folks out there who for some reason need to create something that raises a stir and gets the attention of the media etc.. Do you get a lot of these these these things that end up being hoaxes. N.H.'s Fish and Game department says there's no proof mountain lions live in the state, yet residents from Bedford to Berlin have been reporting sightings for years. I looked at the picture and asked me what do you see in the picture and I wrote back. The best documentation we have in New Hampshire suggests there hasnt been a mountain lion killed by a hunter in this state since 1885. Mike thanks for your call. So one thing that I find fascinating about this Connecticut cat was six months between the New York situation where they found evidence of it too when it was hit by a motor vehicle. He said matter of fact I do. Less than a year later I found a scat on the swamp range and I was working at the time with a fellow at the Michigan wildlife habitat Federation. Sam Evans-Brown: Well and I think and the last takeaway here is everyone I think probably agrees that any possible sightings that have been seen. Having not found any evidence is not the same as saying there are no mountain lions, its the same as saying we dont know. I can't. Mountain lions when they show up they leave evidence. Anytime at any HP broad dot org or subscribe to our podcast search Apple podcasts Google Play or stitcher for an HP bar exchange. And why would they what. Patrick Tate: So I agree with what Sam said in part that their ability to go undetected for amount of time but ultimately it was detected. But if you were to get Western dispersing mountain lions just would just sort of expanding into New Hampshire. Now Bobcat is a completely different species. There was no sign of it. He played a pivotal role and he battled for recognition. Don't miss your chance to win three two thousand dollar gas gift cards at any station of your choice not to mention the grand prize twenty five thousand dollars toward a new car. Rick van de Poll: Absolutely. The views expressed in this program are those of the individuals and not those of an HP are its board of trustees or its underwriters. New York on Easter Sunday. Each person had their own copy and now it was identify the trees the species of tree matched. The evidence for the 1874 cougar is so hard that it's held in a display case in the State Museum of . Peter Biello: Give us a call 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 you can also send us an email exchange at an HP morgue. And I can recall its information but I can't confirm or verify anything. Peter Biello: Yeah well what do you think Pat is. The Idaho Department of Fish and Game last week killed a mountain lion that entered a Hailey family's chicken coop, marking the third time the agency has killed a mountain lion in the Wood River . Let us know your story and share your photos! Something along those lines. Peter Biello: Or send us an email exchange at an HP board. Fish and Game then deny the evidence. And then just up behind it you know at about 11 o'clock on one side and whatever that would be on the other side it's black. You treat it as if it's a sincere situation. Right. I was at the Sentinel as a reporter there for about four years and during that time I probably wrote close to a half dozen stories or so on this topic including a lengthy feature at one point that in which I spoke to several people from around the banana region claimed to have seen mountain lions that at one time or another. Rick van de Poll: Rick van de Poll so I was a non-believer as well. It doesn't happen as much anymore. So hey, just me shooting from the hip, maybe there are a couple mountain lions skulking about. So I think in that story there's there's something for the believers and the nonbelievers and I and you know Mark L. Brock is who is a gentleman with the cougar Network told me this story is evidence that that if they were here we would know about it. I found a second scat scent both to him. You're on the air. For evidence of a free-roaming, wild and native mountain lion, we must look back to 1874. They lived perhaps elsewhere in New England and they were just passing through and happened to have an encounter of some sort. There's no logic for why they'd be listed as an endangered species. I came to a stop and it was and I've seen a lot of bobcats in my time and I just came to a stop it was just sort of confused about what I was seeing. And that's this morning at 10:00 here on NH PR. The females disperse a shorter range and once they find a vacant home range they stay in that location and live there. If you missed part of today's program listen to the exchange. for some excitement. Patrick Tate: And there's one other way to model that is the same animal. If you have them email exchange at an HP board or give us a call to tell us your story. A middle school in Manchester, New Hampshire has sent out an alert after a mountain lion was spotted. Peter Biello: Well yeah. Patrick Tate: My line being a large predator a cat watch ambush his prey animal that hasn't been. Love hearing these stories. I saw a mountain lion on my property in NE corner of Dutchess County about 6 years ago -- the cat (or a cat) had been spotted many times over the years and was believed to have been introduced and escaped from a nearby Hunting Preserve. A monthly donation of $5 makes a real difference. It was some sort of a Lion Mountain Lion animal. So one thing I'll add we're talking about natural dispensers but talking with the conservation officer in the 1980s they recall going to a residence telling a person you can live here but your mountain lion can't. This is where things start breaking down when you so I get pictures with this great description and one of my favorite stories is a great description what the witness and then so I called the witness and wanted information from them and the person says What are you talking about. Sam Evans-Brown: You know the North America had a number of large predator species when humans first arrived in the continent. Every other Friday on Morning Edition NHPRs Sam Evans-Brown tracks down answers to questions about the environment and outdoors for our listeners in a segment we call Ask Sam.. Peter Biello: Ok weird question but do they make good pets. Part II. Patrick Tate: It became a very interesting investigation over time because it started becoming. So it's six months of a large large predatory animal that moves great distances on the landscape that is not known if it went northeast west Salt and how many circles it did. Ive received pictures of dogs at odd angles, says Tate. Rick van de Poll: Well education is the real important thrust of of what all of us do as biologists and Game Managers and to make sure that a things like what Sam was saying that in spite of what you believe the mountain lions will not eat your children they will not steal your pets from your backyard and they will not necessarily be seen by you unless you're extremely lucky.
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