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Summer Banter & General Discussion/Observations

CapturedNature

By CapturedNature,
in New England

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snowman21

snowman21

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, HoarfrostHubb said:

Show me the body...otherwise, I remain skeptical.  Mountain lions are friggin huge.

It was hit and killed by a car on the parkway. I believe they did DNA tests on it to confirm, and that's how they knew it had walked all the way from SD. Not sure how DNA proves that last part; maybe there is some mountain lion DNA database out there tracking all these things that are roaming around.

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dendrite

dendrite

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, CoastalWx said:

I can't even imagine the Beaumont area right now. Everything seems to be Houston, Houston, Houston....but I wonder if that changes this morning. That daily rain is impossible to comprehend. 

I can't get 26" of snow in a storm. Nevermind 26" of rain in a day. 

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tamarack

tamarack

Posted
Posted
15 hours ago, eekuasepinniW said:

Just looked outside and had a stroke.  The mega-group of turkeys that has been loitering all week got brave and came out front to dig around in my garden. 

Naturally I slithered up the back side of the gazebo and ambushed them.  If you haven't been in the middle of 15 turkeys taking flight, you are really missing out.  More wind than Irene.

Turkeys are terrible parents btw.  The 3 adults totally abandoned the other medium sized ones.

My wife and our late lamented Lab (then a 1-yr-old pup) learned that one twilit evening when an unseen flock launched from the tree above their heads.  I think the dog was even more terrified than my wife.

 

There was the legit wild cougar killed in SW CT in 2011. It was a male that had roamed from South Dakota. Pretty crazy. 

I think all previous reports in New England  have been escaped cougars from captivity. There's been maybe one or two that were a little more ambiguous. 

Most sightings though end up as mistaken identity bobcats. 

A long-time Maine journalist for the field sports noted his two "cougar" sightings, one that he considered a no-doubter.  The other was an animal that crossed Rt 15  ahead of him just south of Greenville in the late afternoon rain.  Convinced it was a cougar, he stopped and looked toward where it had left the road, and saw a tail-wagging golden retriever.  Take home is that there have been legit sightings, but that even experienced outdoors people can be fooled.  The only confirmed (by DNA from hair) cougar ID in Maine since I moved here in 1973 (that I'm aware of) occurred in - of all places - Cape Elizabeth.  99.9% sure that was an escaped/released pet.  Despite the sightings, I'm not convinced there's a wild, breeding population of the critters in the Northeast.  (This year I heard, for the 1st time and from someone I consider reliable, of cougar kittens being seen.  No pics, no confirmation.)   Until we start seeing such things on some of the thousands of trailcams out there, and/or have a roadkill or two to check out, I'm sticking to that no-wild-breeding opinion.

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dryslot

dryslot

Posted
Posted
15 hours ago, eekuasepinniW said:

Just looked outside and had a stroke.  The mega-group of turkeys that has been loitering all week got brave and came out front to dig around in my garden. 

Naturally I slithered up the back side of the gazebo and ambushed them.  If you haven't been in the middle of 15 turkeys taking flight, you are really missing out.  More wind than Irene.

Turkeys are terrible parents btw.  The 3 adults totally abandoned the other medium sized ones.

Those would be broilers

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Yukon Cornelius

Yukon Cornelius

Posted
Posted
10 hours ago, snowman21 said:

It was hit and killed by a car on the parkway. I believe they did DNA tests on it to confirm, and that's how they knew it had walked all the way from SD. Not sure how DNA proves that last part; maybe there is some mountain lion DNA database out there tracking all these things that are roaming around.

There were a couple of horses attacked in Petersham last year and DNA samples seemed to prove that it was from a Mountain Lion:

http://www.telegram.com/news/20161129/petersham-owner-of-injured-horse-says-it-was-mountain-lion-attack

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ORH_wxman

ORH_wxman

Posted
Posted
39 minutes ago, tamarack said:

My wife and our late lamented Lab (then a 1-yr-old pup) learned that one twilit evening when an unseen flock launched from the tree above their heads.  I think the dog was even more terrified than my wife.

 

There was the legit wild cougar killed in SW CT in 2011. It was a male that had roamed from South Dakota. Pretty crazy. 

I think all previous reports in New England  have been escaped cougars from captivity. There's been maybe one or two that were a little more ambiguous. 

Most sightings though end up as mistaken identity bobcats. 

A long-time Maine journalist for the field sports noted his two "cougar" sightings, one that he considered a no-doubter.  The other was an animal that crossed Rt 15  ahead of him just south of Greenville in the late afternoon rain.  Convinced it was a cougar, he stopped and looked toward where it had left the road, and saw a tail-wagging golden retriever.  Take home is that there have been legit sightings, but that even experienced outdoors people can be fooled.  The only confirmed (by DNA from hair) cougar ID in Maine since I moved here in 1973 (that I'm aware of) occurred in - of all places - Cape Elizabeth.  99.9% sure that was an escaped/released pet.  Despite the sightings, I'm not convinced there's a wild, breeding population of the critters in the Northeast.  (This year I heard, for the 1st time and from someone I consider reliable, of cougar kittens being seen.  No pics, no confirmation.)   Until we start seeing such things on some of the thousands of trailcams out there, and/or have a roadkill or two to check out, I'm sticking to that no-wild-breeding opinion.

It is almost certain there's no breeding population of cougars in the northeast. One....like you said...we'd see more sightings from trail cams and hikers and probably a few road kills. Two....the population would likely expand rapidly because the northeast is excellent cougar habitat with an overpopulation of white tailed deer and a lot of "cover" (i.e. large tracts of wooded regions)....this would make it even less likely there's a stealth breeding population going undetected. The cougars have already been taking advantage of big deer populations in the plains which is helping them expand their breeding grounds eastward and people are noticing...lots of increased sightings in Nebraska/Kansas in the past 5-10 years and even the stray young males going into Iowa/Minnesota (and occasionally Connecticut!) searching for new territory.

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tamarack

tamarack

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, dendrite said:

I can't get 26" of snow in a storm. Nevermind 26" of rain in a day. 

The remains of Camille dumped that much in 5 hours on some Virginia Apps locales.  The death toll from the flash floods there wasn't all that much less than on the Gulf Coast.  Probably a 10k-year rain event.

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Typhoon Tip

Typhoon Tip

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, ORH_wxman said:

It is almost certain there's no breeding population of cougars in the northeast. One....like you said...we'd see more sightings from trail cams and hikers and probably a few road kills. Two....the population would likely expand rapidly because the northeast is excellent cougar habitat with an overpopulation of white tailed deer and a lot of "cover" (i.e. large tracts of wooded regions)....this would make it even less likely there's a stealth breeding population going undetected. The cougars have already been taking advantage of big deer populations in the plains which is helping them expand their breeding grounds eastward and people are noticing...lots of increased sightings in Nebraska/Kansas in the past 5-10 years and even the stray young males going into Iowa/Minnesota (and occasionally Connecticut!) searching for new territory.

so WHEN  ..   

haha

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Typhoon Tip

Typhoon Tip

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, dryslot said:

That looks a little to big for a bobcat, If we had a better pic of the ears it would be telling as well

almost suspect of that being fake? 

images snapped off by handhelds these days tend to be resolved far better than that. - that almost looks like a blurred image from one of those late 1990's flip phones.  

But, suppose it's still possible that someone's phone was older tech.  In fairness, just being a blurry image doesn't necessitate fake.  

It very much looks like a feline found in western N/A.   There used to be cougars in the eastern mountains, but they were driven out/thought to have been extirpated over a hundred years ago.  The markings on the face of that image are different, though. 

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dryslot

dryslot

Posted
Posted
Just now, Typhoon Tip said:

almost suspect of that being fake? 

images snapped off by handhelds these days tend to be resolved far better than that. - that almost looks like a blurred image from one of those late 1990's flip phones.  

But, suppose it's still possible that someone's phone was older tech.  In fairness, just being a blurry image doesn't necessitate fake.  

It very much looks like a feline found in western N/A.   There used to be cougars in the eastern mountains, but they were driven out/thought to have been extirpated over a hundred years ago.  The markings on the face of that image are different, though. 

Yeah, That looks to be a fairly large cat in that pic, Wish it was a lot clearer or a tail shot to confirm its identity.

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ORH_wxman

ORH_wxman

Posted
Posted
11 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

so WHEN  ..   

haha

It will eventually happen...but it will take a lot of convincing of the public to accept cougars in the northeast. One attack creates a lot more uproar and holds more weight in the public eyes than 10 people who didn't die in a deer collision on the highway.

 

I suspect they will first be reintroduced at some point in very rural places like the northern Adirondacks and/or perhaps the Allagash of Maine and then they will expand. We're still probably a decade or two away at minimum though in getting that to happen. Or they will just naturally make there way back east long after we are dead...prob over a hundred years down the road assuming we don't go crazy with the habitat destruction.

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