The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Advance Local. This is not a Pennsylvania puma! Oregon has a large, stable breeding population of mountain lions. Are they all the product of the off-spring of pumas that escaped their owners or were released? Never has this been more accurate than in today's digital, computerized world. "Likewise, I'm not aware of any escapes from captive facilities in my time here. Unless I am only dealing with a lot of delusional people with little judgment, something is out there. Goodrich said he once saw a mountain lion spring from a thicket and kill a sheep on a public road. Are there Mountain Lions (Pumas, Cougars) in Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic States? They are generally believed to be young cats roaming in search of new breeding territories to claim as their own. Ashley Catherine Fontones, Pocono Record. Penn State's Nittany Lion hide sampled for DNA sequencing, Mountain lion reports in Pennsylvania popular, but often a hoax, More Local News to Love Start today for 50% off Expires 3/6/23. Had this been faked, I'd suspect the hoaxter would try for a more authentic background. I believe Kross fully, but I wanted to hear more. The same goes for New York and several other eastern states. If you see a puma (mountain lion-cougar), contact me. In Michigan, there has been multiple sightings of 'black panthers,' animals that were thought to be mountain lions, or pumas, except that they were black. A neighbor scared the animal away before it could finish its meal; the sheeps carcass was used as bait, to catch the big cat. Caribou remains, dated by radiocarbon in excess of 10,000 B.C. Not only do hunting licenses support the various state game commissions, and in some states the acquisition and maintenance of public hunting lands, but hunters are a huge boon to local economies each fall, with purchases of food, lodging, hunting equipment, etc. Let's see a clear photo, or a carcass or something. Let me explain this. I wanted to know if they're here, so I called some people I trust and asked them one simple question: Are there mountain lions in Pennsylvania? "There hasn't been one solid piece of proof to believe they are here. Mountain lions, Goodrich wrote, were more dreaded than wolves as the cat could climb over any fence that could be built. An escapee is also possible. Best hike for seeing waterfalls. A bobcat gives you a warm, that-kind-of-looks-like-my-cat-but-slightly-bigger feeling. I am bothered by the constricted neck of the cat on the game camera; 2. the tail is curved down, rather than up, but it may have been in mid-swing; 3. the goldenrod-appearing flower, and the background of cars, gives a sense of scale and location. So how or why could there be a conspiracy? An animal's coat can stray far from the norm. Mountain Lion in Pocono's Pennsylvania Kacie PA 7.9K views 2 years ago Mountain lion in bucks county pa or not? You've got a mountain lion story or photo? I've seen about 20 mountain lions, or pumas, in the field, but all but 2 were in Chile. The first is the mating season which can occur during the late to early spring months. Mountain lions can live in almost any habitat including forests, prairies, deserts, and swamps. Cookie Settings/Do Not Sell My Personal Information. These cubs are born blind and helpless. (National Park Service). When I first discovered this fresh carcass I examined it for throat punctures, thinking that it may have been killed by a puma. The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) also reports evidence that humans arrived during the last glaciation or soon after. Asa Packer Mansion Jim Thorpe. The northeastern U.S. population is thought to have disappeared in the 1930s. Please keep scrolling - ALL the Puma posts are included. The Poconos is a mountain area in northeastern Pennsylvania.It is 2,400 square miles of wooded mountains and valleys full of beautiful lakes, rivers, forests and wildlife. To be fair, I've also spoken with people who, at first, thought they'd seen a puma only to find, to their embarassment, that they were looking at a house cat! The earliest wave arrived at the end of the last Ice Age; the last wave is the Lenape or Delaware Tribe, which made contact with colonial settlers in the 1600s. Mountain lions roamed all of the continent prior to the arrival and westward spread of European settlers, but only the eastern and Florida subspecies were found east of the Mississippi. If you can figure out how to travel far back in time for even a day, get lots of wildlife photos, as the rest of us might never believe your story. Only once has anyone later determined that they had misidentified the cat, seeing a bobcat and not a mountain lion. I'd love to hear of any reports you have. Although unconfirmed, mountain lions continue to be reported in many spots across Pennsylvania, including several reports in the past couple months. None of these sightings has been authenticated, and many of them, including a recent, alleged mountain lion picked up on a surveillance camera in Lackawanna County, turned out to be bobcats. Find cabins in the Poconos, PA near places like Bushkill Falls, Camelback Mountain Resort, and more. However, it is clearly a mountain lion, and I'm presenting this poor image as a baseline reference for anyone recording a mountain lion on a game camera, or seeing one. Other states have had sightings, especially as mountain lion populations begin to explore and look to expand. Instead, the person usually pauses, sometimes with a sheepish or embarrassed expression on his face, and seems reluctant to continue. Now, if there were any escapes, and if any of these bred with a possible minuscule number of eastern pumas, a relic native population, wouldn't the gene pool be corrupted? Known as the Niagara Falls of Pennsylvania, there are four trails that lead to the cascades from the Bushkill Falls trailhead, each ranging in . Biologists who investigate these reports claim that several may, indeed, be mountain lions, but most likely they're animals that have escaped from captivity or have been released by their. The large, undeveloped interior filled with rocky habitats perfect for mountain lions allows them to safely live and breed. Check out the tails of the two! With the Great Lakes in its way, the cat moved either north or south of the water, and the latter route would have seen it pass through at least some of Pennsylvania. The story behind our new web site. Joseph Pugliese 2.2K views 7 years ago Beautiful Bobcat in our yard as our. A dark brown puma, backlighted by a strong sun, could appear all black, or very dark, and he accepted that. Florida is the only state on the east coast with a breeding population of mountain lions. "When I started telling people, most of them didn't believe me, but I will never forget that huge face staring right at me," said a Montgomery County woman who says she saw a lion last summer in Limerick Township while walking her dog. Mountain lions were once widespread across North America, but their range shrunk dramatically as they were pursued through unregulated hunting and by farmers aiming to protect their livestock, and moved off the landscape by habitat fragmentation. Fish and Wildlife Service. He saw a big cat. Its fur is a light, tawny brown color which can appear gray or almost black, depending on light conditions. The last documented sighting of an eastern cougar was one killed in Maine in 1938. Cougar Network tracks mountain lion expansion from the western U.S. to the east. Cookie Settings/Do Not Sell My Personal Information. The last of three glaciations covered 30% of Pennsylvania, including much of the Poconos, from around 20,000-10,000 B.C. All of the above images are of bobcats. This one streaked across the road in the early evening, and fortunately, it stopped when it climbed a hill on the other side where I had another view from my side of the truck. Suppose, instead of declaring the puma, or Eastern mountain lion, extinct, the USFWS actually recognized the existence of the cat as a wild, breeding species. Why is bat photography so difficult? In 2015, a Pennsylvania State Historical Marker was placed near the site where the mastodon was found. There had been 17 other mastodon finds in Pennsylvania up to 1968, but all were fragmentary. Here are the 15 US States That Have Mountain Lions. The state of Arizona is home to a large, stable population of mountain lions. The other three images are from my file, selected to most closely approximate the pose of the cat from the game camera. In many regions, the population within the state is actually increasing! In January, the U.S. No An official form of the United States government. Note the long, usually thick tail. With that in mind, lets break down how we classified the states. I haven't seen any reports like that.". He notes how over the millennia, the region was inhabited by humans, only to be depopulated by migration brought on by the search of food due to a fickle climate, war or epidemic. The coat can be spotted or solid. I was heading up the road and I saw an animal with a long tail.". He's sitting in a plastic doghouse, paws crossed, amber eyes locked on the two men ticking him off by their mere presence out beyond the fence. "If my son would have been on a pedal bike, without a helmet on, that thing would have nailed him," said Walters, 44. Just take your pick of all these incredible Pocono lake house rentals or just a Pocono cabin for rent, in luxury of course! Goggling Eastern Puma brings up other web sites, however, with varying levels of professionalism or credibility. Among other uses, the tax was levied "for destroying wolves, foxes, heads and crows." RelatedBigfoot, mountain lions, and other mythical creatures: PA officials discuss what they know. More about mountain lions in Pennsylvania: If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation. I'd suspect it would still be considered very rare, after all, it was thought to be extinct. A mastodon's skull was first located in Marshalls Creek, Monroe County, on July 5, 1968. The Florida panther is an endemic subspecies of cougar that has lived in the everglades region for a very long time. Some outdoor enthusiasts insist they have seen the big cats here and believe them to be naturally occurring, native animals. Mountain lions typically eat about one deer per week, along with other smaller prey as the opportunity arises. Both were a threat to the farmer and family who carved a home in the ancient wilderness of the Poconos. Conversely, an outdoor writer I know told me that when Pa. enacted a menagerie permit law years ago, 'a lot of mountain lions suddenly died,' as the owners of these cats, rather than going through the paperwork, simply released their pumas and claimed that they had died. 2023 Advance Local Media LLC. Looking for things to do in the Poconos? If you're interested in this, please pass on this link, and if you see a cat, please let me know! He's a hunter, a woodsman, and he's seen a lot of game, so I can believe he saw a back-lighted puma. In Pennsylvania, I receive a few reports of black, big cats, which makes one wonder -- are there melanistic (black) pumas out there, or are those sightings always wrong. Because the neck bothered me, I decided to do some Photoshop on the puma in the lower left, moving his head higher up and changing the image to a contrasty black and white - to give a silhouette for comparision.
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