I've had a number of people call up and say I found a scout in the woods and I want it DNA identified. Mountain lion or cat running across. The American Lion The Saber tooth Tiger and this was the one that survived. It's not an emerging endangered species no work no there are there are populations in specific states so the Florida panther is is an endangered species that sub population is in fact listed under the Endangered Species Act. Ecosystem Management Consultants of New England, Ask Sam, and recently fielded question about mountain lions, 10 things to do in NH this weekend: Dartmouth Dance, Hamilton De Holanda & more, Turkish restaurant in the Upper Valley aims to help those affected by recent earthquakes, RFK Jr. tells NH crowd hes considering a presidential run, Epping woman pleads guilty to threatening Michigan election official in 2020, We also hear excerpts from an interview with, Read about the most recent cougar "sightings". 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? Patrick Tate: So Cougar Mountain Lion katama. The most common areas to see mountain lions in Arizona are in places of rocky and mountainous terrain. 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. Reports without physical evidence are not dismissed, however Fish and Game cannot verify a sighting report without physical evidence. Despite numerous reports, the NH Fish and Game Department continues to have no physical evidence of mountain lion presence in the state. Right. I mean it wasn't your idea. So when we talk about the threshold of evidence required to say for sure you have seen a mountain lion it is rather high. Peter Biello: Well I want to ask Patrick about one of these stories a few years ago you had a story about someone who claimed to. Sandy Hodskins, owner of West Meadow Farm in Bradford, New Hampshire, took time from shoveling Wednesday to enjoy the snow with her horse, West Wind. And they were using all the habitat. Patrick Tate: So I just got to throw a little interesting side note in this. The Connecticut Mountain Lion is the best documented wild Mountain Lion in New England. Are there Mountain Lions in NH? And you know all that. Rick van de Poll: Rick van de Poll so I was a non-believer as well. Are there other powers that be worried that scary mountain lions will scare off people from camping in New Hampshire. WMUR uLocal: On this trail cam video, an unidentified feline is spotted. The supervisor that hired me in the game division in October of 1978 passed on to me this whole big folder of mountain lion information and sightings going back probably a couple decades. 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. I've actually had to walk in on one or two now and look at what was going on and figured out what was going on. Patrick Tate: So it's interesting it's brought up. Its actually fairly reasonable to believe that mountain lions do, at least, pass through occasionally. Or years or so. Mountain Lions in New Hampshire-Fact or Fiction 3,207 views Jul 31, 2019 78 Dislike Share Save New Hampshire Fish and Wildlife 634 subscribers During my thirty-one career at the New. You don't know what's going on. What do you think that. Absolutely. Yeah I did. Pelosi story here we go. Second when I when they did forward it from Wyoming to to Michigan you know this was coming right from sample 18 and 19 had no remarkable differences from known mountain lions from Michigan or Wyoming. Thank you very much for listening. Peter Biello: So if they were female mountain lions here they would be more males just because that's what they're looking for. Really appreciate it. In my New Hampshire career I have written several, and seen at least 20, stories along the lines of "local person thinks they saw a mountain lion but there's no actual evidence aside from. The Lions of New Hampshire: MD44 Links. Well let's hear from from Sue Morse again science director for the organization keeping track. People go through great lengths to create hoaxes like this. There's never, ever, ever, ever been a documented case of a black mountain lion. Post your sightings and NH photos here! Peter Biello: The number is 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7. And it was you know 10 or 12 people saw it all at once. And it was unmistakable. Part II. 1957. The species that once inhabited the Northeast, known as the eastern mountain lion, is now extinct. But you can continue the conversation on Facebook or at our Web site and HP Borg. But the state always denies it, and none of us know why they deny it. We're gonna talk about sightings in this part of the program as well we'd love to hear your story. If so that's for us as an agency. Peter Biello: And then it ran away okay. Sam. www.wildlife.state.nh.us, Buy or Renew Your Saltwater Fishing License, Great Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. Well Is DNA the most reliable means we have of identifying whether or not what we saw is actually a mountain lion. They lived perhaps elsewhere in New England and they were just passing through and happened to have an encounter of some sort. She is renowned for tracking. 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. Peter Biello: This is NHK PR Good morning and HP are summer car raffle is back and now's the time to get your early bird tickets. Peter Biello: We mentioned that the eastern cougar and the Western cougar are they were separate eastern cougar believed to be extinct. 44-N Links. Listeners give us a call if you'd like. Good morning guys. 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. And there's there's no evidence of that cat's movement in that entire you know 12 hundred miles stretch of its journey. Information that weed family automotive dot com sunny for today high temperatures low to mid 80s clear tonight overnight lows in the 50s tomorrow sunny highs in the upper 80s. As wildlife biologists, wed be fascinated to say 'look look what was found in our state.'. Peter Biello: This is the exchange on an HP yard today we're talking about the mysterious elusive majestic Mystic Mountain Lion. Peter Biello: Let's talk to Ron and where Ron thanks very much for calling. Have you heard stories do you have questions about the mountain line. Peter Biello: Sam I wanted to ask you a little bit about that first and then turn to Patrick Tate efficient game. 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. Today on the exchange we discuss what residents may have been seeing and what breeding mountain lion pairs would mean for our ecosystem. 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. The book MAMMAL TRACKS & SIGN by Mark Elbroch has pictures of mountain lion scat found at a multiple beaver kill. Well they are the same. There's no logic for why they'd be listed as an endangered species. 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. GAP MOUNTAIN LIONS CLUB Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire (USA) District 44-N . It's bigger but bigger and better world. The brother and sister big cats have lived . John if you're still on the line here I was going to I don't. So I learned about what Rick just reported through a heart of heart of New Hampshire a letter and. I would just suggest that in my experience as a reporter covering this covering this issue for a few years at least at what point do we reach a certain critical mass for lack of a better term of accounts where I'm not to suggest that you guys aren't taking this possibility seriously. What kind of animal is that. Peter Biello: So a little bit of nostalgia maybe for it for a better world embodied in the mountain lion. It traveled all the way from from you know Minnesota to New York without being so seen Patrick take. I mean there was this one lady I remember and tough tomorrow. And we want to know your stories if you have them 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 or email exchange at an HP bar dot org we'll talk about conspiracy theories when we come back. I'm Peter Biello in for Laura NOI. So for me as a person who's had the Bobcats right off my grits similar carries sticks to a bobcat The Long Tail obviously very different but those facial markings were overlapping for me. Okay. So this whole illegal pet trade black market pro trade thing does does exist in a situation like that can happen. So what I'm getting back is the verifying and confirming of evidence what that was not there. 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. Rick van de Poll: Rick your thoughts. There's always been physical evidence to prove those situations like hair or fur scat hair prints pictures of the animal print scat hair. Peter Biello: Worth mentioning if we're scaring anybody question a mysterious mountain lions lurking perhaps in someone's backyard. No doubt in my mind it was. Have a photo. However the scarring on the trees did not and the angles were off. BRADFORD, N.H. - All that snow in parts of the Northeast has more than just kids jumping for winter joy. Author of The last woman in the forest on Saturday July 13th at 7 p.m. at Warner town hall Warner historical dawg. Email exchange it an HP fraud org or give us a call 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7. NHPR is nonprofit and independent. Deer Bear Moose Grey Wolf Coyote Foxes Fisher Mountain Lion NH Wildlife History. What's going on. Sam Evans-Brown: One in fact Helena silver in that sort of tome that Rick van de Poll read from at the beginning is she. These young males are tracking looking for mates and if they don't find a mate they just keep moving and moving and moving. 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. 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. I'm sorry go ahead you're on the air. Peter Biello: Let's go to Mike in Epping. You know I'm like seriously I can't get a picture of the thing but what it what it is. So that's the specimen that you find going long distances. A monthly donation of $5 makes a real difference. Patrick Tate: I don't believe it is. Patrick Tate: And there's one other way to model that is the same animal. And I have to use that word allegedly because there is so much dispute about what people see and what they actually see. So I think the point that I just want to get across is that there is a very strong sense this here in the and not region that there is that there is some sort of mountain lion population how large it is how extensive it is. So I want to start the program with a comment from someone who is not in the studio with us today. Ive received pictures of dogs at odd angles, says Tate. They don't know the direction they're going. Thank you very much for that story really appreciate it. Peter Biello: We at this e-mailed comment from Michael. I think as Pat was saying you know 35 to 50 pounds on a male be reasonable range whereas mountain lions you're up to 100 110 maybe even 130 pounds on a big male. 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. So what counts as verifiable evidence? So one thing I'd point out is we've been talking about situations with no evidence a number of them come in with photographs and yet what they fit what they description of the animal they saw and by the way I got a picture of what I saw. No evidence and other states where Mountain lights have turned up. Patrick Tate: In theory it's a passing ball of a court and it goes wherever the bottom Ball wants to go. Caller: I have yeah. They sent it already. So it's there was no question in my mind. The big cat has been extinct here since the mid-1800s. Your support makes this news available to everyone. A 140-pound male mountain lion was hit by a car and killed in 2011 in Milford, Connecticut. However if if and when it does happen it takes up a lot of resources looking at that situation and identifying what's going on because when you start out you don't know it's a hoax. One was in Shelton. So do they. Something along those lines. But my experience was that the majority of these accounts could not be taken lightly. Rick your thoughts. Want to report a Mountain Lion sighting in New Hampshire? So let's let's go to the phones. Oh you saw him online. It was in the spring flash kind of early summer and my wife looked at you look at the size of an adult bear and we were up in arms. The DNA the DNA that they were able to pull from the cat suggested that it was a dispersed mountain lion that came. As far as I could tell there was a positive DNA sequence coming from the scat sample Patrick. Caller: And then there's the Lily Pond Road and then there's a six foot tall fence. support for an HBO who comes from you our listener Sam from advanced in you a local New Hampshire nonprofit specializing in college student loans and student refinancing options. There are mountain lion in Massachusetts. I don't know if she still is. And you know it's rather interesting because certainly there are those you as a case of mistaken identity or they wanted to see something that perhaps they actually didn't. The Eastern mountain lion is extinct in the eastern United States and Canada, but in 2011, a . Think you've seen a mountain lion? We had six copies printed out each. Over a period of a year and a half, this Mountain Lion left DNA evidence in at least four states. Hunting is legal, but closely regulated by the state. Sam Evans-Brown: Pretty well I was going to say it is nice to hear about how to identify the facial markings but probably I'd being a to identify the tracks is probably the more useful useful tool that one can have in their tool box. 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. Pat humans people leave deer carcasses up in trees. But if you do if you think you're looking at a wild Puma their tail is very thick and especially in the winter is very thick and ponderous looking. She quotes a biologist in Lyme New Hampshire who who is keeping two mountain lions himself so in the not too distant past in the early nineteen hundreds it was perhaps more common and still in Maine. HOLDERNESS, N.H. (AP) Two of the known mountain lions in New Hampshire have spent their 15 years in close proximity to humans. Reviewing the evidence, the U.S. I can't. The nonbelievers are going to say Show us your evidence and show us prove this to us. Seems reasonable! And still the the folks there did weren't able to come up with it with 100 percent certainty what deposited that scat. We'd be inundated with scouts in the past when newspaper articles have been written about DNA and scouts. They're just moving around freely. 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. Id like to hazard the explanation that we really, really want to see a mountain lion. Love hearing these stories. That's why we always go back to the physical evidence to support what they're reporting. Today she talked with us a little bit before the show about why the mountain line is so compelling and why we want it to be part of our world. HOLDERNESS, N.H. (AP) Two of the known mountain lions in New Hampshire have spent their 15 years in close proximity to humans. 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. There's no attraction. First off if the standard for an agency to go forward with the public and put out a press release that them outlines here their believers are going to say I told you they'd been here the whole time. So so in 2011 a mountain lion was killed in a car accident in Connecticut a car hit a mountain lion and killed it. And that's this morning at 10:00 here on NH PR. Tell us your story. Now Bobcat is a completely different species. Numerous scat and fur specimens have been turned in as part of mountain lion report investigations; DNA identification has shown these submitted samples to be from domestic dog, coyote, bobcat andraccoon. Sam Evans-Brown: What he would have stopped as well I think is way way that the reason that mountain lion kept moving is because he wasn't finding anybody. 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. From involving members in projects as local as cleaning up an area park or as far-reaching as bringing sight to the world's blind, Lions clubs have always . There have been several sightings of mountain lions in New Hampshire recently. So Michael follows with the question. You know interactions are pretty unusual. Mark Elbroch doesnt think so. And those are not the same things. If you believe you have seen a mountain lion and want to report it to NH Fish and Game, please contact the Wildlife Division at (603) 271-2461 or wildlife@wildlife.nh.gov to request an observation report form. Caller: Hey guys how you doing. If it's just in the middle of a greenfield you can't prove anything. Give today. So I did a bunch of research and all the documentation I found was there art are not any pieces of DNA of Eastern online. Mountain lions leave a lot of sign. Well let me ask maybe Pat and Rick about this. Yes and you want to share what you learned. I saw the tail end of a literally from behind the shoulder The Long Tail mountain lion crossing the highway going from Password to often Village downtown. And they used to be this whole list of the different subspecies of mountain lion and it has since been reduced to just to the North American and the South American. He studied Politics and Spanish at Bates College, and before reporting was variously employed as a Spanish teacher, farmer, bicycle mechanic, ski coach, research assistant, a wilderness trip leader and a technical supporter. People were calling the New Hampshire Fish and Game director's office saying why are you dragging your feet on this. Peter Biello: What about the idea of tourism like us leaving aside the fact that it is not on the Endangered Species Act is it. Peter Biello: Thank you for sharing that. Patrick Tate: I've had hunters hang deer carcasses forbidding wildlife entries. So what those ranges. The 17-year-old Kiger mustang mare was born in Bend, Oregon, said Hodskins, who got her . Well let's talk a little bit about that. I mean I that said I've lived out west for nine years. I mean no doubt a seen Bobcat seen his stuff. John Holt's ideas were at first dismissed but he refused to be silent. Patrick Tate: I would say well when social media first started they picked up the hoaxes became much more prevalent in the last four or five years hoaxes have died down completely. The trouble with accepting every reported sighting as a confirmed mountain lion is that there are so many mistaken identifications. And I think a lot of folks would like them to be around. m from a weed family Automotive on store Street in Concord is serving the Concord area families automotive needs since 1995. So what a neat experience. Give today. Chartered: 1973 . Long before NASA was asked to put a man on the moon one engineer had already figured out how to get there. I have one that's more elaborate than that. brings a lot of. Peter Biello: There have been several alleged sightings of mountain lions in New Hampshire recently. That's pretty elaborate. So hard to know hard to refute if there's no interest in making up a story which many people of course do then I would respond the same way as Pat did. PublishedNovember 16, 2018 at 6:16 AM EST. 19 So it is possible to see male Mountain lions roam into the northeast - there was one hit by a car in CT a number of years back - but we don't have a breeding population of Mountain lions in New England. (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. So the whole media hype about how scary mountain lions are should should go away immediately and that would be that I think the major thrust of educating folks about these casualties vs.. Sam Evans-Brown: Sam go ahead. So I certainly can't dispute anything that they said there's no evidence for me to go by to verify or say what my thoughts are on the situation. He says when youve got a mountain lion in town, its kinda obvious. 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. Here she is talking about how to identify a mountain lion. And why would they what. Let's talk to Bob in Laconia Bob. Sam Evans-Brown has been working for New Hampshire Public Radio since 2010, when he began as a freelancer. Sam Evans-Brown: But I mean the video I had been sent was you know a recording of a animal growling but it was in slow motion and when I asked the person why is this in slow motion the denied that it was so there's a lot of weird stuff that happens in regards to people claiming they've seen they've seen these things. For starters, part of the confusion might come from the fact that the eastern cougar was taken off the endangered species list earlier this year. On Oct. 10, he gave a slide talk called "Wild Cats of New Hampshire," which included the bobcat and the lynx. 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. Patrick Tate: I've from all the situations I've read and learned about wildlife. Which brings us to the next question, what are the odds that some of these reported sightings (which, when I posted about this on twitter, I immediately started to get as well) are actually people seeing a mountain lion? So that that's more or less I think why I'm here and why I got into this in nineteen ninety nine I found a what appeared to be a print of a mountain lion and that was in the Osprey mountains and I thought well OK that's that's a print. And to anyone listening I would just say you know fishing game who wants proof right. Tate said that while a mountain lion sighting in New Hampshire isn't likely, it's not impossible. And I just said I saw I saw they from behind the shoulder all the way past the long tail. The big cat has been extinct here since the mid-1800s. JavaScript must be enabled for some features to display properly. 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. Erler is a senior naturalist at the Squam Lakes Natural Science Center in Holderness. Right. So so. Sue Morse: The big cat really commands the utmost respect not so much fear but fascination. You can see two of them at Squam Lakes Natural Science Center in Holderness NH. We'll be right back. 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7. If you have them email exchange at an HP board or give us a call to tell us your story. Sam Evans-Brown: So I just had two thoughts which is that we hear a lot of these stories and all of us here have heard these stories. Peter Biello: We got an e-mail question from Robert in Epsom who asks are sightings or encounters with these big cats less dangerous here where they're passing through than out west where those same mountain lines might be establishing territory Rick. We're going to talk a little bit more about habitat first but then we'll get into sightings. The western mountain lion lives in a more of a grassland open area now so to blend in with a very lighted situation here in the Northeast we are very shadowy dark situation because of the forest and our cats wear a darker brownish reddish color than what they were and they were also smaller than what the western mountain lion is. 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. Less successful males roam further. So. So you want identifiable backgrounds. Do you get a lot of these these these things that end up being hoaxes. 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. We rely on readers like you to support the local, national, and international coverage on this website. So there is definitely no downward pressure by anyone. Yeah 13 to 15 years ago 13 to 15 years ago. Do cougars live in New England? Patrick Tate: Yes. Do you want to see real, living mountain lions that do exist in New Hampshire. Really appreciate it. Rick shaking his head so Rick now correct me please. The best documentation we have in New Hampshire suggests there hasnt been a mountain lion killed by a hunter in this state since 1885. Enable JavaScript by changing your browser options, and then try again. Here it is. We want answers. And maybe it's a no holds barred nostalgia for a better world a wild or Fuller world not a world that's constrained by our boundaries and our taxes and our highways. 8 9 2 6 4 7 7. So hey, just me shooting from the hip, maybe there are a couple mountain lions skulking about. Gotcha, so the Deep State is suppressing mountain lion news in order to prop up New Hampshire tourism? A lot of times. So take care of this problem. Pat do they typically just move around a lot. Patrick Tate: Well. They sent he sent his scent those two samples with his to Wyoming an unfortunate Fish and Game Commission there did not get a positive read on it but send it back to Central Michigan University where they did a nuclear micro satellite DNA analysis and found no significant difference between that scat and other scats that were tested from the Rocky Mountain region. So I hate the idea that there's some sort of upward you know downward pressure from the bosses saying Don't you know don't tell about the mountain lions because it'll scare away the tourists. And so. Administrative Links. That's the real story is they can't follow up on every one of these sightings. So I will just say this is a big reason why there have not been confirmed sightings I think is that the evidence required first. Just one quick point I think I think when we we talk about these conspiracy theories the real story is that fish and game is an agency that that is short on budget and staff. But but I've also seen it cited the opposite way that look they're very secretive. Early in the morning. From "History of New Hampshire Game and Furbearers" by Helenette Silver, Research Clerk, NH Fish and Game Dept. I saw that had this giant the bobcat had this giant sweeping which is John Bobcat don't have big sweeping tails. Well within there. So the U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station has a database on mountain lion and they can identify. WMUR NH Chronicle Mountain Lions in NH Part I and Part II. Residents believe cougars still roam New Hampshire's forests. I'm Peter Biello. Peter Biello: So Rick seems like you agree that the tail is a big giveaway whether or not it's a mountain lion Absolutely. N.H.'s Fish and Game department says there's no proof. They create these big latrines that are very obvious. That's next time on one day. Some argue that it's a leap of faith. Peter Biello: Rick I believe you did mention that that they do leave carcasses up in the tree from time to time but are there any other species known in New Hampshire to do this on a regular basis. Peter Biello: Well John thanks very much for the story really appreciate it. You know you have to have a license and it's hard to get that license a license to own a mountain lion. You treat it as if it's a sincere situation. No I saw a camel. We'll push great photos to the front page. Mountain Lion report and as a biologist for the state that's a situation where if he said to me what did I see.