Patrick Tate: So it's interesting it's brought up. John is calling from Bennington. Let's talk to Mike in Webster. We mentioned that one cat that was hit by a car where it has it that it was a male looking for me. Patrick Tate: I've from all the situations I've read and learned about wildlife. Like why would you want one wildlife. It's not a skinny rope like tail like a housecat. And just one more note about this danger question when even when you look at the states that have extended populations stable populations of mountain lions attacks are relatively rare. 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. John if you're still on the line here I was going to I don't. I'm Peter B yellow. Early in the morning. Peter Biello: So a little bit of nostalgia maybe for it for a better world embodied in the mountain lion. Part II. A monthly donation of $5 makes a real difference. Patrick Tate: Yes. Thanks for your call. Sam Evans-Brown has been working for New Hampshire Public Radio since 2010, when he began as a freelancer. I mean it wasn't your idea. Let us know your story and share your photos! Patrick Tate: My line being a large predator a cat watch ambush his prey animal that hasn't been. Rick van de Poll: Rick your thoughts. Rick van de Poll: Well the mountain lion of course has been sort of an enigma in the wildlife suite for years and years. He shifted gears in 2016 and began producing Outside/In, a podcast and radio show about the natural world and how we use it. His work has won him several awards, including two regional Edward R. Murrow awards, one national Murrow, and the Overseas Press Club of America's award for best environmental reporting in any medium. There was no sign of it. How to Report a Possible Mountain Lion Sighting. Patrick Tate: While a juvenile not a juvenile I guess if you want nodes to the base of the tail for juvenile that wouldn't be small at all. They're very loyal to what the handler which makes them very dangerous to everyone else. Peter Biello: And that will make identification for a layperson rather difficult. m from a weed family Automotive on store Street in Concord is serving the Concord area families automotive needs since 1995. As recently as 2011 there was one young male mountain lion that cruised all the way from the black hills of South Dakota, up over the Great Lakes, down through New Yorkgetting spotted all along the waykilled a beaver near the Quabbin Reservoir in Central Massachusetts, left behind prints and DNA at that site, and then was hit by a car in Connecticut. It's listed as population of least concern. Peter Biello: Nice to be here. Thank you. Someone's got to see one they're very secretive. The DNA the DNA that they were able to pull from the cat suggested that it was a dispersed mountain lion that came. Well thanks for sharing. No I saw a camel. And today we're talking about the mysterious elusive mountain line with folks who know something about it. nh.gov | privacy policy | accessibility policy
Patrick Tate: Nice talk to you too. 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. People have asked me about the genetics of eastern mountain lion. Sam Evans-Brown: Certainly that is a thing I've heard but again you have to think of the incentives involved here. There wasn't a distinct subspecies the North American mountain lion is all is all one species and then you can find a genetically distinct South American subspecies. Peter Biello: Ok. Good morning guys. Yes and you want to share what you learned. Caller: Hey guys how you doing. Me Im willing to believe its possible that there are some out there. OK. The report came in from a conservation officer. Here she is talking about how to identify a mountain lion. 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. And really whenever you hear tiny code and long rope like tale it's kind of hard to pin this sighting on any other creature rather than an outline or just nothing else really matches that description. And listeners this has been a lively conversation we're sorry we didn't get to all the the e-mailed comments and the phone calls your stories are appreciated even if we didn't get a chance to hear them today. I mean I that said I've lived out west for nine years. 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. 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. Mark Elbroch doesnt think so. But are there mountain lions living in New Hampshire? Really appreciate you guys being here as well. Yet this young male traveled about 1,800 miles. He writes As a farmer I come across many outdoorsman looking to hunt our property had a conversation with one who believed very strongly that we had mountain lions in New Hampshire. 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. So do they. I saw that had this giant the bobcat had this giant sweeping which is John Bobcat don't have big sweeping tails. 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. Peter Biello: This is the exchange on an PR. (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. Caller: Absolutely. Why are there so many false positives? Caller: I have yeah. Mountain lions can be found throughout Arizona, and data suggests the populations are not only stable, but growing. Rick van de Poll: Oh yeah absolutely. Thanks for a great thanks. Theres a project called the Cougar Network that tracks verified sightings, and they are all around us: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, New York and New Brunswick have all had verified sightings over the past 20 years or so. So what I'm getting back is the verifying and confirming of evidence what that was not there. They kill big animals. Pat ruse and he was sampling doing DNA samples from cats in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. 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. All of that remains unanswered but it is an extremely interesting question. Do they travel. Pelosi story here we go. Some argue that it's a leap of faith. Can you look into this picture. They were able to do all that by genetics. One was in Shelton. The brother and sister big cats have lived . HOLDERNESS, N.H. (AP) Two of the known mountain lions in New Hampshire have spent their 15 years in close proximity to humans. 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. Chartered: 1973 . The term is because mascots notwithstanding right that they're referred to with a lot of different terms and sometimes they can be confused with a lot of different terms. There's these animals aren't coming with a map saying oh I want to go here. 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. Have you seen one. Because I mean as we've heard in the past 10 minutes like there's there's some disagreement or at least some some vagueness about what an actual mountain lion should appear like in the wild assuming we can even get close enough. DNA from scat or from fur, a clear track that is confirmed by an expert, or a photo that clearly shows a mountain lion. And as the biologist who's gonna stand on this and if I'm going to say this is a proven picture I need to be able to stand on it so soundly and have the evidence so I going to go through it with a fine tooth comb kept picking pieces apart trying to answer these pieces. for some excitement. Mountain lion or cat running across. Mountain Lions in New Hampshire-Fact or Fiction. So I know it's another unconfirmed report but you string enough of these together. I actually been interviewed a couple of times by reporters and with all due respect for the media you know facts aren't always communicated correctly. 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. Mountain lions (especially males) have incredibly large ranges that they defend from rivals. From came from out west they tracked it all the way back to the Black Hills in the Dakotas. 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. And those are not the same things. You know perhaps poke around where you saw it and see if you can find a track. They absolutely do. 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. 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7. Yes. GAP MOUNTAIN LIONS CLUB Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire (USA) District 44-N . You know you have to have a license and it's hard to get that license a license to own a mountain lion. I was a Bobcat we saw it and I have a picture of it. Anytime at any HP broad dot org or subscribe to our podcast search Apple podcasts Google Play or stitcher for an HP bar exchange. Well let me ask maybe Pat and Rick about this. It's got a a smudge of black and bobcats and links just don't have that we don't have any other cards. The panther, Fells concolor, is a beast of many names, most frequently referred to in New Hampshire history as catamount, but sometimes known locally as "Indian Devil" or "Carcajou", under which . Do you want to see real, living mountain lions that do exist in New Hampshire. To date, the Department has not received any verifiable evidence (photographic or DNA)of mountain lions existing in New Hampshire. He played a pivotal role and he battled for recognition. They sent it already. Join as a $8 per month sustainer and get our brand-new owl umbrella! Right. Patrick Tate: And there's one other way to model that is the same animal. Patrick Tate: I've had hunters hang deer carcasses forbidding wildlife entries. We're going to talk a little bit more about habitat first but then we'll get into sightings. Somewhere the way they travel the things they do they're going to leave evidence. So that did it for me. Hunting is legal, but closely regulated by the state. Wed love to be part of the first verified sighting. The American Lion The Saber tooth Tiger and this was the one that survived. If so that's for us as an agency. Less successful males roam further. OK. Rick van de Poll: Rick and I would add that if a mountain lion male takes up residence and successfully finds a female as pets there's gonna be a lot more evidence there will be like deer carcasses up in trees and territorial marking and claw marks and tracks and it you know dispersal is gonna be very tough to see or observed but residential parrots a totally different story. New Hampshire Public Radio | 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. The exchange is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio. Sunny today high temperatures low to mid 80s it'll be clear tonight overnight lows in the 50s for tomorrow sunshine with high temperatures mid to upper 80s. If you go on YouTube and search mount lion Pat you can see people patent their hundred pound kiddie like its regular mascot cat. Its actually fairly reasonable to believe that mountain lions do, at least, pass through occasionally. As wildlife biologists, wed be fascinated to say 'look look what was found in our state.'. 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. Sam Evans-Brown: And when we talk about subspecies this actually leads to to an interesting tangent which is that the field of biology recently has been sort of revolutionized by the use of DNA to determine what subspecies are. And those and that's how you can go from a story that Pat says I have nothing to say about that to a story that you know could be the first verified sighting in over 100 years. 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". Do you get a lot of these these these things that end up being hoaxes. Rick van de Poll: Well a report that you know as John Harrigan up north has in co-ops County for about 15 years I kept track of reports and people would call me and tell me where they saw the mountain lion they thought they saw it and it varied right from you know downtown villages all the way to remote highlands of the North Country and and everywhere in between. Pat humans people leave deer carcasses up in trees. 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 let's let's go to the phones. Listeners we'd love to hear some of your thoughts on this. 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. I had a resident in New Hampshire tell me a story of a mountain lion in the 1960s where a person who would come summer in New Hampshire and then live in a different part of the country in the winter had a trailer that was housing his mount line. So and so the idea that they can follow up on every individual sighting is just crazy right. Patrick Tate: Exactly I was gonna bring that up juvenile male of. I just don't understand the mechanism for how that would happen. You could trace that was this same cat from point to point to point. The engineers Dan Colgan our senior producer is Allan Grimm. We speculate they dont want us to screw up tourism we dont know whats going on. We'd love to have you in the queue. About Us Media Kit Calendar of Events Volunteer Visit Learn Events Membership Support Your Visit BUY TICKETS Know Before You Go Directions and Information Our Animals Live Animal Exhibit Trail Hours and Admission Calendar of Events 235 or nhandy@ledgertranscript.com. Okay. Thanks for calling. So we're fixated on natural but there's other possibilities. But Absence of Evidence Is Not Evidence of Absence, Right? We'd be inundated with scouts in the past when newspaper articles have been written about DNA and scouts. But you won't find evidence of their existence in paw prints in the snow or a deer carcass in a tree. Tim Yeah. I've collected scat samples I've got several in my collection. We had six copies printed out each. 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. Thank you very much for that story really appreciate it. 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. 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. And so I just wanted to share my share my experience with you guys and it was pretty awesome to see if you get to see one albeit it was in the brush. Post your sightings and NH photos here! Peter Biello: Well John thanks very much for the story really appreciate it. So for those reasons I don't believe the standards are too high the amount of game cameras out on the landscape to record images department alone through contracts had over 150 throughout the state biologists go through various deer yards throughout the year. And Rick Van de Poll naturalist and founder of ecosystem management consultants of New England. John thanks. A monthly donation of $5 makes a real difference. And what was really remarkable about the whole thing was I was maybe a half mile down on all buildings. Is this kind of a typical story. Thank you very much for being here. So there is definitely no downward pressure by anyone. I mean there was this one lady I remember and tough tomorrow. It doesn't happen as much anymore. Mountain lions remain an enigmatic animal for residents of New Hampshire, with New Hampshire Fish and Game reporting three to five sightings per week. Its distinctive featurethe one that sets it apart from other North American wild catsis its tail, which is thick and often as long as its body. Have it reported down in the Keene area. 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. 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. Well just that I have evidence and it was not it was denied by fishing game at the time and I you know there's I don't need to prove to anybody that I saw one just like some of your callers said okay. 8 9 2 6 4 7 7. It's you know I recognized their report and. And because you know things flow downhill and I was pushed to go investigate it more and met with the individual two or three times and there was a bunch of inconsistencies about the photograph. Nicholas Handy can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 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. Yes. So try to take photographs if you see something like this. Information online ad an age student loans dawg. 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. What kind of animal is that. 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. Id like to hazard the explanation that we really, really want to see a mountain lion. Mountain Lion report and as a biologist for the state that's a situation where if he said to me what did I see. Patrick Tate: Well I've never seen an Easter cougar so I can't say when I've handled these 10 cougars and whatnot. 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. Today, their range stretches from the Yukon Territory in Canada along the western coast of the United States, all the way to the Southern Andes in Chile. Reports without physical evidence are not dismissed, however Fish and Game cannot verify a sighting report without physical evidence. They create these scrapes where theyre communicating with each other with scent. Lots of people have stories about them, people have them on their game cameras I mean its kind of a thing. 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. Through DNA they approximate area in the United States or North America where I was born. 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. They lived perhaps elsewhere in New England and they were just passing through and happened to have an encounter of some sort. Does not test random Scouts. 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. But but I've also seen it cited the opposite way that look they're very secretive. Anyways after three weeks I finally found the image on line on a field and stream photo contest and the explanation in the end was the person that set the camera out with another individual and they believed that someone who knew of the camera location saw the similarities put the can't picture on their SD card so it looked like that camera recorded the image that is. So I've been convinced the whole time that I saw a big cougar plume or whatever you want to call it standing there in the road in Greenfield. And the cougar embodies that. Phone number 1 800. I didn't see him online. 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. Really appreciate it. Its closest living relative is the cheetah. So what counts as verifiable evidence? I mean no doubt a seen Bobcat seen his stuff. It doesn't make much sense because you know mountain lions are as we as we said before. Are these big cats back?Subscribe to WMUR on YouTube now for more: http://bit.ly/1lOjX9CGet more Manchester news: http://wmur.comLike us: http://facebook.com.