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As much as having cougars would be interesting in PA, the eastern cougar was killed off years ago with the last remnants being the Florida everglades cougars. And even those needed to have government imported western cougars to sustain a population which was starting to die out due to lack of genetic diversity.
There was a cougar killed in PA in the late 1960's but DNA testing showed it had Costa Rican ancestry so apparently was a released pet.
For cougars to live in PA they'd have to have some sort of sustainable population and in addition with all the people in the woods, there would be some verifiable sign of them that would be found. Dead carcasses, paw prints, scat, hair, but none of that has been found.
Where I am in Colorado right now on vacation, I used to live here for 7 years. The neighborhood in the mountains I am in now does have the occasional cougar due to the elk population moving in during the winter. That fact has been easily verified by the state with scat dropping, paw prints and dead elk carcasses. This mountain community is at 8500 feet and backs up to hundreds of square miles of unpopulated BLM and National Forest land. It's advised to local residents to avoid letting pets out at night.
I can understand where people can get confused. I looked outside yesterday to see a cat that mirrored the appearance and gait of a cougar and then quickly realized it was just a big tomcat stalking around. I can see where people without good depth perception or with things like snow that can cause distances to be misjudged can make the mistake of saying they have seen a cougar.
Fisheye - I never bought a bobcat permit. For some reason, I have no desire to kill one.
Up until a couple of years ago, you had to win a bobcat permit via a lottery. Nowadays, you can simply buy one. Their #'s are on the increase and the PGC has allotted more licenses.
I don't doubt your story or others about the cougar. But like I said, I'd love to see some hard evidence. Given the fact that today almost everyone carries a digital or cell phone camera, and the large amount of trail cameras left out in the woods, I'm really surprised that no one has even captured a bona-fide picture of one in Pa.
There was an elk shot close to here several years back, he was tracked all the way from way up north, some a$$ took him out with a handgun... You never know what you will see in the deep woods!!
Fisheye - I never bought a bobcat permit. For some reason, I have no desire to kill one.
Up until a couple of years ago, you had to win a bobcat permit via a lottery. Nowadays, you can simply buy one. Their #'s are on the increase and the PGC has allotted more licenses.
I don't doubt your story or others about the cougar. But like I said, I'd love to see some hard evidence. Given the fact that today almost everyone carries a digital or cell phone camera, and the large amount of trail cameras left out in the woods, I'm really surprised that no one has even captured a bona-fide picture of one in Pa.
Time will tell I guess.
varmintblaster,
The only reason that you never got the bobcat license is that you never had one wake you in the middle of the night! Have you ever heard one while you were out for coyotes? I have to presume that it is some kind of matting call? I had one many years ago that hung around my house.
One other “pest” that I ran into was the flicker. Have you ever had one that used your aluminum rain gutter to sound off a matting call in the spring? It sounds as if you have a construction company on your roof with a dozen jackhammers running. I haven’t had any problems since I got gutter guards installed.
What did you think of our GC telling me that we could not shoot cougars; they were endangered? I would still like to know why something that does not exist is endangered?
Yes; I would like to see hard proof of what I thought me and my wife saw years ago.
Fisheye - never heard a bobcat scream. I'm not sure what that call is for - perhaps there was another cat in the vicinity and it was making it's presence known to defend its territory. From what I read and heard from others that hunt them, their mating call is a low-pitched gutteral sound..
I have only seen 3 bobcats - one ran across the road in front of my truck one night, another running away as I approached a stream while fishing one day.
The one in the picture I posted approached me as I was fox hunting one day and I was mouthing mouse squeak sounds. That cat came in silently and I never made a sound. It stared me down for about 5 minutes and never came closer. It never fliched, even as I reached for the camera to take a pic.
I think it was as curious about me as I was about it. When I finally my arms around and yelled scat it ran off like someone poured terpentine on it's backside... LOL.
A few weeks later after we got snow cover I located it's den site via it's tracks, but I never saw it again even though I attempted to call to it.
I never had a raingutter bird. But I did have a pesky robin, that for two springs in a row arrived at my house and commenced to making love with it's reflection in my sliding glass door - jumped up and down and pecked at the glass incessantly and left quite a mess on my porch each day. I came pretty close to wanting to shoot that bird, but since it is a federally protected species, I opted for the alternative and taped a piece of cardboard over the glass until the robin's urge passed.. (Maybe I should have printed out a copy of that bobcat pic and taped that to the glass... LOL
I have been told that that mountain lions been spotted down by Conashaugh Lakes in Dingman Twp.
I have seen coyotes, foxes, bobcats...and I did once see a HUGE HUGE HUGE black cat one time - it was the size of a mountain lion only it was black. I saw that near Newfoundland/Canadensis. My husband won't believe me but I would go to my grave swearing it was the gospel truth. It was as black as a black labrador; much larger, with a long sleek tail. I will never forget it.
Yes, we have that black huge cat down in the West End. Seen by two people on Christmas night just before it got dark and rain came.
They swear about it too. The one who is a teacher swore she was in a wild zoo. It was my backyard no less.
( long tail, black at night, pointy ears and had that cat stride...big, big,)
And yes....We had three cameras in the same room with us. But, it happened very fast. They were in disbelief.....and in awe......and then it was in the woods.
I never even had time to catch a glimpse.
Fisheye - never heard a bobcat scream. I'm not sure what that call is for - perhaps there was another cat in the vicinity and it was making it's presence known to defend its territory. From what I read and heard from others that hunt them, their mating call is a low-pitched gutteral sound..
I have only seen 3 bobcats - one ran across the road in front of my truck one night, another running away as I approached a stream while fishing one day.
The one in the picture I posted approached me as I was fox hunting one day and I was mouthing mouse squeak sounds. That cat came in silently and I never made a sound. It stared me down for about 5 minutes and never came closer. It never fliched, even as I reached for the camera to take a pic.
I think it was as curious about me as I was about it. When I finally my arms around and yelled scat it ran off like someone poured terpentine on it's backside... LOL.
A few weeks later after we got snow cover I located it's den site via it's tracks, but I never saw it again even though I attempted to call to it.
I never had a raingutter bird. But I did have a pesky robin, that for two springs in a row arrived at my house and commenced to making love with it's reflection in my sliding glass door - jumped up and down and pecked at the glass incessantly and left quite a mess on my porch each day. I came pretty close to wanting to shoot that bird, but since it is a federally protected species, I opted for the alternative and taped a piece of cardboard over the glass until the robin's urge passed.. (Maybe I should have printed out a copy of that bobcat pic and taped that to the glass... LOL
Crazy critters.. Gotta Luv them..
varmintblaster,
The bobcat I had at our house thirty years ago did not make any low-pitched guttural sound!
This past spring I had a turkey that attacked it’s reflection in my downstairs window. I was afraid that it would break the glass. It wasn’t even too concerned when I went out to chase it away. It took three different chases before it finally gave up. It must have been cute bird in the reflection!
I see more turkey carcasses on the road every year. As their numbers increase; there is also a greater chance of turkey car collisions. When I did hunt turkey I was happier with the smaller birds that seemed to me more tender. My tinnitus hampered my calling ability.
Going back to our cougar sighting; we had a logger on our camp’s property at that time. I was talking to him and he told me a story of a doe carcass that he spotted on the way into the camp. He told me that the doe was laying on the side of the dirt road with it’s throat ripped out. After he got his load of logs and was on his way out; the doe was gone. I forget if he told me that before or after me and my wife spotted the cougar? Our sighting and his story were within months of each other.
Summering,
I’m just glad that we are not the only ones that our GC thinks are crazy!
A few months ago I was riding my motorcycle in Ransom when a bobcat trotted across the road in front of me. I was so excited and thrilled to see it. I've only otherwise seen their tracks in the snow in the woods.
There was a bobcat that hung around, kept getting seen off and on at my relatives' home in the country outside Scranton for a year or so. They all saw it. Definitely time to only feed the pet cats inside! A few months ago a VERY large cat wandered around a few minutes on the front lawn near the road... maybe 20 yards from the house. It may have been tracking the deer that are out there often. They didn't get a picture, but really think it was a mountain lion; the size,color, long thin tail... Could they be repopulating around here?
There was a bobcat that hung around, kept getting seen off and on at my relatives' home in the country outside Scranton for a year or so. They all saw it. Definitely time to only feed the pet cats inside! A few months ago a VERY large cat wandered around a few minutes on the front lawn near the road... maybe 20 yards from the house. It may have been tracking the deer that are out there often. They didn't get a picture, but really think it was a mountain lion; the size,color, long thin tail... Could they be repopulating around here?
No evidence of it.
Again in any place with cougars, sign is not that hard for wildlife authorities to find.
Most people can easily mistake a large house cat for a "cougar", especially in low light conditions.
The eastern cougar has been long gone from PA for a 100 years with the last remnants as the Florida panthers in the Everglades. And even then in recent years for that population to survive they had to introduce "western cougars" to sustain a decent gene pool.
Is it possible that within 50 years the western cougar could repopulate Pennsylvania? Yes I think so. Are they here now? No and not a lick of evidence of it either.
As a small, volunteer-run organization, the Cougar Rewilding Foundation devotes significant time responding to cougar sightings, from Nova Scotia to Georgia, and west to the Mississippi River. Unfortunately, we are unable to verify, and in most cases, to go onsite to look for critical evidence to support these sightings. Since the ECF’s inception in 1998, years of fielding, following up, and soliciting evidence from such reports have failed to produce a single cougar confirmation. In order to more efficiently use our resources, the ECF has decided to shift its energy away from sightings, and into advocacy, education, and habitat conservation, so when cougars arrive in the East, they will be protected and permitted to recover in suitable areas.
To this end, the CRF will respond only to reports where evidence has been gathered. If you wish to report a sighting, please take the time to read through the FAQ, and follow our suggestions.
What is an eastern cougar?
An eastern cougar is a wild cougar that lives in the East now, but its ancestors did not necessarily live in the East. Recent genetic research has determined that the eastern cougar never existed as a separate subspecies. Throughout their wide range across the Americas, cougars differ typically in skull characteristics, size, and pelage. For example, the Florida panther has a Roman nose profile, is smaller, and has shorter fur than a cougar living in the northern Rocky Mountains. However, all of North America’s cougars belong to a single subspecies.
Cougars were once native to the East, but they were wiped out in the late 19th century by a combination of habitat destruction, persecution by settlers, government-sanctioned bounty hunting, and loss of their primary prey, the white-tailed deer. While deer have recovered in the East – they are probably more abundant now than when Europeans first settled here – cougars have not.
Why then, is the eastern cougar listed as an endangered species?
By the 1960s and early 1970s, a few cougars had been killed in the wild east of the Mississippi River, and many people claimed to have seen them. Based on these circumstances, and a now outdated cougar classification, the United States Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) listed the subspecies as endangered in 1973 under the newly created Endangered Species Act. However, recent genetic evidence from eastern Canada has revealed apparently wild cougars with Latin American ancestry. We now believe most of the cats appearing in the eastern United States since the 1960s have either escaped or have been deliberately released from the exotic pet trade. It appears likely they are not the scattered remnants of a native population.
Until the USFWS announces their pending review of the status of the eastern cougar, any cougar found in the East is protected both by federal and state regulations.
Are cougars now recovering in the East?
Not yet. Despite more sophisticated technology for finding cougars, and with more people looking than ever before, less evidence has appeared in the last decade than in the 1990s (perhaps because of recent strict legislation prohibiting interstate trade in exotic cats and new state laws prohibiting private ownership of such cats).
Sanctioned studies since the late 1990s by the CRF, research universities, and state and federal wildlife agencies in NY, NJ, PA, MD, VA, WV, and KY have failed to find evidence of cougars. Incidental evidence such as roadkills, accidental shootings or trappings, and photographs captured by privately owned remote wildlife cameras is nearly absent.
Even in Midwestern states with low or emerging cougar populations, incidental evidence appears with reliable frequency.
Have federal or state wildlife agencies released or reintroduced cougars?
No. While rumors of clandestine agency releases persist – of cougars found with tags or collars – there is no evidence to suggest this has occurred. There would be far more cougar confirmations if this were true.
What is a confirmation?
A confirmation is cougar evidence such as photographs, tracks, scats (droppings), deer kills, or dead cougars that have been evaluated by at least two recognized experts.
Most of the confirmations in the past decade have occurred along the eastern United State’s periphery, along the Mississippi River basin and in eastern Canada. The nearest recognized breeding populations are in central and western Texas, the Black Hills of South Dakota, the Badlands of North Dakota, and the Cypress Hills of southeastern Alberta.
With few confirmations, why are there so many reported sightings of cougars in the East?
Sightings are the great conundrum in eastern cougar research. As reliable as sightings may appear to be, our experience – and the experience of wildlife agencies – is that the vast majority of cougar reports are misidentifications of other animals. Although the CRF has fielded hundreds of first-hand accounts and evaluated countless pieces of evidence, and while there remains always the possibility of a released or escaped cougar turning up, our sighting hotline has never produced a confirmation. The evidence we receive as photographs and videos, by and large, are of the cougar’s smaller wild cousin, the bobcat, housecats, and less often, dogs and deer. Large tracks consistently turn out to be coyote, dog, or black bear.
As much as we’d love to believe cougar sightings – and many of us at the CRF first joined the search inspired by so many reports – we can only conclude that there is a profound misapprehension inherent in these reports. Where cougars are well established, any knowledgeable individual can find evidence in a few days. Yet, our own field searches, sometimes within hours or a day of a sighting, have failed to produce evidence, and years pass between confirmations.
I’ve seen a cougar. What do I do?
1. Examine your experience. Was the animal you witnessed really a cougar? Research the differences between large felines, especially between bobcats and cougars. As we mentioned above, the CRF’s experience has demonstrated that most sightings are misidentifications of other animals, especially of bobcats. Many bobcats in the East have faint spots or none at all, suggesting the tawny coat of a cougar.
2. If you feel that the cat you witnessed was indeed a cougar, report your sighting to the nearest game warden and/or state wildlife agency.
3. When possible, collect evidence as soon as you can. Cougars leave sign, lots of it: tracks, scat, and prey kills, especially of deer.
4. Contact the CRF only if you have gathered evidence. We will be pleased to evaluate this. Contact person Chris Spatz at 845-658-9889
Are there black panthers?
The phenomenon of black panther reports is even more bewildering than the cougar search. Aside from an 18th century painting, a verbal description from the 1880s, and a black-and-white photograph of a dark Costa Rican cougar carcass, there is no evidence of black or melanistic cougars. Black bobcats do exist, primarily in the southeast.
Once again, we can only conclude that reports of black panthers are misidentifications of animals with a dark or black pelage such as coyotes, fishers, otters, bears, dogs, or housecats.
Are cougars dangerous?
While cougar attacks on people receive an extraordinary amount of publicity, the statistical chances are about the lowest of any wildlife encounter anyone will ever have; much lower than even being struck by lightning. There have been about 100 attacks, and a total of 20 deaths, in the United States and Canada since 1890. Most of these have occurred in California, Colorado, and on Vancouver Island, BC.
Cougars will from time to time prey on livestock and pets. These are often inexperienced, juvenile cats moving through an area on their way to establishing their own territories. Cougars evolved primarily to take medium-sized ungulates. In North America, deer comprise 80% of their diet.
Combining these statistical chances with the slimmest of cougar evidence appearing in the East, the risk to the public is virtually non-existent.
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