are there mountain lions in the poconos

Murray also has a cross-eyed white tiger named Keisha, who crushed chicken bones with ease but delicately stepped into a metal pool to cool off. I've seen so many examples of these distortions, exaggerations and lies over the last couple of years that I've grown very dubious about anything I see on a computer. Continuing with that thought, if that were so, then it'd be possible, if not very likely, that the Eastern puma would be an Endangered Species. The next day, another friend, who works for Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, called me to ask if I had seen the photo of a Pocono mountain lion with a deer in its jaws. I've seen hoaxes, of pumas carrying deer shot with game cameras, but these were of western cats. Archived Questions of the Month Travis Lau, a spokesperson for the Game Commission, said the state has a "never say never" approach when it comes to mountain lions and acknowledges that Western cats could be moving east. Phineas Teeple of Manchester Township is thought to have killed the last wolf in Wayne County. Arkansas isnt somewhere that we would generally think of when looking for mountain lions, but they are on the rebound! Everyone else, when reporting, were frustrated as they were told they had seen a bobcat. Only once has anyone later determined that they had misidentified the cat, seeing a bobcat and not a mountain lion. WATCH: Sharks biting alligators, the most epic lion battles, and MUCH more. The claim of mountain lions on the move was bolstered in 2009 when one was killed by a car in Greenwich, Conn. 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. Activities Milford Things To Do Hotels Map Of Activities Delaware Water Gap Hotels Bushkill Lake Harmony Hawley Skytop Tannersville Pocono Mountains Counties About the Poconos Pocono Mountains History Weather Area Services . What does a Mountain Lion look like on a game camera? Check out our online field guide to read more in this series. Fish and Wildlife Service. For example, leopards and jaguars, normally spotted cats, have a melanistic color morph, the 'black panther,' the black leopard or black jaguar. "We've been here 45 years and I've probably been told by people at least 100 times that they've seen a cougar or mountain lion," said owner Vince Hall. There are approximately 4,000 of those 10- to 40-pound cats in the state. I spend a lot of time outdoors, and I've seen about 10 black bears in Pennsylvania, and all within ten miles of my home. Others would like to see some scientific proof. What would account for the long tails? But an image captured by one family's. To learn more about "lion country" in Colorado check here. Well, right behind our property lies a mountain ridge, one of several that makes a continuous forest that extends, with little interruption, for scores of miles in three directions. "They're getting a lot of that out west. 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. In Tennessee, the most likely places you would find them would be in the forest. Mountain Lion Reports I think it is possible that recognizing the existence of pumas in the East could jeopardize this industry and an entire economy. For example, one man I interviewed said he saw a 'black' puma, and this should disqualify his sighting as a black puma has never been recorded. According to the commission, the last Pennsylvania mountain lion was killed in the late 1800s. Consider that the endangered Florida puma has mixed genes. ? The name Pocono is derived from the . Over 1,100 people follow her page. 1.8 miles, 2 hours, moderate. Like Arizona, New Mexico is the perfect home for mountain lions. Every year we receive a few similar reports from hikers, hunters or other outdoor enthusiasts. In the map above, I collected data from the state and on the federal level to find state parks . I have three observations here: 1. "If there was mountain lions in Pennsylvania), I think we'd be getting reports from farmers and people with pets that there were attacks on their animals," Martinelli said. I'll be anxious to learn of your report. Claws 'N' Paws Animal Park in Lake Ariel has two. I've read a lot about this, and the usual explanation is the very human desire to see something, to see what someone wants to see, and thus these people are seeing bobcats or brown cats or dogs or foxes and, because they 'want' to see a puma, they do. What do I think of the Canon 1D Mark IV? I could fill pages recounting the eye-witness reports I've heard, and for every report critics could certainly say 'but there's no physical evidence!' Very, very rarely, when I ask someone who would be a likely candidate (a hunter, someone who owns a camp in the deep woods, travels likely routes often, foresters), 'Have you ever seen a mountain lion?' A bobcat gives you a warm, that-kind-of-looks-like-my-cat-but-slightly-bigger feeling. Please keep scrolling - ALL the Puma posts are included. As the latest hoaxed photo of a mountain lion supposedly killed in Pennsylvania died a slow death on Facebook yesterday, the head of an organization tracking the eastern movements of the big cats was preparing a presentation for a Pennsylvania audience tonight. Of course, the writer's comments were hearsay, but it does make sense. 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. Although unconfirmed, mountain lions continue to be reported in many spots across Pennsylvania, including several reports in the past couple months. It has the color of a mountain lion, but the long tail appears to be missing. For information on predator tracks, check out this guide: https://www.wildliferemoval.com/animal-track-identification-guide/, Please keep scrolling - ALL the Puma posts are included. 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. Send it to me at mkuhns@poconorecord.com. Mary saw the photo, too, and she immediately agreed, it was a puma. original web site, although if I ever have enough time I might The head of the puma is small in comparision to a house cat when compared to the entire body. After a small population was reintroduced into their historic land, their population has grown to a stable and breeding group of between 200-300 individuals. Please keep scrolling - ALL the Puma posts are included. Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. Several populations of Gray Squirrels scattered around the country are black, and recently I heard of a neighborhood of black Eastern Chipmunks. Any Truth The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Advance Local. And yes, there are people in Pennsylvania who say they exist here. John Leap of East Stroudsburg's Lakeside Peat Humus Co. and an employee, Paul Strauser, found the bones in a peat bog off Route 209. Geologist Dr. John Yolton made the identification. 2023 Advance Local Media LLC. Fish and Wildlife Service officially declared the Eastern subspecies of the mountain lion extinct, which would seem to bolster the skeptics. A second image of the same cat, in a different light, reveals the trademark spots of a bobcat. Caribou meat apparently was part of their diet. I believe them. You've got a mountain lion story or photo? years are available through this link. He's a hunter, a woodsman, and he's seen a lot of game, so I can believe he saw a back-lighted puma. The Pocono Mountains, commonly referred to as the Poconos / p o k n o z /, are a geographical, geological, and cultural region in Northeastern Pennsylvania.They overlook the Delaware River and Delaware Water Gap to the east, Lake Wallenpaupack to the north, Wyoming Valley and the Coal Region to the west, and the Lehigh Valley to the south. Then there is Rocky. The other two clans were the Turtle and Turkey. I love the big cats and devote a huge amount of my field time photographing African lions, leopards, cheetahs, and in 2011, tigers. That's true. The last native mountain lion known to be killed in Pennsylvania is on display in the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg. Me? The Florida panther is an endemic subspecies of cougar that has lived in the everglades region for a very long time. Would a puma then qualify as a native species? Let me explain this. This will be one of your best identification marks, along with size. There's a saying that "things aren't always what they appear to be." One man, in the southwestern part of Pennsylvania, had seen one, at night, about 25 years ago. "I know they're native to this area. I don't believe someone's imagination could stretch a six inch long tail to three feet! Recently, a man I spoke with told me that he was reminded of a sighting he and two friends had 20 years earlier, and after recalling the incident he was motivated to call his college buddies and reflect on their observation. If mountain lions are discovered in PA anytime soon they'll either be big foot's pets or genetically engineered and released by the DCNR to cull the orangu-bear population. Recently, on our Arizona Hummingbird and Bat Photo Shoot, I found a deer that had been hit by a car and had moved off to die beside a stream just 200 yards upstream from our lodge. There had been 17 other mastodon finds in Pennsylvania up to 1968, but all were fragmentary. A recent alleged sighting in South Abington Township, Lackawanna County, had Facebook groups abuzz. Colby is a freelance writer from Charlotte, North Carolina. do I get an immediate, 'Oh yeah!' In July and August I received seven different reports, and everyone involved had done a search of some type to compare images of bobcats and pumas. A placard affixed to the fence outside Rocky's pen states that "cougars are solitary creatures and rarely seen by humans." You know, the Penn State Nittany Lions.". Apparently, this picture was really making the rounds. If so, what would happen to the hunting industry in all of these states? More Questions about Pumas in Pennsylvania There are, from time to time, eyewitness accounts from hunters or hikers who claim to have seen the cat. Viewers can never be certain that what they're seeing on a computer is actually what it's purported to be. Can so many people be wrong? I usually follow-up on these reports and, via email or phone conversations, I receive more details. Let me explain this. Over time, cats that had been released in Florida, probably pets that outlived their welcome, bred with the native puma, and their genes mingled, Over the last few years I've done several Questions of the Month regarding Mountain Lions, or Pumas as they should properly be called, in the Mid-Atlantic States and in Pennsylvania. 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. The other site, The Cougar Network, is still active, and is reporting the cats expanding range from the West, but offers little about the phenomenon of Pennsylvania cats. The large tracts of untouched rocky land and bighorn sheep populations make for pristine mountain lion habitat. But no one that I've communicated with had these preconceptions, and seeing what they saw was a complete surprise. "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. Wyoming has a historically stable population of mountain lions, but recent drops in numbers have caused some to worry. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Advance Local. While there have been no confirmed occurrences of mountain lions in Pennsylvania since the late 1800s, dozens . Let's see a clear photo, or a carcass or something. Mountain lions, Goodrich wrote, were more dreaded than wolves as the cat could climb over any fence that could be built. They ponder rare fossil evidence unearthed and seek to make sense of stratified geology, both fleeting in the face of what we call progress. The Cougar Network, working with state agencies, have documented multiple mountain lions as far east as Kentucky, Tennessee and Michigan in recent years, as well as that cat killed on a highway in Milford, Connecticut, in June 2011. However, if it doesn't exist, and if someone saw one, wouldn't there be a worry that it was a dangerous escapee? DCNR gave the following as examples: the saber-tooth cat; a small, three-toed horse; the Pleistocene beaver, and the mastodon. Over the last two years I have occasionally posted a Question of the Month soliciting sightings from people who believed that they have seen a mountain lion in Pennsylvania or in other areas in the mid-Atlantic states. Why do I advocate manual exposure so avidly? . "It's one of those things where I'll believe it when I see it," said Jason Farmer of Pocono Summit, my hunting partner for the last eight years. I receive about one email or phone call a month, on average, from people that I do not know who are contacting me because their sighting compelled them to do a Google search on puma sightings, and they found my site and previously posted questions. Many have a desire to see some clear-cut evidence. After a gestation period of 90 days, female mountain lions will give birth to litters of about one to six cubs. Mountain lions have killed humans in the wild, though sightings and encounters are rare even in the American West and Canada. Nevertheless, I put up a MOULTRIE game camera -- a brand that I've had tremendous satisfaction with -- at the carcass, hoping that scavengers would visit. They mostly live in the far western Trans-Pecos region of the state, with about 50,000 to 80,000 acres of suitable land currently being used by the cat. In some areas, entire populations of a species exhibit this trait, for unlike albinism, which results in a conspicuous white color and light-sensitive pink eyes, there are no ill effects with melanism. You be the judge. All of these forests are, with few exceptions, open to hunting, and hunting is a very important industry in Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia, Maryland, and Virginia. Let's say the facts indicate that there have been a lot of 'pet' pumas, and many of these escaped. Those cats for which DNA evidence was recovered had come east from South Dakota, part of the known, modern-day, U.S. mountain lion range. Over the last two years I have occasionally posted a Question of the Month soliciting sightings from people who believed that they have seen a mountain lion in Pennsylvania or in other areas in the mid-Atlantic states. The rounded ears, Asa Packer Mansion Jim Thorpe.

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