Posts Tagged ‘cougars’

Monday, October 28, 2019

NYS Endangered List Changes Would Remove Cougars, Wolves, More

bald eagleThe New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is planning to amend state regulations and designations for protecting endangered and threatened species across the state. DEC’s proposal would remove 19 species from the state’s endangered and threatened species list.

The Eastern cougar is proposed for removal from the list, due to its extinction in New York State. The grey wolf would also be removed, and renamed simply wolf, signifying new understandings of that species based on recent DNA studies. » Continue Reading.


Sunday, August 7, 2016

New Book Recounts Story Of ‘Adirondack’ Cougar

courgar courtesy Bigstockphoto.comOn a snowy winter night in Lake George, in 2010, Cindy Eggleston’s motion-detecting light came on in her back yard. She looked out her kitchen window and saw a big cat. A really big cat. Her husband, a retired conservation officer, guessed that it must have been a bobcat. No, she said, “it had a long tail.” So he went out to look around. In the snow he found huge tracks and, eventually, a hair sample. DNA analysis subsequently showed that these hairs came from a cougar, an animal whose last proven presence in the Adirondacks had occurred over a century before.

The life and death of this wandering cougar, along with a history of this splendid animal in North America and a discussion of its current status, are the subjects of Heart of a Lion: A Lone Cat’s Walk across America, a fascinating book by William Stolzenburg. He debunks myths and spins an engaging and often sad story. » Continue Reading.


Monday, April 4, 2016

Experts: Cat In Crown Point Video Is House Cat, Not Cougar

cougarsThe state Department of Environmental Conservation has concluded that an animal shown in a Crown Point video posted online last week is a house cat, not a mountain lion.

DEC placed a life-size cutout of a mountain lion in the area where the animal was filmed and determined that the animal was small enough that it could have passed under the belly of a mountain lion. (See photos below.)

DEC announced its findings in an email this morning, a week after the video had attracted attention online.

Three wildlife scientists from Panthera, a nonprofit organization that works to conserve the habitat of wild cats around the world, came to the same conclusion after reviewing the video, according to Christopher Spatz, president of the Cougar Rewilding Foundation.

“They all suggested it was a house cat, judging by the gait,” said Spatz, whose organization favors restoring cougars to the East and other parts of the country.

» Continue Reading.


Wednesday, March 30, 2016

A Cougar In Crown Point? You Be The Judge

CougarA trail camera recently captured video of an animal that may be a cougar sauntering through a backyard in Crown Point near Lake Champlain.

Cara Cowan posted the video on her Facebook page this week. The video was taken a little after noon on March 20, according to its time stamp.

The 18-second clip shows a long-tailed tawny animal walking and then trotting through the yard before it disappears while descending into a large bowl-like swale.

» Continue Reading.


Saturday, January 30, 2016

Have You Seen A Mountain Lion? Many Say They Have

CougarIn the photo, the mountain lion lies on its side on the shoulder of a Connecticut parkway. Tail lights shine in the distance. A Connecticut state trooper snapped the photo after a motorist had struck and killed the animal on a June night in 2011.

Wildlife biologists quickly confirmed this mountain lion was the one photographed days before in front of an elementary school in Greenwich, Connecticut, about 40 miles west. (School was cancelled.) Within months, DNA evidence revealed that this animal was the same one seen in the backyard of a retired game warden in Lake George the previous December, and tracked in Wisconsin and Minnesota in 2009 and 2010.

DNA testing also showed that the mountain lion came from the Black Hills of South Dakota, the nation’s eastern-most confirmed breeding population. This young male had walked an astonishing 1,500 miles. » Continue Reading.


Sunday, August 2, 2015

Study: Adirondackers Support Return of Cougars

Julie Larsen Maher_8520_Puma_WTR_QZ_11 20 09_hr[1]A new paper from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) looks at the social aspects and public attitudes with regard to a potential mountain lion re-colonization in the Adirondack Park.

The paper finds that more than three-quarters of residents and visitors would support the idea should the animals return on their own.  Fifteen percent of Adirondackers polled said they had personally seen a mountain lion, despite the fact they were extirpated from New York State by around 1885. Some 80% said mountain lions still live in the Adirondacks, despite the paucity of evidence for an established population. » Continue Reading.


Sunday, July 19, 2015

Protect Advocates For Cougars And Wolves

CreeAn Adirondack environmental group has asked the state Department of Environmental Conservation to consider reintroducing wolves and cougars in its State Wildlife Action Plan, which is currently in draft form and expected to be finished later this year.

“We cannot rely on natural recolonization for cougars from the west,” Peter Bauer, director of Protect the Adirondacks, wrote in a July 14 letter to the DEC. “Aggressive hunting seasons are starting to reduce the overall populations and it’s unrealistic to think that enough males and females will reach the Adirondacks to establish a viable population. New York leaders should take a hard look at reintroduction of cougars to the Adirondack Park. » Continue Reading.


Thursday, July 2, 2015

Cougar Rewilding Talk Planned For Sunday

CougarWatch-ArticleImageProtect the Adirondacks will host Christopher Spatz, President of the Cougar Rewilding Foundation, at the Paul Smith’s College Visitor’s Interpretive Center on Sunday, July 5th at 11 am as part of its 2015 annual meeting. Spatz’s presentation is entitled “Restoring the Big East with Big Beasts: Ecosystem Recovery and Economic Sustainability in Adirondack Park.”

The Cougar Rewilding Foundation recently published “Yellowstone East: The Economic Benefits of Restoring the Adirondack Ecosystem with Native Wildlife,” which makes the economic case for reintroducing and supporting a robust carnivore population in Adirondacks, such as the cougar. » Continue Reading.


Thursday, June 18, 2015

Feds Look To Remove Eastern Cougar Protections

Cougar in Montana Photo by BigStockPhoto dot comThe U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed removing the eastern cougar from the endangered species list, claiming that scientific evidence shows the animal is extinct.

Thousands of cougar sightings have been reported in the eastern United States (including the Adirondacks) and Canada in recent decades, but the Fish and Wildlife Service says these animals are either dispersers from western populations or pets that have been released or escaped captivity. » Continue Reading.


Sunday, May 17, 2015

Experts Say Adirondack Lynx Return Unlikely

lynx by Larry MastersA fellow carnivore scientist once showed Cristina Eisenberg the skeleton of an animal and asked her to identify it. Looking at the large hindquarters and feet, she guessed snowshoe hare. Told she guessed wrong, she took a closer look.

“I looked at the skull, and it was a lynx,” said Eisenberg, a scientist with Earthwatch Institute, an international environmental organization.

Eisenberg might be forgiven for her initial mistake: the Canada lynx and snowshoe hare have some anatomical similarities. “They have very big, soft feet that don’t punch through the snow,” she said. “Their feet are like snowshoes.” » Continue Reading.


Thursday, May 7, 2015

Report: Cougar, Elk, Wolf Return Would Boost Economy

DSCN6114An economic study published by the the Cougar Rewilding Foundation, an organization dedicated to the recovery of cougars to their former range, argues that restoring the Adirondack ecosystem with native wildlife would establish Adirondack Park as an international wildlife recreation destination.

The report estimates that restoring native woodland elk, bison, wolves and cougars to the Adirondack Park would add upwards of $583 million annually in wildlife watching and big game hunting tourism and create 3,540 new jobs. The study reports that restoration would create opportunities for wildlife tracking classes and vacations, darting, howling and photography safaris, and big game hunting. » Continue Reading.


Sunday, January 4, 2015

Will Cougars Return To The Adirondacks?

Cougar in Montana Photo by BigStockPhoto dot comDarcy Wiltse, a veterinarian, was driving on Route 458 near Meacham Lake one night early last winter when she saw a large animal crossing the road. She’s convinced it was a cougar.

“I saw the whole profile again. I saw the body. I saw the tail,” said Wiltse. “She even hesitated on the other side of the road before she went into the trees.” » Continue Reading.


Thursday, December 4, 2014

The Economic Potential of Rewilding the Adirondacks

almanack-julie-Clark-111613-Zeebie1Tourism is a key business in the Adirondacks. About 12.4 % of local employment is tourism related, but only $2 out of every hundred spent on tourism in New York State ends up in the Adirondacks.

It’s often argued that Adirondack towns and villages, particularly those outside the High Peaks, Lake George and Old Forge areas, present a challenging environment in which to make a living.

Some folks say we should attract manufacturing, others see building more resorts or recreation facilities as the answer, but what about tapping into one of our most important natural resources: wildlife? » Continue Reading.


Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Looking For Cougars In The Adirondacks

cougar trackLast week, the organization, PROTECT the Adirondacks, announced that they plan to begin a program, entitled Cougar Watch, for developing a database of Mountain Lion sightings in and around the Park. For years, many reputable individuals have claimed to have glimpsed this large member of the cat family, which has led some people to wonder whether a small population of these highly adaptable predators currently exists within the boundaries of the Blue Line.  With all the sightings entered into a publicly accessible database, it might be easier to draw some conclusions regarding the status of this reclusive feline in northern New York. » Continue Reading.


Thursday, January 16, 2014

PROTECT Launches New Cougar Watch Project

CougarWatch-ArticleImageProtect the Adirondacks has launched a new project Cougar Watch to record public sightings of cougars (Puma concolor) in and around the Adirondack Park. There are regular reports of cougar sightings throughout the Adirondacks, but there has not been a publicly available repository to record these sightings. PROTECT will work to organize and map these reports and provide regular updates.

The purpose of the Cougar Watch project is two-fold. First, there continue to be regular reports of cougars across the Adirondacks. Jerry Jenkin’s Adirondack Atlas features a map of cougar sightings on page 51. PROTECT will manage a database about all reports made available to us. We will investigate sightings that include information, such as pictures, pictures of tracks, scat samples, etc. Second, if there is a cluster of reports in a specific geographic area, PROTECT will work with cougar experts to try and assess the presence of cougars. » Continue Reading.



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