Patrick Tate: In theory it's a passing ball of a court and it goes wherever the bottom Ball wants to go. 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. Verifiable pictures recorded by the observing person or a trail camera. What do you think that. It was really muscular looking cat I mean is that like a side angle to me. 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 now what's going on. On Oct. 10, he gave a slide talk called "Wild Cats of New Hampshire," which included the bobcat and the lynx. 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? Just. The exchange is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio. The DNA the DNA that they were able to pull from the cat suggested that it was a dispersed mountain lion that came. She was having a garden party on her back porch and everybody in the party saw this mountain lion across the field down below the porch. But if people are still seeing mountain lions, why is the state and federal government seeking to COVER IT UP!? Pelosi story here we go. Its closest living relative is the cheetah. Some argue that it's a leap of faith. Contact the Wildlife Division at (603) 271-2461 or wildlife@wildlife.nh.gov to request an observation report form. NHPR is nonprofit and independent. Do cougars live in New England? By, March 2023 Fund Drive Rules and Regulations, Persons with disabilities who need assistance accessing NHPR's FCC public files, please contact us at publicfile@nhpr.org. Have a photo. Really appreciate it. It all used to be based on measurable physical traits color, skull size, paw size, etc but now its based on whether an animal can be shown to be genetically distinct from others. The engineers Dan Colgan our senior producer is Allan Grimm. Listeners give us a call if you'd like. So so do what you can get to do what you can to get proof. 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: Well Mike thanks very much for sharing your story. So Michael follows with the question. So Pat you field a lot of calls about people seeing or reportedly seeing mountain lions. And Rick van de Poll naturalist and founder of ecosystem management consultants of New England. But my experience was that the majority of these accounts could not be taken lightly. I just don't understand the mechanism for how that would happen. Chartered 1973; Member of District 44-H; . I wanted to get your thoughts on the mystique of the mountain lion start with you Rick. Rick van de Poll: Rick van de Poll so I was a non-believer as well. Good morning guys. So if you were to ask me has a mountain lion ever passed through New Hampshire and been spotted by somebody who wasnt able to get hard evidence? Id personally be willing to say "probably, yes.". I don't see the hoaxes anymore at that level. 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 There was no sign of it. 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? Peter Biello: Thank you for sharing that. Thank you very much for that story really appreciate it. If you have them email exchange at an HP board or give us a call to tell us your story. I would say that there's going to be the truth in here somewhere. Less successful males roam further. So yeah as far as wildlife species that put deer and trees know there aren't any others that I know of that put deer in trees just just humans might be responsible for that. BUT THAT SAID, Id love to be proven wrong. Patrick Tate: Yes. Peter Biello: Sam I wanted to ask you a little bit about that first and then turn to Patrick Tate efficient game. Administrative Links. And the cougar embodies that. M from Tree Hill author series presenting Diane lay back. 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. 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. Peter Biello: So a little bit of nostalgia maybe for it for a better world embodied in the mountain lion. We speculate they dont want us to screw up tourism we dont know whats going on. HOLDERNESS, N.H. (AP) Two of the known mountain lions in New Hampshire have spent their 15 years in close proximity to humans. There's always been physical evidence to prove those situations like hair or fur scat hair prints pictures of the animal print scat hair. 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. HOLDERNESS, N.H. (AP) Two of the known mountain lions in New Hampshire have spent their 15 years in close proximity to humans. 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. Patrick Tate: Yeah yeah. Peter Biello: So Patrick today Fish and Game no downward pressure on you to deny the existence at all costs of mountain lions here in New Hampshire. 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. So before we get to the the the the stories of sightings we're getting a lot of calls. No I saw a camel. Rick van de Poll: Oh yeah absolutely. People were calling the New Hampshire Fish and Game director's office saying why are you dragging your feet on this. Its actually fairly reasonable to believe that mountain lions do, at least, pass through occasionally. So they're scary. 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. Pat ruse and he was sampling doing DNA samples from cats in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. They were able to do all that by genetics. They sent it already. Think you've seen a mountain lion. Me Im willing to believe its possible that there are some out there. 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. Your support makes this news available to everyone. Monday, December 5th: Mountain Lions in New Hampshire? As I tried to get a picture of it so there was it was definitely we looked up all the pictures and it was definitely not a bobcat or anything else being it looked just like a mountain lion. Mountain lions can be found throughout Arizona, and data suggests the populations are not only stable, but growing. And sometimes I've seen pictures of those where it's the question is What is that is that a bobcat. Well thanks for sharing. Join as a $8 per month sustainer and get our brand-new owl umbrella! 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. So what those ranges. But you won't find evidence of their existence in paw prints in the snow or a deer carcass in a tree. A lot of times. We live around Cold Springs Campground and it was undeniably a mountain lion. 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. How far were you from this cat. John. If so that's for us as an agency. N.H. Post your sightings and NH photos here! You need you need either a really good photograph or you need you know fresh scat that can be sent to a lab out West that can they can be identified there. Patrick Tate: Well I've never seen an Easter cougar so I can't say when I've handled these 10 cougars and whatnot. Well within there. Peter Biello: I did mention four feet nose to tail would be kind of small for a mountain lion. So and so the idea that they can follow up on every individual sighting is just crazy right. They're just moving around freely. Sam Evans-Brown: And second the evidence required is is you know pretty pretty tough to gather. Thank you. 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. So you want identifiable backgrounds. Sam Evans-Brown has been working for New Hampshire Public Radio since 2010, when he began as a freelancer. So. Rick van de Poll: Well the mountain lion of course has been sort of an enigma in the wildlife suite for years and years. So what counts as verifiable evidence? Patrick Tate: So I'm not sure what subspecies of cat they're using to differentiate by those markings but once she was describing the White other face in the black. We'd be inundated with scouts in the past when newspaper articles have been written about DNA and scouts. 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. brings a lot of. I mean no doubt a seen Bobcat seen his stuff. 44-N Links. And I think this is a really interesting story for a couple of reasons one is that it proves what Pat was saying which that basically from New York state where its traces was really picked up on a game camera around Lake George all the way down to Connecticut there was numerous. Mountain lion or cat running across. I can't. Mountain lions leave a lot of sign. Peter Biello: This is the exchange on an HP yard today we're talking about the mysterious elusive majestic Mystic Mountain Lion. Well let me ask maybe Pat and Rick about this. The big cat has been extinct here since the mid-1800s. You know I think it's there's a lady Holly Ernst out in California who has done a lot of the genotyping of mountain lions in Northern California the ones that are of course most people have heard about taking down hikers bikers etc. "Of those three to five reports,. John you're on the air. This is a machine-generated transcript, and may contain errors. And I was probably about a half a mile from downtown all village on the right. There's these animals aren't coming with a map saying oh I want to go here. I think that you probably are. JavaScript must be enabled for some features to display properly. And I I have this great text history of New Hampshire game and fir bears and I think by Helen Silver who used to work for fish and game and she sort of I kind eyes this animal in one of the quotes from 1892 stating that the catamaran was the most ferocious of all the wild beasts of New Hampshire his great size strength and agility of movement together with his formidable weapons rendered him the terror both of man and beast. They are the same thing. Do they travel. We'll also hear your stories if you have them again. It's unfortunate that that kind of thing happens as often as it does. I have one that's more elaborate than that. 8 9 2 6 4 7 7. Tim Yeah. Okay. Are there Mountain Lions in NH? Patrick Tate: It's wow interesting that you brought this up because I've had people report I saw cardamom. Support for an age PR comes from you our listeners. Oh you saw him online. And why would they what. It's you know I recognized their report and. Sam. Peter Biello: Hmm. But no proof was offered. Tonight, Sean McDonald investigates,. 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. From came from out west they tracked it all the way back to the Black Hills in the Dakotas. OK. That location they just described we had two or three Bobcats radio collared on just off the runway in Laconia airport. This is the exchange. Patrick Tate: I don't believe it is. I was a Bobcat we saw it and I have a picture of it. 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. 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. Patrick Tate: If I could just say one thing. But Absence of Evidence Is Not Evidence of Absence, Right? HOLDERNESS, N.H. (AP) Two of the known mountain lions in New Hampshire have spent their 15 years in close proximity to humans. They create these big latrines that are very obvious. 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. Peter Biello: So let's say Rick that it was confirmed that there that there are mountain lines here in New Hampshire. We'll be right back. Information online ad an age student loans dawg. m from a weed family Automotive on store Street in Concord is serving the Concord area families automotive needs since 1995. They don't know the direction they're going. Mark Elbroch doesnt think so. For over 38 years the Saddleback Mountain Lions have offered people a chance to give back to their community. So do they. The current estimate is 2,000 - 2,700 throughout Arizona. The great thing about pictures isn't the animal itself it's the background. The best documentation we have in New Hampshire suggests there hasnt been a mountain lion killed by a hunter in this state since 1885. 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. Over a period of a year and a half, this Mountain Lion left DNA evidence in at least four states. Have you seen one. Rick your thoughts. for some excitement. Thank you. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. There's a lot of photographs that you can see that it's very clearly a tabby cat that someone has thought was a mountain lion. As wildlife biologists, wed be fascinated to say 'look look what was found in our state.'. Erler is a senior naturalist at the Squam Lakes Natural Science Center in Holderness. GAP MOUNTAIN LIONS CLUB Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire (USA) District 44-N . (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. 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. OK. Peter Biello: From New Hampshire Public Radio I'm Peter Biello in for Lark Knoy and this is the exchange. So. 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. Let's go now to to Kyle in Keene I believe Kyle is this Kyle Jarvis from the Keene Sentinel a former reporter and former reporter. These were normal everyday folks. Peter Biello: Well yeah. Patrick Tate: I've from all the situations I've read and learned about wildlife. Peter Biello: Well hey Rob. We had six copies printed out each. But having read a bit of information about his cougar there are a darker subspecies. I've had a number of people call up and say I found a scout in the woods and I want it DNA identified. Updated: 9:53 AM EST Dec 6, 2016. I've seen him in the woods and that was not a bobcat but I was looking at. 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. Give today. Many people in New Hampshire have claimed to have seen mountain lions. So I just throwing that out there it's interesting. Theyve always said when we have verifiable evidence to say a mountain lion has been, is, or was in the state that wed acknowledge that and give that information out, says Pat Tate, the furbearer biologist with New Hampshire Fish and Game, who insists theres no conspiracy. You can see two of them at Squam Lakes Natural Science Center in Holderness NH. 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 I have to use that word allegedly because there is so much dispute about what people see and what they actually see. And they were using all the habitat. 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. Deer Bear Moose Wolves Fisher Mountain Lions. nh.gov | privacy policy | accessibility policy Lots of people have stories about them, people have them on their game cameras I mean its kind of a thing. So and so they so they do get pretty involved. Peter Biello: Mm hmm. Not one picture of him online while the person meet with us. Let us know your story and share your photos! The American Lion The Saber tooth Tiger and this was the one that survived. John is calling from Bennington. Tate said that while a mountain lion sighting in New Hampshire isn't likely, it's not impossible. That's what we're seeing is dispersing mountain lions from the West who are just making their way through. The second story window through about 30 feet away from it. So. Caller: Hi. 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". That's pretty elaborate. David Erler says some of them probably have. Someone's got to see one they're very secretive. You've got you've got biologists right who are trying to make their make their way in the world make a career if you are the biologists who confirmed a sighting of mountain lions in the state that would be very good for you like you would be all over the news. But you can continue the conversation on Facebook or at our Web site and HP Borg. 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. We mentioned that one cat that was hit by a car where it has it that it was a male looking for me.