I live pretty much on the town line of Greenfield just a couple of miles down in the Greenfield. So when we talk about the threshold of evidence required to say for sure you have seen a mountain lion it is rather high. 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. You saw what you saw. Yes and you want to share what you learned. Fish and Wildlife Service decided all of the cougars, pumas, and mountain lions in the country are actually the same species, and that species hasnt had a breeding population anywhere near the Northeast for at least 70 years. The second story window through about 30 feet away from it. Patrick Tate: Same here in New Hampshire too. Kyle I think about Rick Tate wants to jump in here. No that's a little bit outside the range. Which goes back to the Connecticut Connecticut cat and what not. So that's the specimen that you find going long distances. They were able to do all that by genetics. Really appreciate it. It's bigger but bigger and better world. People have asked me about the genetics of eastern mountain lion. Oh you saw him online. Michael Brindley is our program manager our producers our Jessica Hunt and Christina Phillips and our theme music was composed by Bob Lord. 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. I'm Peter B yellow. 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. Your support makes this news available to everyone. Here she is talking about how to identify a mountain lion. So so they're just a very resilient species and they're pretty they're pretty neat. 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. SYCAMORE, Ill. (AP) A mountain lion that was struck and killed last weekend along a northern Illinois highway will be analyzed by biologists seeking to uncover the rare animal's origins, state . (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 wanted to get your thoughts on the mystique of the mountain lion start with you Rick. The last known mountain lion killed in New Hampshire is displayed at the Woodman Museum in Dover. So when we hear mountain lion there's also cougar there's wild cat there's Bobcat which is not a mountain lion maybe Patrick could you sort of spell out the different terms which are synonymous and which are completely different animals. The one confirmed case, sometimes referred to as the " Connecticut Mountain Lion " happened in June 2011 when an SUV struck and killed a cougar in Milford. And what was really remarkable about the whole thing was I was maybe a half mile down on all buildings. Pat do they typically just move around a lot. And why would they what. Using DNA and physical evidence, state environmental officials said they determined that the animal . 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. The females disperse a shorter range and once they find a vacant home range they stay in that location and live there. Long before NASA was asked to put a man on the moon one engineer had already figured out how to get there. We're gonna talk about sightings in this part of the program as well we'd love to hear your story. So we're fixated on natural but there's other possibilities. I'm Peter Biello in for Laura NOI. But I was riding a mountain bike not far from my house. For evidence of a free-roaming, wild and native mountain lion, we must look back to 1874. But you've done some reporting on this. So I certainly can't dispute anything that they said there's no evidence for me to go by to verify or say what my thoughts are on the situation. But no proof was offered. Let us know your story and share your photos! Peter Biello: Worth mentioning if we're scaring anybody question a mysterious mountain lions lurking perhaps in someone's backyard. Fish and Game then deny the evidence. NHPR is nonprofit and independent. 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 states never denied mountain lions are here, and theyve never admitted mountain lions are here. In recent years, number of reported cougar sightings has never dropped below double digits, according to data from New Hampshire's Fish & Game Department from 2010 to present day. Osga's group of volunteers sent hair samples. And here we're talking about in this situation we're talking about it migrated from the West. The way that we define species has undergone a revolution with the advent of DNA testing. Well Is DNA the most reliable means we have of identifying whether or not what we saw is actually a mountain lion. And it was unmistakable. Patrick Tate New Hampshire Fish and Game Wildlife Biologist thanks very much for being here this morning really appreciate it. I mean it wasn't your idea. In Vermont, it was 1881. What's going on. That's pretty elaborate. Here it is. Caller: Are probably. What kind of animal is that. But if you were to get Western dispersing mountain lions just would just sort of expanding into New Hampshire. Which which I think Pat and I have both experienced. May 18, 2012 Mountain Lion Killed In Conn. And that the Florida panther was more closely related to the eastern outline than the western mountain lion was. Rick van de Poll: Yes. Patrick Tate: Exactly I was gonna bring that up juvenile male of. Somewhere the way they travel the things they do they're going to leave evidence. And when provoked no animal could stand before him elegantly put. Caller: Absolutely. I've seen him in the woods and that was not a bobcat but I was looking at. 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. And those are not the same things. So they're not afraid of humans and they'll show up like a regular housecat. Peter Biello: And that will make identification for a layperson rather difficult. And you know all that. My wife and I saw a mountain lion. So I would put this in the category of sort of like shark attacks right. The scientific name for the catamount is Puma concolor. As far as I could tell there was a positive DNA sequence coming from the scat sample Patrick. John. We'll be right back. It was in the spring flash kind of early summer and my wife looked at you look at the size of an adult bear and we were up in arms. He told me that on one of his many scouting trips for Black Bear he found a deer carcass up in a tree. Thanks for a great thanks. Sue Morse: First and foremost if you have color or if you could see details of color look at the front of the face around the Pumas muzzle the muzzle itself is pure white. And I was probably about a half a mile from downtown all village on the right. Caller: I have yeah. Well let's hear from from Sue Morse again science director for the organization keeping track. 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.". New York on Easter Sunday. Really appreciate you guys being here as well. They create these scrapes where theyre communicating with each other with scent. So what counts as verifiable evidence? New Hampshire Public Radio | They peaked in . Just. So there is definitely no downward pressure by anyone. Peter Biello: They make great mascots at least. So it's there was no question in my mind. I just don't understand the mechanism for how that would happen. 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. And boy it was big it had to be at least 200 pounds the thing was you and and it just made a little bit of noise and it was gone. Patrick Tate: So I agree with what Sam said in part that their ability to go undetected for amount of time but ultimately it was detected. Can you look into this picture. Email exchange it an HP fraud org or give us a call 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7. Car Crash 65 Miles From Mass. Jun 13, 2011. 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. 8 9 2 6 4 7 7. I didn't see him online. 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. I'm Peter Biello. 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. They are the same thing. Yeah I did. And that's this morning at 10:00 here on NH PR. Id like to hazard the explanation that we really, really want to see a mountain lion. We're going to talk a little bit more about habitat first but then we'll get into sightings. And they asked me about the tail which I just did not remember that tail out of that whole experience. Have you heard stories do you have questions about the mountain line. Wes Siler. Now that to me seemed to indicate that they had done the secondary workup that in my opinion proved the existence of probably a disperse or possibly from South Dakota like the one in 2011. Can you tell us about that story. The last catamount in Vermont is finally, officially, certainly dead. If so that's for us as an agency. We'd be inundated with scouts in the past when newspaper articles have been written about DNA and scouts. Pat ruse and he was sampling doing DNA samples from cats in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Peter Biello: Well yeah. Credit: Elizabeth Nichols via Storyful . Peter Biello: Oh okay. We've met Fish and Game's BURDEN OF PROOF. I mean there was this one lady I remember and tough tomorrow. I would just suggest that in my experience as a reporter covering this covering this issue for a few years at least at what point do we reach a certain critical mass for lack of a better term of accounts where I'm not to suggest that you guys aren't taking this possibility seriously. Caller: Hi. 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. You need a permit to have that. So I just brought up the bobcat thing because the location is fascinating to me that that that location we have Bobcats existing but that location we have a mountain lion report because it's a developed area and which brings me back to earlier what I had said it's a bouncing ball. We actually have the largest subspecies of bobcat in the northern part of our state which they can get up to 40 and over 40 pounds which looks like an 80 pound the animal to visually and quite large. Now again I don't know that there's anything to that. Okay. Mike Guyton pressure was almost Greyhound like very muscular large back legs on it and the coloration on it was almost an orange brownish orange color and so I stop and I look at this thing in the field and as the animal looks at me the face was very chiseled definitely not a bobcat. So let's let's go to the phones. So now what's going on. Let us know your story and share your photos. Peter Biello: I did mention four feet nose to tail would be kind of small for a mountain lion. So so it is possible in Maine to still to to to have one but you have to be sort of professional handler as it were. But before I go any further I want to say we do not have sufficient game. Thank you very much for being here. Love hearing these stories. And a lot of people around the county airport have seen a lot of pilots coming in said they saw huge. Yes. On a dirt road. Mountain Lion report and as a biologist for the state that's a situation where if he said to me what did I see. Our guests today Patrick Tate New Hampshire Fish and Game Wildlife biologist Sam Evans Brown host of an HP podcast outside in. Pat humans people leave deer carcasses up in trees. You know you have to have a license and it's hard to get that license a license to own a mountain lion. Seems reasonable! Sam Evans-Brown: But I mean the video I had been sent was you know a recording of a animal growling but it was in slow motion and when I asked the person why is this in slow motion the denied that it was so there's a lot of weird stuff that happens in regards to people claiming they've seen they've seen these things. Caller: I do. Patrick Tate: Okay. There's just one subspecies of North American mountain lion. Information online ad an age student loans dawg. Give us a call if you have a question or comments or story about perhaps seeing a mountain lion here in New Hampshire. Let's look for other evidence. The tail leave is a giveaway but not everybody gets to see the tail. Peter Biello: Mm hmm. 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. 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