Cougar shot in Pennsylvania !

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Response to Cougar Story Overwhelming

Webb Weekly would like to thank our readers for the overwhelming response to our cover story in last week’s issue —‘Cougars, Are They Here?’
The article written by Webb Weekly correspondent China Neal reported upon the controversy of whether or not native cougars exist in Pennsylvania.
It prompted an unbelievable number of phone calls and e-mails from all over the state.


The response to our cougar coverage was overwhelming.

Quite a number of the responders were complimenting China Neal for a very well written article. In addition, we were surprised by the number of people claiming to have sighted a cougar in Central Pennsylvania.
Since this seems to be a very popular subject, keep your attention on future issues of Webb Weekly for further discussion. The author has promised to revisit the subject and several others noted they’d like to write on the subject, as well — both pro and con.
If you have information concerning a possible cougar sighting, tracks or any other evidence, please contact Dr. Dennis Wydra at the Pennsylvania Mountain Lion Research Project at 570-672-7278 or e-mail at dwydra
 
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/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif You asked has there been other sightings in Pennsylvania, oh YES and many...this came out today

http://www.webbweekly.com/

lost the first link..here's the story

A good book or a good movie is about the only thing that can usually keep me up past my bedtime. That was a true statement until I was given a bound log containing over one hundred sightings of mountain lions in Pennsylvania.
Yes, mountain lions, Felis Concolor (cat of one color) pumas, cougars, gato monte (Spanish for cat of the mountain). There is something about these premiere predators that grabs us on a primal, gut level. To the Cherokee they were klandagi, “lord of the forest,” while the Chickasaws called them ko-icto, “cat of god.” Allegedly, the ancient city of Cuzco in Peru is laid out in the shape of a cougar.
Here in Penn State territory cougars, pumas, panthers and of course the Nittany lion are the mascots of choice.
But there’s a problem. Many cougar sightings are reported to the Pennsylvania Game Commission but the commission’s official stance is that there are no such creatures in Pennsylvania.
Jim Collins, an outdoors writer, and Dr. Dennis Wydra, a retired Mansfield State University professor, are researching cougar sightings in the area. Together they formed the Pennsylvania Mountain Lion Research Project for the purpose of educating the public and finding the truth about the cougar’s existence in Pennsylvania.
The log they loaned Webb Weekly after reading my first article on cougars several weeks back contains sightings of cats of various colors and shades from tawny to black and includes pregnant cougars, moms with cubs, and surprisingly cougars wearing radio collars and ear tags. After reading all 164 sightings, I’ve gone cougar crazy. Inquiring minds want to know, have the big cats returned? Or perhaps they never left.
The close encounters of the cougar kind are in fact all over the map. From Unityville to Waterville. From Sunbury all the way up to the New York state line. Muncy, Williamsport, Jersey Shore, Wellsboro, Canton, and more are all represented in the log.
There is a sighting in the Newberry area which — even if it turned out to be a bob cat or a coyote — would put four schools Round Hills, Jackson Elementary, Roosevelt Middle School and Williamsport High School within the animal’s territory.
The Pennsylvania Game Commission has gone on record and repeatedly tells anyone who calls there is not a wild, breeding population of cougars in Pennsylvania. While the sightings may be legitimate, the rationale is that the cougars must be escaped or released pets. Or more likely they are cases of mistaken identity — a bobcat or coyote.
Collins and Wydra are skeptical. They possess considerable photographic and written evidence to the contrary. They say there are too many sightings by credible people for them to be cases of mistaken identity. The people reporting the sightings do not appear to be fringe dwellers they are hunters, football coaches, bankers, insurance agents and members of law enforcement; just everyday people, your friends and neighbors.
Mountain lions were allegedly hunted until they were extirpated, meaning they used to be here now they are gone. The last cougar killed in Pennsylvania was in the 1890’s. Unless you believe the story of John Gallant, a hunter from Edinboro who shot and killed a small 48 pound female mountain lion while squirrel hunting on private land in Venango Township, near Edinboro. The article appearing in the Union City Times in 1967 reported that Gallant had also spotted a larger lion weighing possibly 200 pounds, which was tracked but never found. According to the article, District Game Protector Elmer Simpson certified the cat as a mountain lion
For your consideration:
Pennsylvania may be following the pattern of the other states — sightings, skepticism more sightings and then actual proof. No one believed the sightings of mountain lions in Illinois until a train killed one. Or in Nebraska, “Mountain lions, also called cougars or pumas, had not turned up in Nebraska for more than a century until a deer hunter in the Pine Ridge area killed one in 1991.Since then, there have been 10 confirmed sightings in western and central Nebraska”. (Reported by AP writer Sarah Fox in the Lawrence Journal-World.)
Webb Weekly engaged in email conversation with Mark Jakubauskas, Ph.D., Research Associate Professor, University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. Dr Jakubauskas wrote, “It's been two years now since I set off a firestorm of local media attention by releasing a game-camera photo of an apparent cougar. What a lot of people even here in Kansas don't realize or know is that several days after I took the picture, I found a scat sample several hundred feet from the camera location, sent it off to Central Michigan University for tests, and it came back positive for cougar.
Semper Paratus is Latin for always prepared. If there is any chance that one of our readers might encounter a mountain lion in Pennsylvania or elsewhere, Webb Weekly wants you to be prepared.
Here are a few safety tips taken from a larger list provided by Dr. Wydra (space prevents the publishing of the entire list), for a more comprehensive list please visit the website below which Dr. Wydra provided. http://gf.state.wy.us/services/university/educationexam/lion/:


• Always hike, backpack, and camp in wild areas with a companion
• If you encounter a cougar, always maintain eye contact.
• Never show fear. Never turn away. Never run away.
• Stand tall and if you are with another person, stand two or three together.
• Don’t kneel or crouch.
• Don’t scream and keep children from screaming.
• Carry a big stick.
• If attacked, fight.

Are sightings a case of mountain lion mass hysteria? Consistently game commissions across the country deny both the existence of a wild breeding population east of the Mississippi and the accusation that agencies are stocking the big cats to control the deer population.
Is the Pennsylvania mountain lion an urban/rural myth like the girl hitchhiking on prom night who turns out to be a ghost? Do cougars and big foot fall under the same category?
The most logical course of action regardless of what you believe is to look for credible evidence. The truth is out there, perhaps sunning itself in the beautiful forests of Lycoming County.
If you have a sighting, picture, scat, tracks or any evidence of cougars in Pennsylvania, please contact Dr. Dennis Wydra at 570-672-7278 or email at dwydra@ptd.net.
Webb Weekly will continue to follow up with the Pennsylvania Mountain Lion Research Project.
Special appreciation is given to Mr. Jim Collins, Mr. Bernie Synoracki and Dr. Dennis Wydra for contacting Webb Weekly and sharing their pictures, documents and information.


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Great news Cougardaville!!!!!

THIS BOGGLES MY MIND:

We have the cougar ...... it's building populations "out west" DISPORPORTIONAL to what it's range was "Pre-settlement" and now many of our experts act as though there is some GREAT WALL TO COUGAR??????

The logical question is not "Could Cougars be in the EAST?"

IT'S "WHAT'S STOPPING THEM?"

Anwser: NOTHING!! ...... no physical barriers and NO WOLVES to drive them off their kills in the plains areas.

........ Mindless Experts!

Three 44s
 
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"If a government type did not hear the tree fall in the woods" /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif Did the tree really fall???? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

If dozens upon dozens of people see cougars ........ habituated cats at very close range but a gamie did not witness it ............. The dozens upon dozens of people must all be CRACKED! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/angry-smiley-055.gif

Yup! Bring on the conselors!!!!!!!! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smiliesmack.gif

Good info Cougardaville!

Thanks

Three 44s
 
as for a picture there is a picture in washington pa store that a guy got a picture of on with a night camera
on a deer feeder during deer season this year and no douht it is a cat and a big one
 
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as for a picture there is a picture in washington pa store that a guy got a picture of on with a night camera
on a deer feeder during deer season this year and no douht it is a cat and a big one



Can you get a copy of that picture???
Cougardaville
 
I have heard about cougar sightings for years.Some were from state forest workers,hunters,and others,including my son.I still have a hard time believing it.I have seen tracks that some would have taken for cougars.I personaly believe large bobcats are mistaken for cougars.Some really large bobcats can go 70lbs.or more.I think when some of these people see a large bobcat,they are so excited that they don't pay attention to detail,and will swear they seen a cougar.
I won't say they didn't see what they said,they seen,but i'm skeptical.
Why hasn't a half million hunters or so,killed one in deer season? Then there is bear season and small game,no mountain lions have been killed?
There is no way,that i will believe it,unless i see it.I have hunted this state,east,west,north and south for 45 years and never seen any sign of a cougar.If one is out there,i sure would like to see him,and i'm not talking about one that got loose from a pen.
 
If cougar somehow escaped detection in Pennsylvania for a century, they'd be awfully shy and retiring. Why all the hype and fear then?

Because it makes for good pennysaver tabloid copy, perhaps?

'Cuz what card-carrying Appalachian Hillbilly (and I can say that with a smile, bein' that I are one, born at Lewisberry, York Co., PA, yet a property-owner in Armstrong Co.) can resist a good Guv'ment Rev'noor conspiracy theory and ghost story rolled into one?

But I remain skeptical that they're there, and find it simply not credible at all that there is any present proliferation of them.

Here in CA, I see beaucoups lion sign, clearly and incontrovertably P. concolor: scrapes, scat and tracks, and yet very, very few lions. Yet we have them in relative abundance. There'd be similar incontrovertable evidence of them, if they were established residents in PA. With so many hunters as yote tote mentions, more and more evidence should be turned up, contrasted with relatively few actual sightings... but that's apparently not the case, is it?

How very true that many bobcat sightings get reported as lion sightings.

Further, I happen to know what ML mostly eat (deer) and what little collateral damage they cause (livestock and pets, occasionally, extremely low incidence of attacks on humans, even where abundant). Happen to also have a pretty good idea of what roughly ~1 million PA deer eat (themselves out of house-and-home) and what collateral damage they cause (crazed buck gorings of people during the rut, thousands upon thousands of annual car accidents-incl. lots of human fatalities- high prevalence of deer-tick borne Lyme disease-- and these are just for starters.) So if there happens to be a few surviving or returning and now resident cougars it would not, on balance, necessarily be a bad thing for Pennsylvanians.


LionHo
 
This brings back a lot of memories. I lived in Mc:Kean, PA. I thought the cougar was actually shot in Mc:Lane which is between Mc:Kean and Edinboro where it says it was shot. I was 10 yrs. old at the time. My brother 4 yrs. older than me let me tag along with him and his little four ten. Didn't realize at the time that he was going to use me as cougar bait. We came upon tracks that sure as [beeep] looked like a BIG cat! He told me to stay put by this stand of pines hoping he'd get a shot at the cat. I swear I heard growling. Then come to find out Mr. Gallant shot a cougar within about 3 to 5 miles of where we saw the tracks, and only a week or two later. I remember a big crew went after the other cat. I thought that they did eventually get it. I just called my oldest brother. He said they never did get the second cat. Sorry for going on and on...I've been wanting to reply to this post for a long time.
 
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I have a an Outdoorlife magazine with that story somewhere. I was just looking at the January 1980 issue with a story of an archer that killed a grizzly in Colorado, where they say they have no grizzly's. You just never know, sometimes the critters don't read. I can remember when you got laughed at for seeing a moose or a fisher. That cougar that was killed by a car in Conn. a few years ago came from So. Dakota, so must have passed through Pa. But if your not looking for tracks, scat or scrapes you will walk right by.
Keep your camera handy, and keep your back to a big tree when you call.
 
Originally Posted By: masshunterI have a an Outdoorlife magazine with that story somewhere. I was just looking at the January 1980 issue with a story of an archer that killed a grizzly in Colorado, where they say they have no grizzly's. You just never know, sometimes the critters don't read. I can remember when you got laughed at for seeing a moose or a fisher. That cougar that was killed by a car in Conn. a few years ago came from So. Dakota, so must have passed through Pa. But if your not looking for tracks, scat or scrapes you will walk right by.
Keep your camera handy, and keep your back to a big tree when you call.
seems like several come out of south dakota. I wonder if thats true or something made up. I know of 4 that were killed in Oklahoma and all 4 had "DNA" from South Dakota stock...according to the ODWC
 
They claim they traced it by DNA from scat through several states Michigan being one, that it had passed through. Around the same time frozen tracks were found, photographed, and identified at the Quabbin reservoir in central Mass. It had to have crossed many roads and trails but no others were found. For years there was a hotline to a MassWildlife office that had a list of houndsmen who would put dogs on a fresh track,or at a sighting but none ever found. I think that program has ended, but other states should take that up, could settle some sightings. Always an interesting topic.
 
There has recently been a trail camera picture circulating, supposedly from my area in Ohio, of a mountain lion carrying a coyote in its mouth. Looks a little fishy to me, but who knows. I think it's certainly possible for an animal to travel outside of it's supposed range.
I would think that unless your life was in danger it would be illegal to kill a mountain lion in a state that has no open season...is that correct?
 
Each state is different concerning livestock and life protection.
The mountain lion has to be on the top of the list of animals that will definately travel. I was visiting with a Biologist the other day that said they were tracking a male mountian lion that had been collared in South Dakota and now it resides in New Mexico. He said it was very interesting to map the gps pings the collar sent. He said it spent quite some time in Colorado and spent just a brief amount of time passing thru the edge of Kansas and Nebraska on the way to New Mexico.
 
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I would think with the number of Houndsmen hunting that someone would have treed one by now.
 
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If you have many of anything the gozillon trail cameras out there will get a picture or two.
 
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Do you want to hear more?



Of course!
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Do you want to hear more?



Of course!
I was 10 yrs. old living in McKean, PA when this happened. My older brother and me saw what looked like cougar tracks in the field near our house about 2 weeks before John Gallant shot the smaller cougar. My brother took my Dad up to look at the tracks. Then after Mr. Gallant shot the smaller one, they had just about every hunter and every kind of dog from McKean and General McKane out hunting for the bigger one that got away. They even had poodles! LOL!
I grew up in McKean but in my 40's I moved to Grand Valley, PA about halfway between Corry and Titusville, PA). Around 2002 I was on the wheeler way out back with my dog and I watched as a cougar and her 3 cubs leaped across the hillside on the other side of the beaver swamp that was between us. Two of the cubs were black. I was afraid to go in the woods for a long time after that.
 
I was 10 yrs. old living in McKean, PA when this happened. My older brother and me saw what looked like cougar tracks in the field near our house about 2 weeks before John Gallant shot the smaller cougar. My brother took my Dad up to look at the tracks. Then after Mr. Gallant shot the smaller one, they had just about every hunter and every kind of dog from McKean and General McKane out hunting for the bigger one that got away. They even had poodles! LOL!
I grew up in McKean but in my 40's I moved to Grand Valley, PA about halfway between Corry and Titusville, PA). Around 2002 I was on the wheeler way out back with my dog and I watched as a cougar and her 3 cubs leaped across the hillside on the other side of the beaver swamp that was between us. Two of the cubs were black. I was afraid to go in the woods for a long time after that.
General McLane. Sorry for the spelling errors. I should proofread first
 
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