I had made a couple of posts on this topic in a previous thread, but have been staying out of this one due to the fact that now matter what evidence was brought up there are people that refuse to believe or even consider the fact that there are mountain lions in NY - I do not believe there are very many of them and I do not know how they got here; be it released pets or DEC whatever, but they are here.

The reason that I am posting this is because, on Friday 5/20/05 my brother Michael was fishing on Elton creek in the town of Delevan, NY on Delevan Elton Rd., and he personally saw a mountain lion.

Now let me give you some background on this. Since last summer there have been three vehicles sighted along the rd that follows Elton Creek - these vehicles do not have any DEC logos or any other distinguishing makings that would lead me to belive that they are DEC or NYS Fish and Game officials, but the one vehicle has a License Plate the Says WEHUNT.

These vehicles have been sighted many times by my parents, my parents neigbors, and myself with a radio tracking reciever scanning the woods on the other side of the creek. The wood over there covers a very large area. It is a pretty much square section of woods the goes between California Hill Rd., to Elton Rd, and from Delevan Elton Rd, to Bixby Hill Rd.

There have also been complaints by my parents neighbors that say that about 2AM every night their dogs go nuts barcking at something in the creek bed. My brother has fished this creek since he was twelve he and myself both spend more time on the water and in the woods than almost anybody I have ever met. We have both seen mountain lions while visiting my uncle Gary in ID and my uncle shot one with his bow a couple of years ago. So it is not like we are some city folk that think a woodchuck is a bear cub we know or stuff and we have ran traplines for years in this same secion of woods. I have personally seen Black bear up there and know that there are sections of that wood that people just have never made it to when deer hunting.

The incident that occured on 5/20/05 - was this; my brother was fishing and heard something behind him. He has kicked up deer many times in the thick brush in the creek bottom so he didn't think much of it. He turned around and saw something large and very lite brown moving through the brush about 25 yards away. He said it was lighter than a deer. He expected to see the white tail of a deer flash as it ran off but it didn't run it slowly workedd its way through the brush to the edge of the woods near a large ridge. When it slarted to walk in to the woods and up the ridge my brother could clearly see that it was a mountain lion. He said it was easily 6 to 7 feet long and had a very long tail. He felt a little uneasy at this point and figured he had done enough fishing for the day.

We both figure without any hard evidence we would here the typical "where's the picture" from everyone so we are going back down to the creek over the next couple of days to look for tracks, a kill, scatt, or some hair where it had been beded down.

Since we were kids we have been told there were mountian lions over there and that people have seen tracks in the creek bed made from a large cat and that was 20 years ago. If anyone has any info on and agency or whatever that the people with the tracking device might be from I would love to know. As for what we find. I will be keeping you all posted.