NorthPA

Good post Phil. Here in PA, with our bobcat season being closed for many, manyyears, and only recently re-opened on a very limited basis, we have grown some of the biggest cats possible.
A couple of years ago I took video of a bobcat in my field. One of my neighbors who was around 67 years old and has lived in these mountains all of his life, looked at the video and said "by God that's a mountian lion."
The tail was fairly long and it was a huge cat. I had seen the cat with my own eyes and through binocs and knew it was a bobcat, but the mere size of it convinced several people it had to be a cougar.
I sent the video to several experienced cat people who viewed it and estimated 60 pounds or more -- bobcat!
I emailed Lenoard Lee Rue III, and got some information from him on bobcats. There are some on record that exceed 70 pounds and at least one or two that have gone over the 80-pound mark.
Cats continue to grow their entire life (including tail length), if they have good food supplies. This cat probably caused quite a few "cougar" sightings.
Here is a picture of a very small cat for this area:

sproulman

people who think a bobcat looks like a mountain lion, well, they are not in woods enough..

when you see mountain lion,it will have tail at least 2 ft long..it will look like a wip behind cat while he is running..lions head will be small and round,no pointed ears like bobcat..lion will have sucjh a small head. later you will say,BOY, WAS THAT CATS HEAD SMALL BETWEEN SHOULDERS..

ALSO LION WILL HAVE DIFFERENT COLOR ON COAT THAN A BOBCAT AND COAT LOOKS SOLID ON COLOR NOT BLACK SPECKS YOU SEE IN BOBCAT..

all this i saw WITHOUT ever looking at mountain lion picture..big difference between the 2, for sure..

Phil from Maine

I am not disagreeing with you sproulman, I am only stating with a faded out cat track no one knows what made it. As other members of the cat family can and will leave big tracks. Here the eastern cougar is said to be non existent but, just north and west of here a female with three cubs have been recorded and documented. They are much smaller then what people think. The easterns are not nearly as big as the western ones. If you had seen one that big it was probably a released cat and not of the eastern kind. But it is possible none the less.

Thanks North, here they use to hunt them and now only a few hunt them. More get shot calling coyotes then hunting for them. When I was growing up they use to hunt them all the time with dogs. Today only a few do. Also less trappers are trapping today as they have been getting older and fewer folks are doing it nowadays. So here the bobcats are becoming more and more common and our bird hunting is getting harder and harder for us. So the cats are getting less pressure and are doing good here.

sproulman

the cougar i saw,was small..the color of him and small head is what i remember most and LONG tail wagging behind..

no way bobcat is even close to looking like what i saw,which was young mountain lion..

davs2601

Holy crap those bobcats are frickin huge!! congrats to you guys

DougE

Sproulman,what are you talking about.You had a picture of a bobcat posted earlier and tried convincing everyone it was a mountain lion.

moose1915

**cue the circus music**

sproulman

as usual, douge, you dont tell all FACTS on that picture..

first that picture was taken in keating,pa area..they have been seeing a lion there..

second, i did not take picture,it was taken by camp owner in that area..

third, the picture WAS in newspaper and it was labeled,mountain lion with ?

i only put in on here asinfo..the tail area was hard to see if it did have 2 ft tail..i believe after having the picture looked at more that it was a BOBCAT..

i did not seecat ,only picture..people that took it were convinced that it was not BOBCAT..

they were there,not me..

just because a person sees or feels they saw a lion and its not does not mean that they have not..this is why i carry a camcorder now in my blazer and while walking all trails here from now until april..

i cover a lot of land here in sproul..i go to different place at least 2 times a week, mostly sat/sun as i am off work then..i walk for about 6 hours each day..

i am trying to learn how to put pictures on here from my camcorder for us..

douge, i could go around and say,WELL DOUGE,WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS SEEING DEER AND NONE OF US ARE.. i could say, WELL, YOU MUST BE A GREAT HUNTER AND HUNT WAYBACK, YES THATS IT ,YOU HUNT WAYBACK..

i wont,i will let hunters on here draw their own conclusions..

DougE

I do see deerand I can prove it by opening up my freezer.You can also contact anyone with the PGC and ask them to look up my harvest report cards.It takes them about a minute to get that information.People say they see these mountain lions but no one has proof.

I don't generally hunt way back in either except for a few places in and around Cameron county.

jhalfhill

I sighted a mountain lion in southwest PA two years ago. I'm 100% sure of what I saw. Never head of them beeing around here before. I was kinda scared because I was scouting and didn't have a weapon.