DennyF

It's scary to think these people have loaded weapons with them in the woods.

If we're lucky, they mostly stay indoors at their keyboards.

Matt / PA

Yep here is justONE example of many why it's hard to take the cougar thing seriously..........

http://www.archerytalk.com/vb/showthread.php?t=568837&highlight=Cougar

sproulman

the cougar i saw was seen at cemetery on KEATING MTN.

I HOPE YOU KNOW WHERE THAT IS.

my relatives OWNED keating mtn where you now hunt.
i grew up hunting there when it was nothing to see 40 deer a drive.
my cousin was mike donelly,he ran motel there near bottom of keating mtn.now i believe its owned by pete kinsely group DIRECTOR of the USP.talk to him, i bet he has storys to tell on cougar or coyotes in that area also.
his camp is along river near rr
tracks and is a good friend of mine.

i have friends that have camp on keating mtn also.

they have big gang and have been there for 30 yrs or more.
they hunt the KELLEY ESTATE,hope you know where that is?
they saw COUGAR and lots of coyotes and lots of bobcats.

also you have local hunters in big crews, from renovo that i know.
they drive all of river hills etc in keating, have been, they have camp there for 70 yrs, yes 70 yrs..

did they see cougar,you bet.
did they see plenty of coyotes, you bet.
did they see lots of bobcats, you bet.

i have seen over 30 bobcats in years i have hunted in clinton/potter/cameron/centre/so/lycoming.
i saw 2 coyotes last week but did not get shot, this is when i found all those pine trees pulled over,i have topic started on that too.
being ilive in lock haven, i have easy access to many counties close to home.

you can find me everyday ,i can in woods ice fishing at bush dam or coyote hunting..

i of my friends ALONE got 12 coyotes?
most were in clinton county.

dont want to get off the cougar topic on to coyotes.

but therereliable reports of cougar sighting in keating.

would you like to talk to 3 of my friends that live in bitumen.
i assume you know where that is?
they all saw cougar and 2 of them saw cougarmore than 1 time and i trust them on what they saw..

they have hunted that area all their lives,50/60 years.

guess what, none of them ever saw cougar before, none..
no one has a story of cougar back in OLD DAYS ,not in their family or MINE.

SO, cougars we are seeing has happened from about 1990,s to now.SAME with coyotes.

believe what you want,i am not trying to change your mind.

yes, some sighting with cameras could most likely be BOBCATS ,1 in keating we had we had it tested.

it turned out to be a BOBCAT,i reported on that on here and too the newspaper.

but sighting by SPORTSMEN who are in woods from birth that know a bobcat and i know personelly, i TRUST THERE WORD ON WHAT THEY SAW..

did you know that local DCNR boys saw cougars also in clinton.

they are out there everyday.

again, believe what you want.

SteveBNy

No - those where reports - not confirmations. They would have had to travel thru a lot of populated land to reach Pa.
600 with NO proof of any kind - not 1 picture, carcess, track, hair sample - NOTHING.

Until there is something real and verifiable - I will believe the truth - no wild pop in NY.

Steve

sproulman

pa and ny are close/
we have 1400 SIGHTING here and steve,YOU have 600.

when i was at meeting at lock haven university on trying to save our deer here in WMU2G,i happened to notice a official that is involved with predators here in pa.

we had coffee and talked, he stated that he felt the coyotes were migrating down from NEW YORK STATE.

he could not answer WHY we were seeing more coyotes in 1 or 2 years that we ever saw in out life in woods or our fathers going back to 1900,s.

that has continued from 1990,s to today.

now, a coyote is a common predator to see..

we are also seeing fischers, eagles, hawks in great numbers,predators we never saw in great numbers.

of course, the last 3 are confirmed that they were STOCKED here in pa.

COUGAR/COYOTES has not been CONFIRMED that they were stocked here in pa.
PGCused to say they DO NOT EXIST.now they say coyotes have always been here,or migrated hereand cougars are RElEASED PETS.

at least we are getting them to admitt that,thats step forward,years ago you would have gotten a DENIAL on those 2 ever being in state of pa.

if anyone does see a COUGAR, please get that info to PGC right away and also PM the experts at the cougar command center..
PGC is taking info now thanks to our state reps getting involved.

www.easternpumaresearch.com

Matt / PA

Long story short..........nothing against the good people of WMU 2G and their opinions and sightings but until someone comes up with REAL PROOF rather than second hand anecdotal evidence I don't believe any of them.

Like I said it's been PROVEN here that a frightening number of people cannot tell the difference between a Bobcat and a Mt. Lion on a trail cam picture in the open, in broad daylight........I don't CARE if they've lived there for 100yrs. Show me a body, or a picture that proves it's in PA or your wasting your time trying to convince me.
Someone SAYING they saw one means NOTHING, ZIPPO, NADDA. Sorry.

I know basically the entire area from Keating to Pottersdale, from the Sinnamhoning to the W. Branch of the Susquehanna. We drive it every year with a fairly large crew for over a week in muzzleloader season WITH SNOW ON THE GROUND. We've seen NOTHING, except a couple bobcats ,deer, some nice elk and black bears and obviously coyotes. I saw one that sat down on a rock 20 yards from me and he was BIG. Easily confused for something else had he been at a distance.

I don't disagree that the predator numbers are up, farmers don't shoot hawks anymore or pole trap them like they did back in the 70's.......that's a little expensive now. Gone are the days of high fur prices for foxes , almost nobody traps like they did 30 years ago when a red would bring $75.
Bobcats populations have always been pretty healthy and coyotes just aren't profitable or easy to hunt. They're dogs and dogs breed like crazy.
Look at the original wolves released around Yellowstone..........look what that small number has become in only 12yrs since release.

Of course animals migrate to and from NY, last I heard they can't read maps and there isn't a 10ft high fence across the border.......just lots of shared forest and farmland.

I love the idea that there could be a population of cougars here, I just don't believe it for a second. SHOW ME A BODY, SHOW ME SOME PROOF. SIGHTINGS ARE NOT PROOF. I don't care if the person lived there their entire lives over generations. People see what they want to see, people believe what they want to believe.

jf5

Ah, the cougar debate once again. My added 2 cents...

First off,I don't get the correlation of coyote sightings and the cougars. Yotes have been documented as rising in population all over the Northeast U.S.A. since the 1930's by multipleF& G agencies.

I try and keep an open mind and think maybe, just maybe there where a few eastern cougars that remained, breed, and aremenant populationexists now. Or maybe, just maybe, a few releases resulted in some wild propogation. But these are big maybe's in my mind. I await the real proof of breeding populations before I would ever accept it as fact!

We have a camp in western MA with over 1600 acres behind it Locals swear we have a couger out back. they saw it after all, "many times". I, my two brothers, my father, and two family friends have been all over the cover the past 4 years.But despite hundreds of hours in the woods there, allot of it in snow,not one track or anything. We do have some nice sized yotes, bears, and bobcats though. All of us have seen lion tracks while hunting in Montana. So we have an idea what to look for.

I have been hunting other parts of the Berkshires for over 20 years in areas lions are claimed to have been seen. No tracks. I hunted PA and NH too, never seen any sign,

MY father hunted VT and MA for over 50 years. Never seen tracks.

My two brothers have close to 60 combinedyears of hunting, and hiking MA, never seen any sign. One runs the state search and rescue program with a large group doing searches all over the woods. No lions sighted.

Several friends that have hunted MA and Maine in areas that cougars are claimed..yep. No sign.

My taxidermist is also a hunter and trapper In south VT. Puts on many miles through thefall and winter in the woods. He too has local talesof mtn lionsinthe areas he traps andhunts. Been doing it for 35+ years. No sign on Mtn lions. I asked another old timer trapperwith 50+ years experiencein northern VT...no sighting of lions either, despite the many resports of sightings there too.

My friend grew up in Warren PA. Hunted and fished (still does)the PA wildsnow for almost 30 years. No sign ever, and he's heard all the claims.

I can go on...I ask almost every hunter & trapperI know, some are evenbelievers, but even they admit...never seen one or any sign.

Now I am not saying that the claims are all lies. Some are off course, but many are simple miss-id's by well meaning individualsIMO. the shear fact that none seem to be backed up with biological facts really hurts the case. And when I see bobcats and other animals as posted online asproof, it says allot about these sightings.

A few years back we had a "mountain lion" reported in the town ofWeston, MA, a very populated town on the outskirts of a major city (Lowell, MA). While there are some woods, its not exactly vast wilderness or even a few good sized hills. Its flat,suburban sprawl. The state police put it on the electric signs along the major highways "Warning: Mountain Lion reported" Hundreds of motorists saw these signs, the press picked it up and it was local news. Two days later this "mountain lion" was found to be nothing more than a largeexotictype ofhousecat! The problem was now it was "fact" in many peoples minds since the state policeand media can't be wrong. (Even though the press reported the housecat days later) So many are now 100%"sure" Weston MA area has mountain lions [:@]

And think about this from a F&G prospective. You get 1,400 Mtn lion sightings annually. Even if one or two are legit...how many times can they rush to the scene only to see bobcat sign?? Off course they brush most of it off. They have other things to do, and running to every claim is costly.

It also makes me wonder how these sightings are so common in PA, NY,MA, NHetc, when in places that have good populations of Mt lions (west US)a sighting is rare. many of these are the same guys that can't see deer??? [&:]

I am sorry, but the vast majoirty of the reports from the Northeast US are simply not real. I can pull up similar stats of aliens and bigfoot sightings...that dosn't make them all real either...they are just claims...

And I actually do hope the eastern cougar persists here in the Northeast. But I will await realproof. Second hand sightings are not enough...

sproulman

i know i saw COUGAR.
the farmer in hyner,pa.that farmed his land all his life knows difference too and his was real close to his home.

now, i cant say they are not released pet as PGC SAYS,can released cougar live in wilds of KELLEY ESTATE IN KEATING MTN?

will a released pet growl at you like one i saw did too me?

yes, i was close and had a witness.i was 15 ft away.

would i see something that close that i never saw before in woods and say it was bobcat.
i had to tell the PGC that the cat was orangeish color and ran like a baboon,they most likely thought i was nuts.
i said it had a head the size of a softball but huge wide shoulders and go-tee and 3 ft tail 1 and 1/2 inchs round twisting behind it.

to my surprise the PGC said,YOU DESCRIBED A COUGAR BUT WE DONT BELIEVE THEY EXIST.
THEY ALSO SAID THAT COLOR IS NOT ORANGEISH ,ITS CALLED TAWNY.
they also said ground was to hard to meet me and take prints..that made me mad..

i cant answer why most if not all sighting are in summer months.

maybe someone can answer that,some will say they dont exist because no tracks in snow..

i had 2 fox in my yard all summer, first snow to now, not 1 fox track is in my yard..

where did they go, come spring, they will be back but no tracks in snow.i cant figure that one also.

i offered reason and was made fun of.
i felt cougar,yes maybe only a few here move out of areas looking for food into areas that have more food in winter,then roam back into other areas,i dont know.

i have not heard of 1 person that saw kittens..
most of sighting from my friendssaid cougar they saw had a long tail.

all sighting were almost all along dirt roads in the wild areas,like keating mtn,hyner,beech creek, rt 144 .

these areas are our most wild areas in clinton/centre/clfd county.

the area where i saw cougar is CLOSE TO QUEHANNA WILD AREA .VERY REMOTE AREA.

i agree that some sighting are bobcats by people that are not in woods a lot but when you have hunters that live in woods and hunted all their lives, i dont buy the idea they did not see COUGAR.

no way a bobcat looks like what i saw and PGC confirmed that i did see cougar but they DONT EXIST.

take care and keep info coming...........

buckclub

Sproul,

WHO CARES?!!! LET IT GO.. big deal if you did see a cougar, proly someone released one from a pet and mabey they have been breeding with each other... SO WHAT.. go shoot it then you have your proof. Get out in the woods and quit beating a dead horse!!!!!!!

Phil from Maine

Ilive, hunt, and fish up here, and yes, I can tell you they do exist in Maine. I took 3 photos of cougar trackson my cell phone with a dollar bill beside them. I showed them to my co-workers and a few others before deleting them, they could see them really well. It was from a female with a cub last fall archery hunting. They ran across the road in front of myself and a friend on a dirt road about 20 miles from the nearest town. Why didI delete them from my cell phone? Simply put my job depends on woodcutters cutting wood, I enjoy my right to hunt and fish without the good ol gov. telling where I can and cannot hunt. It would change the way of life for to many of us to even think about giving info like this up to them.