Mt lion pic (PA)
- Thread starter Steve in PA
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Keith
Member
Well, his friend was NOT prepared to say it was a mountain lion, only that he was sure it wasn't a bobcat.
I didn't know about this pale and spotless summer condition of bobcats either, and I would have had trouble identifying the critter as a bobcat as well.
The photo either shows 2 1/2 foot sitting figure of a bobcat near some 12 inch vegetation or a 4 foot sitting figure of a cougar near some 18 inch vegetation. We can't see the tail. The coat could be either cat. The ears say "bobcat".
This is Pennsylvania, so Occam's Razor tells us that it is more likely a bobcat in its pale summer coat.
Keith
I didn't know about this pale and spotless summer condition of bobcats either, and I would have had trouble identifying the critter as a bobcat as well.
The photo either shows 2 1/2 foot sitting figure of a bobcat near some 12 inch vegetation or a 4 foot sitting figure of a cougar near some 18 inch vegetation. We can't see the tail. The coat could be either cat. The ears say "bobcat".
This is Pennsylvania, so Occam's Razor tells us that it is more likely a bobcat in its pale summer coat.
Keith
gun-fucious
Member
based on the size of the Pacysandra
i would estimate the animal at 3 feet
from base of tail to top of head
http://forestcounty.com/bobcattext.htm
heres a PA bobcat:
i would estimate the animal at 3 feet
from base of tail to top of head
http://forestcounty.com/bobcattext.htm
heres a PA bobcat:
Keith
Member
Good work!
That photo is absolutely convincing. If you didn't KNOW it was a bobcat, you'd certainly ID it as something else!
Keith
That photo is absolutely convincing. If you didn't KNOW it was a bobcat, you'd certainly ID it as something else!
Keith
Art Eatman
Moderator In Memoriam
Er, Keith, what other spotted cat has that short a tail? (I've not seen a lynx outside a zoo, and that's been several decades.)
Art
Art
A little of topic
"So, if they don't exist, does that mean it's ok to shoot them?"
Why would you shoot it ? I am not talking about self defense or a situation where it was causing damage etc. I was talking to a guy at work about his deer hunting trip in Northern Nevada just south of the Idaho border. He claimed he saw a wolf. He said he knew it was a wolf because he had seen wolves when he lived in Alaska. I said, so what did you do ? "I shot at it". Why ? Why would that be his first reaction ? He sees what might be an animal not normally found in this area. And animal that once populated pretty much the whole country that is making a comeback and his first reaction was to kill it.
I dont' get it.
Just because you can shoot something, that doesn't mean you should (at least to me). I am not a tree hugger. I hunt and I shoot varmints for no reason other than my own personal enjoyment. But, my knee jerk reaction isn't just to shoot anything I see for no good reason.
Of course if this guy that took the picture had shot it, we would know for sure what it was.
"So, if they don't exist, does that mean it's ok to shoot them?"
Why would you shoot it ? I am not talking about self defense or a situation where it was causing damage etc. I was talking to a guy at work about his deer hunting trip in Northern Nevada just south of the Idaho border. He claimed he saw a wolf. He said he knew it was a wolf because he had seen wolves when he lived in Alaska. I said, so what did you do ? "I shot at it". Why ? Why would that be his first reaction ? He sees what might be an animal not normally found in this area. And animal that once populated pretty much the whole country that is making a comeback and his first reaction was to kill it.
I dont' get it.
Just because you can shoot something, that doesn't mean you should (at least to me). I am not a tree hugger. I hunt and I shoot varmints for no reason other than my own personal enjoyment. But, my knee jerk reaction isn't just to shoot anything I see for no good reason.
Of course if this guy that took the picture had shot it, we would know for sure what it was.
Keith
Member
Well, yeah... obviously in this photo you can see the bobbed tail and the remaining spots along the belly.
Yet, if you set that cat down on its rear end facing away from you, what do you have? From that position, you'd see the lanky body shape (which you wouldn't associate with a bobcat) and you'd see the thinner tawny coat (which you'd associate with a cougar), etc. It would be easy to fool somebody.
Keith
Still think its a lion.
We don't have wolves here either, but they aren't extinct in wyoming. I know what coyote tracks look like. Never seen a Pack of feral dogs with prints THAT big running in a group of a dozen or more. Scared a dark-looking 4 legged canine of some sort across a snow swept logging road.. paw prints were so far apart as to make you doubt what you saw.
Lios still exist inremote parts of WVA.. Why not PA?
We don't have wolves here either, but they aren't extinct in wyoming. I know what coyote tracks look like. Never seen a Pack of feral dogs with prints THAT big running in a group of a dozen or more. Scared a dark-looking 4 legged canine of some sort across a snow swept logging road.. paw prints were so far apart as to make you doubt what you saw.
Lios still exist inremote parts of WVA.. Why not PA?
Keith
Member
Correction: there have been many REPORTED sightings of mountain lions in PA, and all over the northeast. But nobody ever shoots one or runs it down with the car - or even takes an unambigous photo!
I think there very well could be mountain lions coming back in the east, but there's just no real evidence as yet. Lots of people see Elvis, but nobody ever shoots one and brings him back to town to show everyone! Until they do, I have to think Elvis is dead and gone (I mean, the first time he was dead and gone...)!
Keith
I think there very well could be mountain lions coming back in the east, but there's just no real evidence as yet. Lots of people see Elvis, but nobody ever shoots one and brings him back to town to show everyone! Until they do, I have to think Elvis is dead and gone (I mean, the first time he was dead and gone...)!
Keith
OP
OP
Steve in PA
Member
Hey.....a few years ago they said there weren't any coyotes in PA either. Yuk, yuk, yuk
Maybe there are mt lions....I don't know. The picture looks like one to me. Wait for more evidence I guess.
Maybe there are mt lions....I don't know. The picture looks like one to me. Wait for more evidence I guess.
spectr17
Member
If you'll look at my post again you'll see your misquote of my post. My statements were in reference to all the BLACK PANTHER tales and NOT about brown cougars.
You're also mistaken that no one shoots them, runs them down or takes their unambigous photo.
I can post several news articles from the past year or two of cats that were either run over, shot and had their pics taken by game cams or by video in Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Arkansas and other states. It's not NE but it is in areas where cougars are not known to have a breeding populations or are not acknowledged by state biologists. Until now that is.
As someone pointed out, if there truely is a big cat in the area the physcial evidence is easy to find. Cougars are not magical and they leave scat, tracks, hair just like all animals.
Just keeping things straight.
gun-fucious
Member
There have been some Mtn. Lion sightings in Montgomery county, Maryland
My comment about shooting the lion was made in jest, in response to the alleged position of the game and fish department that lions don't exist in PA. Game and fish departments don't have a lock on information, particularly when dealing with animals that don't respect state boundaries. The migration of the wolves reintroduced in Yellowstone is a good example. They may well be in northern Colorado by now.
Art Eatman
Moderator In Memoriam
Changing emphasis a bit: In central Texas around Austin, the land use changed away from farming, and there was a decline in ranching activity. The deer herd began to regain its old territory. It wasn't long before there began to be rather infrequent lion sightings, but lions were indeed seen by folks who knew what a lion looks like. And, coyotes moved in to all this new "opera house" to practice yodelling.
If you have timberlands and deer, there's no reason for a lion not to consider it a Happy Home. Lions go where the food is easiest to get, and they can be travelling sons of guns. As long as there's no active predator control program, it's pretty easy for them to not be regularly seen.
So if anybody north of Interstate 10 sez he saw a really big, long-tailed cat, I readily believe mountain lion...(South of I-10, it could have spots and scream in Spanish.)
, Art
If you have timberlands and deer, there's no reason for a lion not to consider it a Happy Home. Lions go where the food is easiest to get, and they can be travelling sons of guns. As long as there's no active predator control program, it's pretty easy for them to not be regularly seen.
So if anybody north of Interstate 10 sez he saw a really big, long-tailed cat, I readily believe mountain lion...(South of I-10, it could have spots and scream in Spanish.)
, ArtI’ve never seen a Cougar in the wild but my initial impression of this photo was it was a skinny German Shepherd with its head tilled down?
Concerning Courgar's in the east the magazine Fur-Fish-Game had an excellent article on this very subject a month or so back.
Turk
Concerning Courgar's in the east the magazine Fur-Fish-Game had an excellent article on this very subject a month or so back.
Turk
Keith
Member
Two years ago somebody caught a mountain lion in a wolf set on an island in Southeast Alaska. That cat was several hundred miles from the nearest known cougar population and it had to have SWUM out there across ten miles of very cold water.
I don't know much about cats, but I know small groups of young wolves will instinctively seek out new territories when they break from a pack. Sometimes they'll travel hundreds of miles before settling in somewhere.
Does anyone know if young cougars do that regularly? I mean, they must move some distance from the parent to establish a new territory, but do they move long distances like wolves?
Keith
I don't know much about cats, but I know small groups of young wolves will instinctively seek out new territories when they break from a pack. Sometimes they'll travel hundreds of miles before settling in somewhere.
Does anyone know if young cougars do that regularly? I mean, they must move some distance from the parent to establish a new territory, but do they move long distances like wolves?
Keith
Art Eatman
Moderator In Memoriam
Keith, Texas Parks & Wildlife folks trapped a lion down in Black Gap Preserve, on the east edge of Big Bend National Park. They put a radio collar on him and released him. A rancher in the Glass Mountains, north of Marathon, killed that lion in his sheep pen, two nights later. The lion had traveled some 70 miles.
My flight instructor was telling me of a radio-lion he'd tracked from the Glass Mountains on down to the southern part of the Sierra del Carmen in Mexico. The lion moved five to fifteen miles a day on this 150-mile trek before heading back north. It seemed to be a regular travel sequence.
At around age 15 to 18 months, mama lion runs off the kids. While the female may stay in the general area, other more dominant males run off the male cub to go find his own territory. (So the game biologists seem to believe, anyway.)
Art
My flight instructor was telling me of a radio-lion he'd tracked from the Glass Mountains on down to the southern part of the Sierra del Carmen in Mexico. The lion moved five to fifteen miles a day on this 150-mile trek before heading back north. It seemed to be a regular travel sequence.
At around age 15 to 18 months, mama lion runs off the kids. While the female may stay in the general area, other more dominant males run off the male cub to go find his own territory. (So the game biologists seem to believe, anyway.)
Art
Horsesense
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My great great grand pappy, and his neighbors, worked hard to kill off all the dangerous varmets around these parts. I would consider it my civic duty to kill any wolf, mountain lion, bare etc on sight. The KY department of wildlife released (so the story goes) rattlesnakes to control the turkey population, just a few miles from my farm! You can be sure I will kill anything I don’t like on my place. Mountain lion "sightings" are becoming common place, although no proof as of yet.
The environmentalist wako's need to take a Prozac and leave decent folks alone.
The environmentalist wako's need to take a Prozac and leave decent folks alone.
Art Eatman
Moderator In Memoriam
Now, Horsesense, I'd have to think that the idea of a wildlife agency releasing rattlesnakes like that is a rural legend, worthy of Internet status like that of Urban Legends. For one thing, rattlesnakes aren't known for egg-eating...
As far as lions and such, "dangerous" to whom or what? Y'all heavy into the sheep and goat business? Coyotes would be a lot bigger problem...
, Art
As far as lions and such, "dangerous" to whom or what? Y'all heavy into the sheep and goat business? Coyotes would be a lot bigger problem...
, ArtHorsesense
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I’m heavy into cattle and children.
"There can be no covenant between lions and men" Homer, Iliad XXII
"There can be no covenant between lions and men" Homer, Iliad XXII
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I've just talked to some one in Elk Co PA who has seen mountain lions more than once, one in his driveway, no photos though. Considering the number of people that I have talked to who have seen the lions there is no doubt in my mind that they are in various eastern states.
444,
The FFG article basically mentioned sightings in the east but no really comfired ones. I've seen a photo from north of Ashland, Ohio and it was suppose to be ML. Picture was from a distance and fuzzy?
Mete mentioned Elk county PA. been through there a number of time lots of forest and mts. I've hunted Potter county PA and its the same.
Have a good day and remember to pray for our troops.
Turk
The FFG article basically mentioned sightings in the east but no really comfired ones. I've seen a photo from north of Ashland, Ohio and it was suppose to be ML. Picture was from a distance and fuzzy?
Mete mentioned Elk county PA. been through there a number of time lots of forest and mts. I've hunted Potter county PA and its the same.
Have a good day and remember to pray for our troops.
Turk
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