[at-l] Wildcats Return To Adirondaks

[jbullar1 at twcny.rr.com (Jim Bullard)]

At 01:54 AM 2/24/2004 -0500, RoksnRoots@aol.com wrote:


>          An article in the NY Times spoke with an over 80 year old resident
>of the Adirondaks who has become the information center for mountain lion
>sightings there. He comments how locals are starting to see more mountain 
>lions
>while driving. The article is long and detailed about the extinction of the
>eastern mountain lion by hunting. The man claims that the state is 
>ignoring the
>increase in evidence because they would then have to take measures to 
>protect the
>endangered animal. He says that officials are attributing the strays cats to
>domesticated pet mountain lions released into the wild once they become
>unmanageable. At eighty years, the man claimed that he has documented these
>sightings for the last 50 years and that period was too long to all be 
>released pets.
>He argues that an official existing wild population of mountain lions should
>now be considered to exist in the NE mountains...

Both my sister and her husband saw a mountain lion on the Tug Hill Plateau 
(Western side of the Adirondacks) about 35 years ago. My sister saw it at 
fairly close range through a window. It was sitting outside watching her 
about 12-15 feet away. There are bobcats in the area but she described this 
as being 10 feet or more long including its long tail. She saw it in the 
yard another time when her husband was home and he went out with his gun 
but it got away. He described it the same. The DEC dismissed it as a large 
house cat or and escaped pet.

Several years later I saw a rattlesnake a mile and a half from where I 
live. The DEC dismissed that as an escaped pet too. "There are no 
rattlesnakes on the Western side of the Adirondacks" they said. Of course 
they didn't bother to go look when I told them where to find one.

Pete O'Shea, retired NYC policeman, amateur naturalist and author of "The 
Great South Woods" insists that there are lions in Western Adirondack 
forests based on the evidence he has seen.


>       The New York Adirondaks are a northern branch of the Appalachians not
>far from Killington on the AT...

Don't try to hike here from Killington though. There's a rather large lake 
in between (Lake Champlain) that is reputed to have a cousin of the Loc 
Ness monster living in it. :)