Union and Huntingdon , Pa. .. One doesn't think about big cats being in this eastern part of the . Almost all the reported sights have been other animals like bobcats (Lynx rufus), coyotes (Canis latrans), raccoons (Procyon lotor), or large domestic cats (Felis catus). Mountain Lion Sighting. Bears have been fought off with rocks, sticks, binoculars or even bare hands, the game commission says. UPDATE: An alert reader took this photo late September, 2008, from his trail camera near Plummer, PA. UPDATE: An alert reader sent this photo of a mountain lion taken about three weeks ago (September 2009) near Farmington, Pa, in Fayette County. If you see a mountain lion, report the sighting immediately to Mission Viejo Animal Services at 949-470-3045 or the Orange County Sheriff's Department at 949-770-6011. They can be easily differentiated by the size of their size (large house cats only weigh 30lb and raccoons 20lbs) and their tails (cougar tails are much longer and wiry). I also saw a mountain lion recently crossing road next to creek in Canadensis PA. Dashboard for displaying mountain lion reports to the public. They shared the unusual sight with WHNT-News. While it would seem impossible to confuse the two after seeing them in person, Foster said many of the sightings are in the dark, from roadways and trail cams, with bodies half-concealed. Cougar range based on sightings and physical evidence (Image credit: LaRue et al, 2008). This demonstrates just how difficult it is for this secretive animal to travel without being seen and followed. I have seen a large cat on several occasions driving home at night from work. Murray also has a cross-eyed white tiger named Keisha, who crushed chicken bones with ease but delicately stepped into a metal pool to cool off. Share on Social The dispatch center received calls about the mountain lion at approximately 4:30 a.m. near the Copeland Creek Trail between Country Club and Snyder Lane located in the area of Sunrise Park. Theyre not predators, but if one runs out in front of your moving car it can certainly pose a threat to your safety. After the male mountain lion was removed from Red Hill Trail on May 11, additional sightings in that area were reported: one on May 16, and two over the weekend of May 19 and 20. An instinct coiled way down in the human brain knows the difference between a bobcat and a mountain lion. A mountain lion named Rocky, at the East Coast Animal Rescue, Tuesday, September 4, 2018. If you need to confirm this info, just take a look at National Geographics wild life section on animals thought to be extinct altogether, or extinct from an area. Recent confirmed sightings of mountain lions in North Dakota are about 20-40 per year. 2016. Paws 'N' Claws Animal Park in the Poconos has two. A cougar or puma is like a UFO with four feet.. Jones has never seen a mountain lion, but he thinks they're prowling around. All rights reserved. I saw a Mountain Lion chasing a fox in Perryopolis Pa. "People think they can get them declawed and that they're safe, but they still have teeth.". I think the mountain lion situation is like that. It can be difficult to tell how large an animal is in a photo, so it is best to use a known object as a scale. The eastern massasauga is endangered in Pennsylvania. "While it seems unlikely, it's not impossible that these animals are showing up in PA," said David Foster, a biology professor at Messiah College in Mechanicsburg. You should stay calm and back away from the bear. No one needs to panic.". Some may also be kept illicitly as pets, which would quickly become a problem as the cat matures. "I have been in this business long enough not to doubt what people say they have seen," says San Julian, "but I think most sightings are escaped pets or animals released by people.". "I kind of doubt they saw a cougar, but I'm not God.". The mountain lion was killed east of Altoona and south of State College , Pa. northeast of Raystown Lake between Mt. Females tend to go an average of 18-30 miles, while males travel much farther (45-170 miles). No wild cougars have been found in Pennsylvania since their extirpation in 1871. I saw a large black cat about the size of a mediym sized dog walking towards my car in pike county If cougars are out there, why hasn't one ever been killed on a highway or shot? It is a known fact that when an area is overpopulated, wild animals will migrate out of an area and into a new area that is less populated. If a mountain lion walks around an area enough, many different humans will notice. They were once a common predator in Pennsylvania until a combination of range-wide habitat loss, prey loss (mainly white-tailed deer and elk), and predator eradication programs in the 1800s drove them to extinction in the Commonwealth and across the East Coast later that century. Mountain lions are 7-9 feet, while bobcats are 3 feet long. Mountain lions' canines are 3 to 4 inches long. February 23, . A placard affixed to the fence outside Rocky's pen states that "cougars are solitary creatures and rarely seen by humans." Their coloration ranges from tan to black. The Fort Worth Star-Telegraph reports on a mountain lion sighting in April 2022. Based on its extensive research, the Service concluded this subspecies of big cats had disappeared from the east by the 1930s. Secondly, the sightings of mountain lions are likely the result of escaped or released animals that were once captive. From 2015 through 2017, at least 100 pumas were spotted in the county, according to Tribune data gathered in 2018. Many believe mountain lions still exist in Pennsylvania. They came out and investigated. The green shading represents areas with established breeding populations. Fish and Wildlife Service officially declared the Eastern subspecies of the mountain lion extinct, which would seem to bolster the skeptics. The Florida panther reached a population low of 20-30 individuals in 1970s, and currently are between 120-200 sub-adults and adults. And when our officers go out to investigate reports of mountain lions, or when our staff reviews photos that are sent to us, often we're able to verify some other animal mistakenly was reported as a mountain lion.". Mountain lions inhabited the state of Texas before European settlers arrived and the Native Americans in the area hunted them for clothing, shelter and blankets. A second photo of the cat, though shaded, appears to show more of a splotchy coloration on the animal's front limb. The only population that survived was the Florida panther (Puma concolor couguar), and it only survived with great help from conservationists. They include a reported attack on horses at a farm near Dillsburg, York County, that Foster thinks may be legitimate. I received a report from a woman who drove last Sunday (August 28) from her home in the Philadelphia area to her vacation home in Avalon. As a result, multiple sightings across different time ranges could be attributed to the same cat. 3 Last 10 Years. Symptoms usually disappear after four days. Since the policy's inception March 1, 19 mountain lion sightings have been reported. Recently he was given a plaster cast of what was suspected to be a cougar track from Wayne County, made after a "large cat-like creature" was seen locally. Over 1,100 people follow her page. House cats tails and fur are also another excellent way to tell them from cougars. The Everglades1,150 miles south of Pennsylvaniais the only known home to a breeding population of cougars in the East (Figure 1). On Friday July 8, 2022 there was a few reported Mountain Lion sightings the last few days one actually involving an encounter with one's family in their lawn. The nearest breeding populations of cougars are 1,000 miles or more from Pennsylvania. Symptoms include nausea, chills, slight fever, rise in blood pressure, fatigue, motor disturbances, breathing difficulty, constipation, and muscle aches, particularly in the abdomen. They said it was the size of their German Shepard and theres nothing else it couldve possibly been. Sadly, the last period when mountain lions roamed freely throughout Pennsylvania is the end of the 19th century. Bear attacks are thankfully rare. Young cougars (one- to two-years old) leave their mothers to establish a new territory. So is the second largest extant cat in North America still managing to eke out a living in the Keystone state? In Michigan, there has been multiple sightings of 'black panthers,' animals that were thought to be mountain lions, or pumas, except that they were black. The size was then confirmed to me, had a long tail also, had no markings but appeared dark grey in the sun. An estimated 20,000 of them were roaming across the Commonwealth in 2015. Florida panther population estimate updated. Without some adaptions and major changes in public opinion, it is unlikely that cougars can be restored in Pennsylvania, as the Adirondacks in 1980s was much less populated than Pennsylvania today. UPDATE: Well, you cant believe everything you read on the internetturns out this was not in PA: This was hit by a truck on Mill Creek Road . A recent rumor of a cougar killed by a vehicle on Interstate 80 attracted some attention at Penn State. (Image via the National Park Service)(), By Jason Nark | The Philadelphia Inquirer. But a mix of bounty hunting and heavy foresting killed or pushed out the population. Immediately report the sighting by calling Kentucky Fish and Wildlife at 1-800-858-1549 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 . "While it seems unlikely, it's not impossible that these animals are showing up in PA," said David Foster, a biology professor at Messiah College in Mechanicsburg. Cougars distaste for humans runs so deep that a study found that simply playing talk radio was enough to get these cougars to permanently abandon what they were eating. In 1991 mountain lion tracks were found . Adult females can be 7 feet long and weigh between . You know, the Penn State Nittany Lions.". By Heather Bellow, The Berkshire Eagle Dec 15, 2018 1 of 2 Mountain lions are believed not to exist in Massachusetts, but that only means they don't live or breed here. As an apex predator, their extirpationlocalized extinctionhas caused incalculable harm to the ecosystems of Pennsylvania. Some have even reported seeing a "black panther," a near-impossibility because of the rarity of that recessive gene. Pennsylvania is too inhabited to support a population of cougars, unless there are major changes in cougar biology, cougar behavior, and public opinion. But many others believe the big cats, also known as cougars and pumas, are traveling into Pennsylvania from western states, leading to persistent alleged sightings. In one extreme dispersal event in 2011, a cougar (that was later found to be related to cats from the Black Hills) made it to Connecticut before it was killed by a car. The tail of the cat is an excellent identification tool: cougars have two- to three-foot-long wiry tails with a black tip, and bobcats have a short bobbed tail that is only three to eight inches long. "It's so hard to pin anything down," said John Lutz, the West Virginia man who heads the network, a non-scientific affiliation of mountain lion seekers across the eastern United States. A report in 1981 found that it would be impossible to restore cougars to Adirondack Park in New York because there were too many humans. Mountain Lions do remain in the western states and there is evidence that in 2011, a . That said there have been numerous sightings of them over the years. Northeast . Fish and Wildlife Service thinks cougars wereprobably wiped out in the 1930s in the eastern United States. The coloration in adults is uniform. Murray has cared for four mountain lions since she took over the rescue in 1998. That the ultimate proof would come from Penn State seemed ironic -- the university's well-known mascot is a "Nittany" lion, and a mounted cougar killed in Susquehanna County in 1856 stands guard in the campus library. Still, Pennsylvania does have adequate cougar habitat, according to San Julian. "I'm proud to know her," Murray said of the tiger, "but I wish I didn't.". Jeff Mulhollem jjm29@psu.edu 814-863-2719 814-865-1068 fax, http://aginfo.psu.edu/news/august01/lion.tif. In January, the U.S. He's sitting in a plastic doghouse, paws crossed, amber eyes locked on the two men ticking him off by their mere presence out beyond the fence. So, if you live close to here please keep this in mind while you are hiking or walking along the wooded areas. "If my son would have been on a pedal bike, without a helmet on, that thing would have nailed him," said Walters, 44. The one pictured is in a New York zoo. An Amish farmer along 944 in Cumberland County complained to the PGC a mountain lion was killing his sheep. Figure 1. "They are very strong animals," she said. Cookie Settings/Do Not Sell My Personal Information. Breeding cougars are almost entirely west of the Mississippi in states like South Dakota, Texas, and California (Figure 1). Lion take a fawn in a swamp 1 mile from my home in the same county. She tried to tell me it was a Maine Coon Cat. "He doesn't like men too much," said Suzanne Murray, owner of East Coast Exotic Animal Rescue in this south-central Pennsylvania town. at least 1 mountain lion hanging out near a relatively fresh, mostly eaten deer . Although the chances of being attacked by an animal are slim, and even slimmer that you could die from an attack by a creature, there are indeed animals capable of wreaking havoc on humans. Let us know. Males do not tolerate other males in their territory, and they will fight other males to maintain their territory. Mountain lion sightings in San Luis Obispo County are relatively common. These tiny critters may not look that threatening but they are carriers of Lyme disease, which can result in long-term health complications and even death. The farther a male must travel the more likely they are to die. The Connecticut mountain lion is the best documented wild Mountain Lion in New England. The abundance of wildlife that thrives in Pennsylvania makes sightings of interesting animals fairly commonplacebears, foxes, coywolves and elk are all within the realm of expectations. It has the color of a mountain lion, but the long tail appears to be missing. The report says 58 people suffered allergic reactions and died from stings in Pennsylvania between 2001-13. adroll_language = "en_US"; Search for cougarscontinues in Pennsylvania, Stories from the first season in a new hunting house. If you ask me, the answer is yes. adroll_version = "2.0"; They're responsible for80 percent of the pollination of the fruit, legume and vegetable plants we need to eat. When they are in these new areas, the young males are almost constantly moving looking for an area with females. "Hunters are always saying they see mountain lions, and the Game Commission always says there aren't any," said Robert Hale, owner of Buffalo Gap Outfitters in Dillsburg. Although mountain lions were part of Nebraska's native fauna, they were extirpated by the end of the 19th century. One was spotted late Tuesday in Hamilton near a bus stop. Here, they've not been," Lau said in an e-mail. On some investigations, Foster has teamed up with Stacey Griffiths, who started the Central PA Mountain Lion Sightings page earlier this year. You read it here first: Mountain lions still exist in Pennsylvania: Just prior to the start of Pennsylvanias two-week firearms deer season, the volunteers at the Eastern Puma Research Network put out a call to hunters. Recent post: Why Is It Called Beaver Stadium? 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