Michael Brindley is our program manager our producers our Jessica Hunt and Christina Phillips and our theme music was composed by Bob Lord. HOLDERNESS, N.H. (AP) Two of the known mountain lions in New Hampshire have spent their 15 years in close proximity to humans. Fish and Game looked into the labs to have them confirm the information in the reports which the labs did not. For instance, Floridas wildlife officials have a similar ghost cat: the black panther. Here she is talking about how to identify a mountain lion. I wanted to get your thoughts on the mystique of the mountain lion start with you Rick. So it is possible to see male Mountain lions roam into the northeast - there was one hit by a car in CT a number of years back - but we don't have a breeding population of Mountain lions in New England. We're going to talk a little bit more about habitat first but then we'll get into sightings. So. And because you know things flow downhill and I was pushed to go investigate it more and met with the individual two or three times and there was a bunch of inconsistencies about the photograph. Mike you're on the air. So here we have you know a very qualified biologist who who found a print took a plaster cast found a scat send it to a university. So for our scientists to do the lumping and whatnot. Residents Report Mountain Lion Sighting By Elysia Rodriguez Published August 11, 2015 A southern New Hampshire neighborhood believes a mountain lion is roaming the woods near their homes. Peter Biello: Give us a call 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 you can also send us an email exchange at an HP morgue. Don't miss your chance to win three two thousand dollar gas gift cards at any station of your choice not to mention the grand prize twenty five thousand dollars toward a new car. We'd love to have you in the queue. So give us a call now. The second one was not only fresh but when I actually put my hand on it it was you know smelled like cat and I it's there's no denying a fresh mountain lions get if you can tell it every story that KOAT. brings a lot of. Sam Evans-Brown: But I mean the video I had been sent was you know a recording of a animal growling but it was in slow motion and when I asked the person why is this in slow motion the denied that it was so there's a lot of weird stuff that happens in regards to people claiming they've seen they've seen these things. All they think it traveled north through Canada up you know crossed across the Great Lakes and then and then down again through New York State. Contact the Wildlife Division at (603) 271-2461 or wildlife@wildlife.nh.gov to request an observation report form. So and so they so they do get pretty involved. Absolutely there are a lot of folks out there who for some reason need to create something that raises a stir and gets the attention of the media etc.. Have it reported down in the Keene area. And today we're talking about the mysterious elusive mountain line with folks who know something about it. Peter Biello: Thank you for sharing that. About Us Media Kit Calendar of Events Volunteer Visit Learn Events Membership Support Your Visit BUY TICKETS Know Before You Go Directions and Information Our Animals Live Animal Exhibit Trail Hours and Admission Calendar of Events I live pretty much on the town line of Greenfield just a couple of miles down in the Greenfield. HOLDERNESS, N.H. (AP) Two of the known mountain lions in New Hampshire have spent their 15 years in close proximity to humans. Like why would you want one wildlife. Mountain lions when they show up they leave evidence. Patrick Tate: So I'm not sure what subspecies of cat they're using to differentiate by those markings but once she was describing the White other face in the black. I think that you probably are. The engineers Dan Colgan our senior producer is Allan Grimm. Now that to me seemed to indicate that they had done the secondary workup that in my opinion proved the existence of probably a disperse or possibly from South Dakota like the one in 2011. Why are there so many false positives? So it's six months of a large large predatory animal that moves great distances on the landscape that is not known if it went northeast west Salt and how many circles it did. And Rick Van de Poll naturalist and founder of ecosystem management consultants of New England. We are the second most-forested state in the country, and those forests can be impenetrable snarls (part of why the Northeast is notoriously a difficult place to hunt deer), and while there are people in a lot of those woods, because the cats have been absent for a few generations now, most of those people dont know what a cougar scrape or latrine look and smell like. So when we hear mountain lion there's also cougar there's wild cat there's Bobcat which is not a mountain lion maybe Patrick could you sort of spell out the different terms which are synonymous and which are completely different animals. Okay. The big cat has been extinct here since the mid-1800s. N.H.'s Fish and Game department says there's no proof mountain lions live in the state, yet residents from Bedford to Berlin have been reporting sightings for years. We had six copies printed out each. Second when I when they did forward it from Wyoming to to Michigan you know this was coming right from sample 18 and 19 had no remarkable differences from known mountain lions from Michigan or Wyoming. Sam Evans-Brown: Certainly that is a thing I've heard but again you have to think of the incentives involved here. These were normal everyday folks. 10 things to do in NH this weekend: Dartmouth Dance, Hamilton De Holanda & more, Turkish restaurant in the Upper Valley aims to help those affected by recent earthquakes, RFK Jr. tells NH crowd hes considering a presidential run, Epping woman pleads guilty to threatening Michigan election official in 2020. Caller: I got home to my wife that a gene that you should have seen the cat. NH Fish and Game relies on physical evidence to answer questions about the presence or absence of mountain lion in the state. This is the exchange. People go through great lengths to create hoaxes like this. They're very loyal to what the handler which makes them very dangerous to everyone else. So Pat you field a lot of calls about people seeing or reportedly seeing mountain lions. Well just that I have evidence and it was not it was denied by fishing game at the time and I you know there's I don't need to prove to anybody that I saw one just like some of your callers said okay. So the U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station has a database on mountain lion and they can identify. You need you need either a really good photograph or you need you know fresh scat that can be sent to a lab out West that can they can be identified there. Peter Biello: Well yeah. There'd be there'd be all sorts of you know basically a lot of hassle required if that were to happen. So so in 2011 a mountain lion was killed in a car accident in Connecticut a car hit a mountain lion and killed it. And as the biologist who's gonna stand on this and if I'm going to say this is a proven picture I need to be able to stand on it so soundly and have the evidence so I going to go through it with a fine tooth comb kept picking pieces apart trying to answer these pieces. Support for an age PR comes from you our listeners. Peter Biello: Worth mentioning if we're scaring anybody question a mysterious mountain lions lurking perhaps in someone's backyard. Seems reasonable! Your support makes this news available to everyone. Mountain lions leave a lot of sign. And now that everyone and their mother has a remote camera in their back yard its just so, so unlikely that there are resident, breeding mountain lions in New England that are living invisibly among us, he says, Its become Big Foot.. And I I have this great text history of New Hampshire game and fir bears and I think by Helen Silver who used to work for fish and game and she sort of I kind eyes this animal in one of the quotes from 1892 stating that the catamaran was the most ferocious of all the wild beasts of New Hampshire his great size strength and agility of movement together with his formidable weapons rendered him the terror both of man and beast. Thank you very much for listening. There's just one subspecies of North American mountain lion. And it was unmistakable. And they were using all the habitat. I really really enjoyed listening to this program so thank you all very much. Caller: Are probably. When they were landing or taking off and it seems like it's been there for like. I have one that's more elaborate than that. I came to a stop and it was and I've seen a lot of bobcats in my time and I just came to a stop it was just sort of confused about what I was seeing. So I just brought up the bobcat thing because the location is fascinating to me that that that location we have Bobcats existing but that location we have a mountain lion report because it's a developed area and which brings me back to earlier what I had said it's a bouncing ball. Rick van de Poll: Well a report that you know as John Harrigan up north has in co-ops County for about 15 years I kept track of reports and people would call me and tell me where they saw the mountain lion they thought they saw it and it varied right from you know downtown villages all the way to remote highlands of the North Country and and everywhere in between. The tail leave is a giveaway but not everybody gets to see the tail. Yes. Get your tickets today and one for fifty dollars or six for 150 at NH PR and board. But are there mountain lions living in New Hampshire? Nicholas Handy can be reached at 924-7172 ext. It's unfortunate that that kind of thing happens as often as it does. They absolutely do. So here in New Hampshire when a person turns in something that the Department believes is possible mountain lion and believes it should be investigated further. Patrick Tate: While a juvenile not a juvenile I guess if you want nodes to the base of the tail for juvenile that wouldn't be small at all. County road and all of a sudden a big cat jumps out of the woods over a stone wall stood in the middle of the dirt road as I rode towards it. I'm Peter B yellow. He studied Politics and Spanish at Bates College, and before reporting was variously employed as a Spanish teacher, farmer, bicycle mechanic, ski coach, research assistant, a wilderness trip leader and a technical supporter. I can't tell you what you saw but it sounds like a mountain lion. So before we get to the the the the stories of sightings we're getting a lot of calls. (Cue the X-Files music: The Government is denying the cougars exist!) This decision was primarily for nerdy phylogeny reasons, though, because the eastern cougar probably never existed. We discuss what residents may have been seeing and what breeding mountain lion pairs would mean for our ecosystem. Thanks for taking my call. There wasn't a distinct subspecies the North American mountain lion is all is all one species and then you can find a genetically distinct South American subspecies. We'll hear from her periodically through the show. So let's let's go to the phones. That's why we always go back to the physical evidence to support what they're reporting. Sam Evans-Brown: I just want to say the bang and word you just heard I think to me exemplifies why it's really hard to come up with with positive you know 100 percent certain evidence that you've that what you've got is a mountain lions. So take care of this problem. 19 So this whole illegal pet trade black market pro trade thing does does exist in a situation like that can happen. Really appreciate you guys being here as well. Rick shaking his head so Rick now correct me please. Patrick Tate: So it's very typical. Patrick Tate: Yes. Peter Biello: We mentioned that the eastern cougar and the Western cougar are they were separate eastern cougar believed to be extinct. David Erler says some of them probably have. support for an HBO who comes from you our listener Sam from advanced in you a local New Hampshire nonprofit specializing in college student loans and student refinancing options. She was having a garden party on her back porch and everybody in the party saw this mountain lion across the field down below the porch. John Holt's ideas were at first dismissed but he refused to be silent. So I think the point that I just want to get across is that there is a very strong sense this here in the and not region that there is that there is some sort of mountain lion population how large it is how extensive it is. I've collected scat samples I've got several in my collection. Pat ruse and he was sampling doing DNA samples from cats in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Peter Biello: So if they were female mountain lions here they would be more males just because that's what they're looking for. So I reached down to grab the camera and looked back and like a ghost it's gone. Sue Morse: The big cat really commands the utmost respect not so much fear but fascination. We send out DNA samples to the U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station. Lots of people have stories about them, people have them on their game cameras I mean its kind of a thing. It was in the spring flash kind of early summer and my wife looked at you look at the size of an adult bear and we were up in arms. I don't know if she still is. Peter Biello: This is the exchange on an PR. But along the lines of the conspiracy theories as you mentioned earlier there there was a bit of a sense on behalf of what I'll call the promo online community who felt that fishing gain maybe not even so much in a spoken policy but maybe sort of an unspoken policy did not want to find themselves in a situation where they had to spend money to create a management plan and so forth. OK. That location they just described we had two or three Bobcats radio collared on just off the runway in Laconia airport. NHPR is nonprofit and independent. The way that we define species has undergone a revolution with the advent of DNA testing. A 140-pound male mountain lion was hit by a car and killed in 2011 in Milford, Connecticut. 44-H Links. The Lions of New Hampshire: MD44 Links. Rick van de Poll: 80 90. No doubt in my mind it was. Email exchange it an HP fraud org or give us a call 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7. Sunny today high temperatures low to mid 80s it'll be clear tonight overnight lows in the 50s for tomorrow sunshine with high temperatures mid to upper 80s. To date most of the pictures that have been sent in have been bobcats and other species Ive received pictures of house cats. But my experience was that the majority of these accounts could not be taken lightly. 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7. The western mountain lion lives in a more of a grassland open area now so to blend in with a very lighted situation here in the Northeast we are very shadowy dark situation because of the forest and our cats wear a darker brownish reddish color than what they were and they were also smaller than what the western mountain lion is. Ecosystem Management Consultants of New England, Ask Sam, and recently fielded question about mountain lions, 10 things to do in NH this weekend: Dartmouth Dance, Hamilton De Holanda & more, Turkish restaurant in the Upper Valley aims to help those affected by recent earthquakes, RFK Jr. tells NH crowd hes considering a presidential run, Epping woman pleads guilty to threatening Michigan election official in 2020, We also hear excerpts from an interview with, Read about the most recent cougar "sightings". The species that once inhabited the Northeast, known as the eastern mountain lion, is now extinct. We actually have the largest subspecies of bobcat in the northern part of our state which they can get up to 40 and over 40 pounds which looks like an 80 pound the animal to visually and quite large. Numerous scat and fur specimens have been turned in as part of mountain lion report investigations; DNA identification has shown these submitted samples to be from domestic dog, coyote, bobcat andraccoon. There is some information that suggests that it spent a portion of its time in Massachusetts near the Claiborne reservoir. Caller: Oh hi. Or years or so. We'll also hear your stories if you have them again. Rick your thoughts. There have been several sightings of mountain lions in New Hampshire recently. Caller: So I've been telling this story for five years or so and very few people believe me. 1957. And still the the folks there did weren't able to come up with it with 100 percent certainty what deposited that scat. Mountain lions remain an enigmatic animal for residents of New Hampshire, with New Hampshire Fish and Game reporting three to five sightings per week. Part II. The big cat has been extinct here since the mid-1800s. What's going on. About Lions. Post your sightings and NH photos here! It all used to be based on measurable physical traits color, skull size, paw size, etc but now its based on whether an animal can be shown to be genetically distinct from others. If you have them email exchange at an HP board or give us a call to tell us your story. This is a machine-generated transcript, and may contain errors. It doesn't happen as much anymore. And that's this morning at 10:00 here on NH PR. So Michael follows with the question. Patrick Tate: And there's one other way to model that is the same animal. Thanks for your call. There was no sign of it. Mountain Lion report and as a biologist for the state that's a situation where if he said to me what did I see. Chartered 1973; Member of District 44-H; . Part II. So so. Yeah I did. Course like Sue said you have to see it and it's not always that visible. They just end up in these places. So I would put this in the category of sort of like shark attacks right. Peter Biello: Yeah. So I know it's another unconfirmed report but you string enough of these together. Sam Evans-Brown: You know the North America had a number of large predator species when humans first arrived in the continent. So I certainly can't dispute anything that they said there's no evidence for me to go by to verify or say what my thoughts are on the situation. Peter Biello: This is NHK PR Good morning and HP are summer car raffle is back and now's the time to get your early bird tickets. Tate said that while a mountain lion sighting in New Hampshire isn't likely, it's not impossible. So nowadays we think of this in the Northeast as crazy stuff that people have a mountain lion as a pet. Caller: It had to be a mountain lion convinced I was about 30. Maps of Trapping Take by Town 1994 to 2004. And so a mountain lion is actually quite large right. And you know it's rather interesting because certainly there are those you as a case of mistaken identity or they wanted to see something that perhaps they actually didn't. N.H.'s Fish and Game department says there's no proof. Enable JavaScript by changing your browser options, and then try again. And maybe it's a no holds barred nostalgia for a better world a wild or Fuller world not a world that's constrained by our boundaries and our taxes and our highways. Now Bobcat is a completely different species. A monthly donation of $5 makes a real difference. Reports without physical evidence are not dismissed, however Fish and Game cannot verify a sighting report without physical evidence. You need a permit to have that. That's next time on one day. Caller: I cannot recall or see the tail in my in my image of it. Peter Biello: There have been several alleged sightings of mountain lions in New Hampshire recently. New Hampshire Public Radio | So. Mountain lions (especially males) have incredibly large ranges that they defend from rivals. But you won't find evidence of their existence in paw prints in the snow or a deer carcass in a tree. If youd like to submit a question (or send a mountain line photo) you can record it as a voice memo on your smart phone and send it tooustidein@nhpr.org, OR call our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (1-844-466-8837) and leave a message. How to Report a Possible Mountain Lion Sighting. They kill big animals. Fish and Wildlife Service decided all of the cougars, pumas, and mountain lions in the country are actually the same species, and that species hasnt had a breeding population anywhere near the Northeast for at least 70 years. And why would they what. Caller: Well I think Patrick I recognized your name. About two years ago I was at the Laconia airport on the way home from the airport and there's a big lake on one side called Lily Pond. Yeah 13 to 15 years ago 13 to 15 years ago. They reported seeing the big tail and everything everything. Patrick Tate: Yeah yeah. However, dispersing western mountain lions have left evidence as close as Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York. On a dirt road. We're gonna talk about sightings in this part of the program as well we'd love to hear your story. Give us a call if you have a question or comments or story about perhaps seeing a mountain lion here in New Hampshire. Now again I don't know that there's anything to that. Peter Biello: Wow. Sam Evans-Brown: So Tim so this cat's been been referenced a couple of times I think we should talk about it specifically lay the whole story out for folks who haven't heard the story because it's actually I think really indicative of a lot of stuff for talking about. Chapter X, Predators, Panther (Mountain Lion) From History of NH Game and Furbearers by Helenette Silver, Research Clerk, NH Fish and Game Dept. It was not a bobcat. He told me that on one of his many scouting trips for Black Bear he found a deer carcass up in a tree. They get a lot of media attention but compared to the the amount of times that a mountain lion could attack a person but doesn't because they don't typically view us as prey. Peter Biello: Let's talk to Ron and where Ron thanks very much for calling. We want answers. Let us know your story and share your photos. There's always been physical evidence to prove those situations like hair or fur scat hair prints pictures of the animal print scat hair. Patrick Tate: Well. Love hearing these stories. I mean so what what is the practical change that it would bring to New Hampshire if any. A lot of times. Yes and you want to share what you learned. I mean no doubt a seen Bobcat seen his stuff. Peter Biello: Yeah some of what she was saying sounds like it would require getting pretty close or at least having a nice zoom lens right Sam like. List of Mountains in New Hampshire is a general list of mountains in New Hampshire, with elevation.This list includes many mountains in the White Mountains range that covers about a quarter of the state, as well as mountains outside of that range.. So one thing I'll add. So maybe a good pet for you but not for your neighbor if you just stop by unannounced. Peter Biello: Let's go to Mike in Epping. Thank you very much for being here. And trying to figure out the little pieces to identify him so I bring up the names the differences but the appearances can be confusing for some.