I would just suggest that in my experience as a reporter covering this covering this issue for a few years at least at what point do we reach a certain critical mass for lack of a better term of accounts where I'm not to suggest that you guys aren't taking this possibility seriously. So Marty can you see what I'm getting at is the public sees different names and thinks that they're different animals but it's all the same animal. But Absence of Evidence Is Not Evidence of Absence, Right? Since then, there have been a handful of confirmed mountain lion sightings in the Northeast, although most have been thought to be escaped captive animals. What's going on. Thanks also to Rick van de Poll naturalist and founder of ecosystem management consultants of New England and Sam Evans Brown host of an HP podcast outside in about the natural world and how we use it. Patrick Tate: I've had hunters hang deer carcasses forbidding wildlife entries. Sean McDonald. Having not found any evidence is not the same as saying there are no mountain lions, its the same as saying we dont know. Sam Evans-Brown: Well first I want to sort of explain why what the theory is but then also throw a bit of cold water on it because I don't think there's much much logic behind it but essentially is that if fish and game were to acknowledge that there was a population of Mount lions in the state there's a chance that something like a listing under the federal Endangered Species Act might happen and then there'd be you know some they'd have to put a plan in place to protect the species there'd be you know restrictions put on development. OK. That location they just described we had two or three Bobcats radio collared on just off the runway in Laconia airport. The sub-population in Florida is known as the Florida panther . Like why would you want one wildlife. And in fact in 2011 when it was announced that the eastern cougar was officially extinct the reason that announcement was made is because they said really that it never existed. And they were using all the habitat. Is that typically what was happening there. So that did it for me. Peter Biello: Sam I wanted to ask you a little bit about that first and then turn to Patrick Tate efficient game. Well within there. Now Bobcat is a completely different species. Mountain lions live in the state. So let's let's go to the phones. Women control our lives. Listeners give us a call if you'd like. Fish and Game looked into the labs to have them confirm the information in the reports which the labs did not. All of that remains unanswered but it is an extremely interesting question. Is there something particularly hospitable about New Hampshire Forests that make them want to come here. It's unfortunate that that kind of thing happens as often as it does. The big cat has been extinct here since the mid-1800s. Infinite Scroll Enabled. Peter Biello: Let's talk to Ron and where Ron thanks very much for calling. Patrick Tate: So I just got to throw a little interesting side note in this. Patrick Tate: In theory it's a passing ball of a court and it goes wherever the bottom Ball wants to go. So that that's more or less I think why I'm here and why I got into this in nineteen ninety nine I found a what appeared to be a print of a mountain lion and that was in the Osprey mountains and I thought well OK that's that's a print. That's why we always go back to the physical evidence to support what they're reporting. Can you look into this picture. Get your tickets today and one for fifty dollars or six for 150 at NH PR and board. And just one more note about this danger question when even when you look at the states that have extended populations stable populations of mountain lions attacks are relatively rare. I'll send it to you. Anyways after three weeks I finally found the image on line on a field and stream photo contest and the explanation in the end was the person that set the camera out with another individual and they believed that someone who knew of the camera location saw the similarities put the can't picture on their SD card so it looked like that camera recorded the image that is. The evidence for the 1874 cougar is so hard that it's held in a display case in the State Museum of . Home; Archivos. 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. So I reached down to grab the camera and looked back and like a ghost it's gone. (Credit: Buddy Wilkerson via Storyful) . Pelosi story here we go. Peter Biello: This is the exchange on an PR. So one thing that I find fascinating about this Connecticut cat was six months between the New York situation where they found evidence of it too when it was hit by a motor vehicle. Peter Biello: We mentioned that the eastern cougar and the Western cougar are they were separate eastern cougar believed to be extinct. They lived perhaps elsewhere in New England and they were just passing through and happened to have an encounter of some sort. And what was really remarkable about the whole thing was I was maybe a half mile down on all buildings. Sam Evans-Brown has been working for New Hampshire Public Radio since 2010, when he began as a freelancer. Patrick Tate: If I could just say one thing. OK. 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. Author of The last woman in the forest on Saturday July 13th at 7 p.m. at Warner town hall Warner historical dawg. I mean I that said I've lived out west for nine years. We mentioned that one cat that was hit by a car where it has it that it was a male looking for me. I had a resident in New Hampshire tell me a story of a mountain lion in the 1960s where a person who would come summer in New Hampshire and then live in a different part of the country in the winter had a trailer that was housing his mount line. DNA from scat or from fur, a clear track that is confirmed by an expert, or a photo that clearly shows a mountain lion. It was killed in Lee New Hampshire in 1853. We send out DNA samples to the U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station. They're the generalists that made it through both the arrival of the Clovis people with their with their spears and then the Europeans with their guns. I hope she's listening and she had spoke to a lot of different people ended up having a couple of sightings of her alone without sort of by accident. Since then, there have been a handful of confirmed mountain. Patrick Tate: I don't believe it is. They sent he sent his scent those two samples with his to Wyoming an unfortunate Fish and Game Commission there did not get a positive read on it but send it back to Central Michigan University where they did a nuclear micro satellite DNA analysis and found no significant difference between that scat and other scats that were tested from the Rocky Mountain region. To date most of the pictures that have been sent in have been bobcats and other species Ive received pictures of house cats. New York on Easter Sunday. We did a short segment about mountain lion sightings earlier this year and and after which I was sent a photo and also a video recording that was mostly just audio because it was so dark the photo just a quick reverse Google image search you can put images online and see where else where else they've been posted revealed that the photo had been taking out taken out in Wyoming and has been used you know hundreds of times to claim and the person who sent it to me said it had been taken New Hampshire. Patrick Tate: So the individuals can say that but for an agency that's based on science and what not to to go off with no evidence and then get into that giant debate and all these other issues and put credibility at risk I don't think that would be a great path to take. Join as a sustainer and support independent local news for your community. Rick van de Poll: 80 90. The last wild mountain lion in New Hampshire may have been killed in the White Mountains in 1885. I've seen him in the woods and that was not a bobcat but I was looking at. Not one picture of him online while the person meet with us. It was a 140-pound male mountain lion, the first confirmed in Connecticut in more than 100 years. NHPR is nonprofit and independent. Still, it's been over 100 years since the last mountain lion was killed east of the Mississippi, except for a patch of them down in Florida, where there are supposed to be 100 to 200 still living. Patrick Tate: My line being a large predator a cat watch ambush his prey animal that hasn't been. Why are there so many false positives? Yes and you want to share what you learned. Peter Biello: Ok. Information that weed family automotive dot com sunny for today high temperatures low to mid 80s clear tonight overnight lows in the 50s tomorrow sunny highs in the upper 80s. Patrick Tate: Same here in New Hampshire too. Cougars are believed to have died off in New Hampshire in the 1880s after deforestation and hunting drove them to extinction, according to the 1950s book "A History of New Hampshire Game. 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. I'm gonna send you a letter that we researched this report and we spoke with those labs and the lab wrote in their letter to us that they could only say that Scott contained white Tea Party fur and that they could not say what deposited the scout because it's far too degraded listeners we'd love to hear from you about your mountain lion sightings if you have seen one or if you if you think you have give us a call we'd love to hear your story 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7. It's listed as population of least concern. Theres a project called the Cougar Network that tracks verified sightings, and they are all around us: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, New York and New Brunswick have all had verified sightings over the past 20 years or so. But also I think it proves the opposite point which is that sometimes they're pretty secretive because all the way from Minnesota where the where was the first time was picked up on a game camera to New York. What gets confusing is when you have a large adult animal and a smaller juvenile animal of a different species you can now step start beginning talking about overlapping body weights and sizes. I just stood there just a second and I came to a complete stop and then I ran away. No that's a little bit outside the range. Peter Biello: Well I want to ask Patrick about one of these stories a few years ago you had a story about someone who claimed to. John is calling from Bennington. Monday, December 5th: Mountain Lions in New Hampshire? In Vermont, it was 1881. 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. This is a machine-generated transcript, and may contain errors. Peter Biello: There have been several alleged sightings of mountain lions in New Hampshire recently. 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