Here’s what I would expect a state to do: Investigate stories of alleged mountain lion attacks. Don’t pay much attention to isolated stories of mountain lion sightings in areas where mountain lions have not previously been known to be, but do investigate if infrared cameras show supposed mountain lions or if there are several alleged sightings in an area. Once a mountain lion is a confirmed resident or visitor to an area, warn residents not to let children hike alone, and tell people to keep vulnerable animals inside at night. Explain that mountain lions almost never attack people.
Mountain lions live in my area. Most “mountain lion sightings” here turn out to be bobcats or house cats. Mountain lions know how not to be seen.
People with horses in Eastern Washington usually keep a donkey or mule with the herd. They are meaner and a lot louder. They keep goats to drive off the coyotes.
An adult cougar eats about 1 deer each week. One would have to be desperate to try to take down a horse, thought they are certainly capable. Even with deer and elk they prefer the smaller ones.
I doubt very much that wildlife officials would lie about the presence of mountain lions. If a mountain lion was definitely confirmed, it would probably make headlines like this guy that traveled all the way from the South Dakota to CT in 2011.
This animal being in CT was so unusual, wildlife officials went to great lengths to try to explain its presence and did DNA analysis which matched it to a South Dakota population. They suspected it traveled north through Canada and then back down into the U.S.
This website documents confirmed mountain lion sightings. “Each confirmation has been extensively researched from its source (media, first-hand interviews, video/photo evidence, etc.). Note: it is possible that some of the confirmations could represent the same animal at different times and locations.”
There are 9 confirmations of mountain lion presence in the NE U.S. Three are probably the same mountain lion that was killed in CT. Only one other confirmation was in the last twenty years. Only one of the nine was confirmed by contact with the actual animal - a carcass. The others were confirmed by tracks, scat (poop), and DNA evidence of some kind. There was no photo evidence.
From the cougarnet website, the opposite is true for the Western U.S. The site states that western populations have been increasing since the 1960’s and may even be higher than before European settlement.
I doubt that mountain lion populations are greater now than before European settlement. Mountain lions need huge territories. Young males have to disperse to find a new territory, and they have a sad tendency to get hit by cars on freeways when they try, because potential habitat is now fragmented.
Maybe your state is much, much more competent than mine, but I found it a little laughable to assume that “the state” would be aware of all wildlife, scientific studies, wildlife tracking, and even their own media response. Here in Florida, if you saw wildlife with a collar, there are at least half a dozen different state and local agencies that might or might not know about the collar, none of which would necessarily coordinate with each other and many of which would be offering conflicting public advice. Heck, you can even talk to different people employed by the same state agency and each one might tell you something different. The idea that there is a secret, coordinated program to re-introduce a species would require way more competence, skill and secrecy than would be remotely possible at most state agencies.
IMO, Occam’s razor requires you to assume “the state” is simply clueless. If there is a mountain lion, most state employees don’t know about it and the ones that do just aren’t talking to the others, which is different than purposefully concealing anything. The collar is just as likely to be from a nonprofit/private scientific project as it is any state agency, so the fact that a mountain lion has a collar is no indication of what the state does or doesn’t know.
Don’t rely on the government to influence what common sense decisions you make. If you feel there are predators in your area, protect your stock and family. Personal responsibility is the watchword, simply because it’s nuts to assume any government entity is caring and competent enough to protect you.
I think the best way to make people aware is to have the media involved, like the article the OP posted. Also inform the state reps for your area and they can make calls to the state wildlife and other authorities. The most they will probably do is post warning signs.
I was working in a building in Florida where the Dept of Fish and Wildlife (or some such name) had an office. Guys with guns, mace, and big boats to go looking for bad things. It was in an office complex with about 5 buildings surrounding a pond. One day an alligator appeared in the pond and perched on a platform (for a water feature). They posted signs around the railings, but that was it. After 2-3 weeks, the gator moved on to another pond (most are connected by underground streams). This office complex was bordered by a piece of undeveloped land to the north, full of wild creatures. There was a drain and I saw raccoons, feral cats, skunks, armadillo, and any number of other critters go into the drain on a daily basis. A Wind in the Willows thing. The raccoons were as big as large dogs and walked like the werewolves in Harry Potter.
Wait, you mean a wild animal moved from one place to another? Without filling in the proper TPS report in triplicate? Obviously there’s no way the state could know about or predict such a thing. (Insert eye roll here.)
We get a fair number of mountain lion sightings in Minnesota—not surprising, since there are breeding populations in the Dakotas, just to our west. So far they haven’t taken up permanent residency here. They’ve all been transient young males dispersing from the Dakotas in search of new territory. The females don’t disperse as widely, so until we get one here, and there’s a male in the vicinity at the same time, there’s no chance of developing a breeding population, even though biologists say parts of northeastern Minnesota would make good habitat for them, with ample deer to feed on.
Some make their way farther east, to Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, but at that point they’re blocked by the Great Lakes. The young male that rambled through Illinois and ended up in upstate New York and Connecticut was a pretty exceptional case. Last year there was a verified sighting in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, though, so there may be others on the move.
I wouldn’t lose much sleep over it. The attack on the horse was probably an isolated incident involving a solitary male just passing through—even if there’s evidence it did spend a few nights in the vicinity. Either that, or a big cat that someone released, which does happen from time to time.
It is utterly ludicrous to think that Pennsylvania state officials and employees are deliberately lying about the presence of mountain lions in the state and engaging in some sort of conspiracy to re-establish them while publicly saying that they are extinct in the region.
Apart from the sheer silliness and paranoia involved in that hypothesis, my experience is that it’s virtually impossible to keep anything in Pennsylvania state government secret for much more than 24 hours before ten people with government jobs start posting on pennlive about it. What’s more, there are effectively six or seven different political parties represented in state government (poorly disguised as two), and there’s virtually nothing they agree on. It’s incredibly hard to do anything specific, much less to do anything as complex as a secret program to re-establish large predators in areas where people – including lots of the people who work in state government – live.
This is what I would expect too - far more than just hearing “there aren’t any mountain lions in our area.”
And since it’s happened in the past, it seems very likely (to me) that it could happen again. Big predators can be dangerous. The public (esp local public) has a right to know when one is (quite probably) in the area without having to hear about it via the grapevine. Pets, young livestock, and kids seem like they would be at greater risk by not knowing.
Personally, if this happens to be an ex-pet, I’d also want to see it caught and rehomed in a zoo or similar. Ex-pets rarely make “good” wild animals. It could very well be why it went after a horse instead of deer.
@JHS State government is totally different than a state agency - or a private group within the state. I doubt most state representatives give much of a hoot about anything that goes on in the “wilderness.” Few votes there.
That said, there’s definitely a whole bunch of people from farmers to hunters who think a state agency (or someone) is silently bringing them in - not telling people because they don’t want the bad press or to encourage people who want to hunt them. I’ve been hearing all about it recently.
Personally, I’m leaning toward the “released pet” theory for this particular cat. That’s the only way my mind can match it to attacking a grown horse. Horse meat can be very, very cheap (buying old horses at auction). If it were kept as a pet, it could be quite used to eating horse - and pending whims of the owner - possibly even used to killing the old ones itself. That’s all brainstorming, but seems more plausible (to me) than a wild cat going after a grown horse.
Several years ago, there were similar stories in western NY, in the Finger Lakes area. We visit often as we have family there. Neither they, nor I, have ever actually seen one, so I’m guessing that it may have been one just ‘passing through’, or it wasn’t a mountain lion/eastern cougar at all. Bears, though? Yes.
@Creekland, if you live somewhere between Harrisburg and the Maryland border, you are not living in anything that anyone would consider “the wilderness.” Your region is economically vibrant, full of successful middle-market businesses, agricultural and otherwise. You probably have a meaningful number of neighbors and community members who work in state government, or have close relatives who do. What’s more, you live not so far – certainly within cougar range – from the permanent residences of both the current governor and the candidate who wants to replace him.
I hope no one gets killed when people decide to hunt cougars to protect their horses.
FWIW, I posted the photo of the “clawmarks” from #10 on an Animal Tracking FB page that I’m a member of. The unanimous opinion of 30+ posters (some with impressive animal behavior credentials) is that the horse wasn’t attacked by an animal; it most likely scratched itself on a fence or post.
“Too straight, too shallow. This looks like a horse that scraped against a post or fence. A cat would not attack with paws side by side like that…they wrap their arms around prey (just like a house cat “attacking” a toy or roll of paper towels.”
Another poster remarked about the proliferation of false predator stories from attention seekers. There have been several of those debunked on the FB page.
@JHS I’ll admit I’m not quite sure how to read your last post. We live rural - amid farmland in a farming community although close enough to small towns (boroughs) and cities for our personal preferences. We have State Gamelands and State Parks very near us, the AT is closer than Harrisburg - in two directions, and most if not all schools give the first day of rifle deer season off as a holiday knowing many teachers and students wouldn’t show up if it were a school day. That’s not wilderness as in the Adirondacks, but it certainly qualifies for the vast majority of people. A cat could easily live somewhere and not be spotted often, esp if it stuck to hunting deer.
Our region is definitely economically vibrant - one of the best in the state. We’re not the only ones who like it here and moved here on purpose. It’s gorgeous - no traffic jams - and close enough to so many things if we want to go to them, but the main sounds we hear are nature (since we don’t live in town).
Would it really surprise you if folks decided to take out any big cats to protect their livestock (some horses, but far more cows) or pets or kids? It wouldn’t be surprising at all to me. It’s doubtful any humans would get killed. It’s rare when they get killed deer hunting and oodles of hunters are out then. One of the stories I’ve heard from two different people is that a collared cat DID get killed a few years back. The hunter kept the collar as proof. I’ll admit I don’t know how much faith to put into the story, but the fact that the story exists seems to support the idea that at least some local people would hunt the cats.
Or were you referring to my saying politicians don’t care about the wilderness because there aren’t voters there? There aren’t. The bulk of the voters are in the cities - even in our specific area. They don’t live on farms. It’s why many who live rural don’t give a hoot about certain laws. They feel the laws were made by city folks who have no idea how farm life goes. (NOTE: I’m not always in agreement with them - just relating how they feel based 100% upon what they say and do.) To be honest, most city folks have no idea what farm life is like IRL (outside of Hollywood). Many farm folks have no idea what city life is like either. One only knows what they are brought up with or otherwise experience.
@LeastComplicated I wish there were better pictures of the horse. From reports I’ve heard, the horse had marks like that on both sides of his haunches, not just one - and there were marks up front that weren’t as noticeable upon first inspection, but later seemed to match the size of a cat.
The owners weren’t sure what had happened. They only knew their horses had become spooked, broke down the fence, and were found some distance away at another barn. This one was bleeding at that time and the bleeding led to them calling folks in to theorize what had happened. First thought was a bear as they are in the area, but it’s not a bear. Other thoughts had been fences or trees or similar, but those don’t hold up to the area so I’m told. Our neighbors know the owners IRL so that story I feel is believable. I heard it from before the cat theory even came up. The organization that came out to investigate is the one that promoted the idea of it being a cat.
Just in case I’m remembering incorrectly, I just asked for any updates (or links) they have. I’ll share if I find anything more out. We’re heading back to my mom’s soon though, so listening to local stories will soon pause for me.
This back and forth about whether this is wild speculation or attention seeking (no offense intended) misses the fact that one could be in the area. And though some could be thinking of hoses or cattle as a commodity, the threat to smaller children is very real. Big issue in the west, even in certain wilder parks near very well populated areas. (My experience there is southern CA.)
Whenever you’re up against nature, you deal with nature. I’m in the big highly populated metro area that includes Boston and south into RI, east to the cape and we have the coyotes down the street and smaller wild animals in our yards. Occasional bear sightings further out in MA, RI, and CT.
Officially extinct or not in some areas, the big animals are known to travel.
I live in Oregon. The state readily admits we have cougars. In fact, at some state parks you’ll see signs warning of “recent cougar sighting”, and when you read the fine print, it was more than a year ago. So that’s not particularly helpful, either. We just assume there is always the possibility of a cougar.
There are cougar sightings on trailcams in my area regularly. Just last week, there was a deer body found less than a mile from my pasture, that some neighbors are identifying as a cougar kill. It’s scary.
I don’t really know how to best keep my horse safe. Barns and stalls are not usually cougar-proof, since there are usually large openings for ventilation. Cats can easily jump over a dutch door, etc. And if the cougar gets in the stall with the horse, the horse doesn’t stand a chance. At least out in the pasture, she’s got a decent chance to avoid the predator. Some people around me have Livestock Guardian Dogs or llamas or donkeys to help keep the horses safe.
The threat to smaller children is almost zero. In California, we’ve had three fatal lion attacks in the last 25 years, even though millions of people live in mountain lion habitat. Three. That’s fewer than the number of people killed in wildfires in California in the last week. If you want to worry about dangers from wilderness, worry about fires, floods and landslides, not lion attacks.
I’m not an expert, but I was wondering about the picture of “claw” attacks on a horse’s butt. Mountain lions attack necks, not butts.
