Peter Biello: They make great mascots at least. 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. I mean they're a survivor. 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. Well I can't tell you what you saw. The species that once inhabited the Northeast, known as the eastern mountain lion, is now extinct. Caller: I have yeah. Give us a call if you have a question or comments or story about perhaps seeing a mountain lion here in New Hampshire. She quotes a biologist in Lyme New Hampshire who who is keeping two mountain lions himself so in the not too distant past in the early nineteen hundreds it was perhaps more common and still in Maine. Let us know your story and share your photos! Yes and you want to share what you learned. However if if and when it does happen it takes up a lot of resources looking at that situation and identifying what's going on because when you start out you don't know it's a hoax. They create these big latrines that are very obvious. So when we talk about the threshold of evidence required to say for sure you have seen a mountain lion it is rather high. Pat ruse and he was sampling doing DNA samples from cats in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Fear for others and those two polarizing opinions on the situation is what I believe brings out mystique and Sam you know I take kind of a long view on this. The American Lion The Saber tooth Tiger and this was the one that survived. Have a photo. And it's not really strong. 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. Yes. And today we're talking about the mysterious elusive mountain line with folks who know something about it. 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. I'm Peter Biello. We want answers. 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. Hunting is legal, but closely regulated by the state. Like why would you want one wildlife. That's pretty elaborate. He told me that on one of his many scouting trips for Black Bear he found a deer carcass up in a tree. OK. 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. So for our scientists to do the lumping and whatnot. Peter Biello: Rick I believe you did mention that that they do leave carcasses up in the tree from time to time but are there any other species known in New Hampshire to do this on a regular basis. I have no doubt that there are mountain lion roaming New Hampshire. Many people in New Hampshire have claimed to have seen mountain lions. 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. Russ, from Sandwich (and Bedford) asks: In Sandwich New Hampshire, everybody has a story about seeing a mountain lion. Peter Biello: Well yeah. And I have to use that word allegedly because there is so much dispute about what people see and what they actually see. How to Report a Possible Mountain Lion Sighting. So Pat you field a lot of calls about people seeing or reportedly seeing mountain lions. The big cat has been extinct here since the mid-1800s. Its closest living relative is the cheetah. Your support makes this news available to everyone. 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. Just. But no proof was offered. Rick van de Poll: Oh yeah absolutely. It's completely possible that it may have spent time in New Hampshire and went undetected but had it stayed in the area ultimately it would have been detected over time. They lived perhaps elsewhere in New England and they were just passing through and happened to have an encounter of some sort. 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. So you know until I found those two scats I didn't think that mountain lions were here in the east. I mean no doubt a seen Bobcat seen his stuff. 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. So maybe a good pet for you but not for your neighbor if you just stop by unannounced. Yes. The engineers Dan Colgan our senior producer is Allan Grimm. I don't know if she still is. Rick van de Poll: Well I didn't. 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. Not one picture of him online while the person meet with us. So. Right. You saw what you saw. Had great trees behind it beautiful ferns on the ground so it brought me down on the site and the ferns on the ground matched. HOLDERNESS, N.H. (AP) Two of the known mountain lions in New Hampshire have spent their 15 years in close proximity to humans. Peter Biello: Well Mike thanks very much for sharing your story. So I hate the idea that there's some sort of upward you know downward pressure from the bosses saying Don't you know don't tell about the mountain lions because it'll scare away the tourists. Patrick Tate: I don't believe it is. Phone number 1 800. Share. 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. Caller: Hi. For instance, Floridas wildlife officials have a similar ghost cat: the black panther. I've had a number of people call up and say I found a scout in the woods and I want it DNA identified. I mean it wasn't your idea. No evidence and other states where Mountain lights have turned up. Through DNA they approximate area in the United States or North America where I was born. Peter Biello: What about the idea of tourism like us leaving aside the fact that it is not on the Endangered Species Act is it. 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. He writes As a farmer I come across many outdoorsman looking to hunt our property had a conversation with one who believed very strongly that we had mountain lions in New Hampshire. People go through great lengths to create hoaxes like this. You can see two of them at Squam Lakes Natural Science Center in Holderness NH. But if people are still seeing mountain lions, why is the state and federal government seeking to COVER IT UP!? 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. Updated: 9:53 AM EST Dec 6, 2016. So that did it for me. Anytime at any HP broad dot org or subscribe to our podcast search Apple podcasts Google Play or stitcher for an HP bar exchange. So take care of this problem. Caller: I do. Sam Evans Brown. So the U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station has a database on mountain lion and they can identify. Just one quick point I think I think when we we talk about these conspiracy theories the real story is that fish and game is an agency that that is short on budget and staff. And it was you know 10 or 12 people saw it all at once. Some are included in lists of mountains, such as the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) list of the Hundred Highest peaks of New England, or the . So what a neat experience. I think that you probably are. Patrick Tate: Exactly I was gonna bring that up juvenile male of. I just saw the head and the tail that was leaving. There's no attraction. WMUR uLocal: On this trail cam video, an unidentified feline is spotted. The supervisor that hired me in the game division in October of 1978 passed on to me this whole big folder of mountain lion information and sightings going back probably a couple decades. You know one of the the biggest questions I have about that is it points to how much we don't know and if in fact we don't know enough. 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. So the whole media hype about how scary mountain lions are should should go away immediately and that would be that I think the major thrust of educating folks about these casualties vs.. Sam Evans-Brown: Sam go ahead. NH Fish and Game Wildlife Biologist Patrick Tate reports that so far, mountain lion reports accompanied byphotographs have been misidentified bobcats or housecats, or pictures of mountain lions taken from the Internet and reported as being recorded in New Hampshire. There's a lot of photographs that you can see that it's very clearly a tabby cat that someone has thought was a mountain lion. We'd be inundated with scouts in the past when newspaper articles have been written about DNA and scouts. And Rick van de Poll naturalist and founder of ecosystem management consultants of New England. And there's there's no evidence of that cat's movement in that entire you know 12 hundred miles stretch of its journey. First off if the standard for an agency to go forward with the public and put out a press release that them outlines here their believers are going to say I told you they'd been here the whole time. We're gonna talk about sightings in this part of the program as well we'd love to hear your story. For starters, part of the confusion might come from the fact that the eastern cougar was taken off the endangered species list earlier this year. I've actually had to walk in on one or two now and look at what was going on and figured out what was going on. Peter Biello: Well John thanks very much for the story really appreciate it. Post your sightings and NH photos here! My wife and I saw a mountain lion. The nonbelievers are going to say Show us your evidence and show us prove this to us. From "History of New Hampshire Game and Furbearers" by Helenette Silver, Research Clerk, NH Fish and Game Dept. And you know all that. Peter Biello: We at this e-mailed comment from Michael. We rely on readers like you to support the local, national, and international coverage on this website. 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. The book MAMMAL TRACKS & SIGN by Mark Elbroch has pictures of mountain lion scat found at a multiple beaver kill. It doesn't happen as much anymore. So do they. Support for an age PR comes from you our listeners. So so. They're very loyal to what the handler which makes them very dangerous to everyone else. To date most of the pictures that have been sent in have been bobcats and other species Ive received pictures of house cats. Caller: Absolutely. Caller: Yeah I hadn't experienced blastoff fall so this was around September and I was driving from Webster into Concord on Horse Hill Road and anybody in the area would know I was right near the Red Barn and all of a sudden this animal jumps out of the woods and it bounded across the road in about two two giant leaps and stopped in the field just on the other side. No doubt in my mind it was. When you talk about a bobcat Bobcat maybe 80 90 pounds and then a mountain lion could be between 130 and 180 pounds. Mountain Lions in New Hampshire-Fact or Fiction 3,207 views Jul 31, 2019 78 Dislike Share Save New Hampshire Fish and Wildlife 634 subscribers During my thirty-one career at the New. They're just moving around freely. So I just throwing that out there it's interesting. Patrick Tate: So it's interesting it's brought up. Despite numerous reports, the NH Fish and Game Department continues to have no physical evidence of mountain lion presence in the state. NH Fish and Game relies on physical evidence to answer questions about the presence or absence of mountain lion in the state.