Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Cougar in the North East?

Complete myth? Happened only a few times? Occassional transient males? A few breeding populations?

Your thoughts/experiences?

The DNR here in Mn. steadfastly holds to the notion that there's no mountain lions living in the state. They claim the sightings are all just of cats "passing through". ML's have been seen so many times, there's no way their all transient. From far northwest Mn. to right here in the Twin Cities, the cats have been seen, and not just once or twice. They shot a ML in the Nine Mile Creek watershed in Bloomington, a suburb of the Twin Cities several years ago. They also have video footage of a ML feeding on a recently killed deer carcass in the Minnesot River Valley National Wildlife Refuge, which is just south of the Minnesota River near Savage. Yeah, there' no population here-they're all just passing through........

Been having them "just passing through" Michigan for several years. Our DNR refused to acknowledge any presence until they started turning up on game cameras and were being spotted by forest service personal.

Both my ex and my son have had them cross the road in front of them near Winchester, VA. Despite what the DNR claims, NOTHING looks like a cougar.

My cousin has seen one twice, or maybe two different ones, while deer hunting in Charles County, MD, just South of La Plata. One stalked around under his deer stand growling. This wasn't a glimpse, it was there long enough to freak him out a bit.

They are around,in the central N.H. area,the story is they are western cats that were released ,or somehow got here. They also the Eastern couger extinct,who knows.Back in the 70,s had one jump across the road in front of me.Dark brown probably 60 lbs or so with a tail just as long as its body. The guys in the snowmobile club see very large cat prints the size of a large hand occasionally.

Not the only thing the MDNR has/is lying about.

We have a lot of them in ID.

Ingwe in drag?

you can have some of ours

My mother swears she's seen one back in Maine. I know she knows what bobcats, house cats, coyotes, and deer look like. I have no reason not to believe her.

Nearest neighbor near the deer camp is paralyzed with fear he may encounter one someday. I'd sleep with Friskies rubbed on my neck outdoors up there rather than get a flat tire in some of Michigan's urban areas.

The eskimo mongols we have in Alaska traveled hundreds of miles to get here, so it is possible cougars do the same thing.

I know some loggers in Northwest N.C. that claim to have seen them on a few occasions.

We see them here!

Funny thing every state in the northeast says the same thing, "if one is there, it is just passing through."
Ok so they have a big range, but come on.

If the whole northeast is the same in this respect,
just where the pfhucck does this guy call home?

lmao their as common as dog chit here but you seldom see them.

I have seen them in Vermont, Fish and Game says they don't exist.

officialy, the cougar is extinct in the east. These must be western cougars that got lost, and can't read a map.

My step son and I saw one saunter across the road here in Pennsylvania a couple of years ago. Looked like a young male in that he was long and lanky. Odd thing is we bobcat hunt covering hundreds of miles a day looking for tracks and have never seen a cougar track. Adds credence to the belief that the one we saw was passing through.

Local game warden says he has had numerous reports of sightings around the area we saw the one we saw. He told a story about a cougar crossing the midwest and getting hit by a car in Connecticut, two years before an article came out in NRA's hunter magazine saying exactly the same. So I am sure he had his facts straight.

i'd worry more more about a boar hog than a cat.