Comments on: New Missouri Mt. Lion Photo

By: BB2

BB2 — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 17:57:55 +0000

I live to the west of the dot marked 2006 in NW MO. We have a thriving population of Mt. Lions. Ask anyone who farms or lives outside of town, most have seen them. But don’t ask the Conservation Dept., they refuse to admit it for some reason. My in-laws have seen a female and cubs walking down the gravel road they live on, so it is not wandering males looking for territory only.

By: DWA

DWA — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 16:16:11 +0000

michaelcdunn: Virginia (and Maryland and DE) will be a long time admitting the obvious, I think. (I live in MD.)

My brother saw what he is convinced were cougar tracks on Mt. Rogers, VA. A friend is conviced of a Dolly Sods, WV, sighting. Shenandoah NP visitors (and rangers) report them so often that the Park actually put out cams (so far nothing reported, which means nothing one way or the other). Tracks have been confirmed by state officials in Garrett County, MD (I believe that the “escapee” excuse was used there).

There’s a lot of woods in Missouri, but a lot more in the East, which complicates the matter. Deer so saturate the region that they are available in all possible habitat. In other words, cats don’t have to skulk around fields and gardens. They can stay largely out of sight. But folks are seeing them, with the frequency one would expect.

As Fhqwhgads says, this seems denial of what should be obvious: absent restrictions, animals recolonize former habitat. There is a superabundance of food and cover and a paucity of natural foes. I think that once the cougars that were easy to track and tree got killed off, hunting died down due to diminishing incremental returns. That was a century ago; and since then, nature has been doing what nature does.

By: michaelcdunn

michaelcdunn — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 07:12:27 +0000

Actually, I think Midwestern mountain lions are sort of old news these days. The fact that the State confirms 13 says it all, since they were the last to admit it. The old boys back in the Ozark hills always said there were still “painters” back in there (panthers) they heard howling at night, from the 1920s (when they “died out” till now. I suspect Missouri was NEVER without a few, and it’s just that now the breeding population has reached a critical mass and the conservation folks can’t deny it anymore.

Now that, having grown up in Missouri, I live in Virginia, I’m waiting for Virginia to admit the obvious.

By: JMonkey

JMonkey — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 22:53:30 +0000

The weekend before Christmas I saw one laying dead on the side of the road outside of Chickasha, Oklahoma on the I-44 Turnpike. I actually stopped and got out to look at it. I may have taken some pictures on my camera phone. I will check. I also know that they had one spotted in Southeastern Oklahoma not long ago. The Oklahoma Wildlife Department had to finally concede that there were cougars in Oklahoma.

By: Fhqwhgads

Fhqwhgads — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 12:50:01 +0000

This one always perplexes me. The whole United States was at one time clearly part of the cougar’s range. Even if at one point the cougar was locally eradicated — a questionable assertion — why should it be surprising if they migrate back into their former range? When coyotes are multiplying everywhere, there’s clearly a niche for a medium-to-large predator.

By: atreadia

atreadia — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 04:51:00 +0000

As an addendum to my reply, some hunters shot and killed a cougar at a farm outside of La Plata, Missouri today. The town of La Plata is not all that far from where I live. The Missouri Dept of Conservation is now stating that they have stray male mountain lions moving through the state, but deny there are any females in the area… and we all think they are hiding the truth out here.

By: Hoytshooter

Hoytshooter — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 03:12:39 +0000

I saw a photo of a very large mountain lion which had been killed near Steelville just within the last couple of years. Did some checking and found a number of people in the Steelville area who’d either seen the actual body or knew who’d shot it.

By: atreadia

atreadia — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 23:36:01 +0000

There is a thriving society of moutain lions or cougars in Missouri despite what the Wildlife Department publically states. Nearly every farmer in my county has had multiple incidents of mountain lion sightings. Despite that and the photograps that are brought to the fish and game wardens, the state continues to deny anything.

By: oldpine

oldpine — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 23:26:21 +0000

That is 13 sightings that have been confirmed by the state Conservation Commission. There have been more sightings reported that the commission has not confirmed and many more sightings that have not been reported due to the way the Commission treats the people who make reports, by ridiculing them and offten all but calling them liars. For years the commission did everything possible to deny the very possibility that mountain lions could be in the state in spite of such things as local cattlemen’s groups putting bounties on some cattle killing big cats in the state.
The Commission has also gone to great lengths to discredit reports. In one case with which I am familiar, a property owner reported a dead mountain lion in his farm pond after it had appearently fell through ice covering the pond and drowning. The agent sent out to collect the cat went over the body very closely trying to find a bullet hole so that the land owner could be charged with killing a protected animal that the state clamed not to be there.

By: Shelley

Shelley — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 04:59:39 +0000

If you read the full St. Louis Post-Dispatch story, which appeared on the front page [!], there are further weasel words about checking the location of the 30+ cougars registered as captive animals in the state of Missouri. One would think if you had a captive cougar [and this number includes those in zoos throughout the state] they would not routinely be wondering around the wild bits near the Missouri River on private property. A more sophisticated version of “escaped from a travelling circus?”

Given the large deer populations in MO and IL, there is no reason why there should not be some kind of large predator moving into the area. We hear stories that are not reported even to Cryptomundo or other cryptozoology sites, from hunters and farmers. I wish there were more of these cameras throughout the wilder parts of these states.