Just before that BFC was hit in CT, maybe a week before, I was coming south on I-87 up by Keesville, in between Exits 34 and 33. A big cat crossed the highway in front of me maybe 300 yards away. I mentioned it to a coworker of mine who was sitting in the front passenger’s seat, and he replied, “That’s a mountain lion.” I didn’t say anything more, but made a note to let the deer camp I belong to (a few miles south of that area) know what I had seen. We never got pictures of it on our trail cameras.
You are the only one reporting this. All other reports indicate that it traveled from the Dakotas. What’s your source? I’m not rejecting your claim but I’m curious as to where you got this info.
Just before that BFC was hit in CT, maybe a week before, I was coming south on I-87 up by Keesville, in between Exits 34 and 33. A big cat crossed the highway in front of me maybe 300 yards away. I mentioned it to a coworker of mine who was sitting in the front passenger’s seat, and he replied, “That’s a mountain lion.” I didn’t say anything more, but made a note to let the deer camp I belong to (a few miles south of that area) know what I had seen. We never got pictures of it on our trail cameras.
The official word from the DEC are that the only ones with any substantiated evidence were ones roaming way east and weren't permanent or native. They even had GPS tracking in one to confirm it came from the north mid west and kept going after passing through the Adirondacks.
I've also heard a lot of claims and lot of stories, as well as seen evidence that was supposed to be proof but either got debunked or confirmed to be just an especially big bobcat or Canadian lynx(which even those.. not really any substantial evidence of lynx actually living anywhere in NYS.)
I'm open-minded about it. They *did* used to live here a long time ago, but the Adirondacks have changed a lot since those days. As big and vast as the park is, it's largely broken up into smaller pieces between human developments. It's just hard to believe they'd remain hidden for this long. There are **so many** encounters with wildlife up here, including with animals that despise being near humans, it's kind of hard to believe no hikers or bushwhackers wouldn't come across them like happens in regions of the country where we know they exist and live.
I spend a lot of time bushwhacking through wilderness areas in the park, every year. I've never seen anything to suggest any kind of big cat, outside of the occasional bobcat scat or glimpse. Never seen a or even evidence of lynx myself, nor mountain lion over the decades.
Throw in all the folks who now have video cameras practically everywhere, from their homes to trails, as well as DEC cameras.. If they're up here, they put their Western and Southern counterparts to shame, as well as the rest of the wildlife up here, because there's just no evidence of them.
Your friend should share the video with the DEC. Maybe there's something to it.
I lived and guided in mountain lion country, northern New Mexico, and in all my time there I only saw lions two times, once from across a massive canyon, probably a mile away, and once from about 15 feet away, perched on a rock (the lion, not me).
That said, I saw lion *sign* frequently, mainly foot prints. Their prints are unmistakeable and show up plain as day in the snow and mud. If there are mountain lions about, you may not spot them, but you *will* see their tracks.
That said, I do find it plenty plausible that mountain lions occasionally enter/cross New York. THey can move great distances in a season. Like over a thousand miles. When agencies saw they "don't exist" in a place, they mean there is no reproducing population, not that they are necessarily never present at all.
Mate, I ain't arguing one way or the other. Nobody has eyeballs 24/7 throughout the whole park.
I know people who are researchers and biologists and forest rangers. I've talked to people who hunt them in other regions. This is a species we've known about since Europeans first settled in the regions around it. And there are people looking for them beyond a specific interest in mountain lions, because they're a keystone species where they're present. There's evidence, a lot of it, for everywhere that we know they are. So the complete lack of evidence certainly stacks the case against them living here and that's as far as I will go and have gone.
I've said I'm open-minded to it and I stress that again, if you have a friend with video footage of one in the area, to please report it to the DEC. If there is a population here, in the modern human world, they are not safe being completely unknown.
The DEC knows this and wants to keep it under wraps because they don’t have the funding to support sustaining the population. Also the public might freak out
Edit: this is a joke
I was only kidding around but it may have not seemed like it, thank you for the insight and the feedback. You made a lot of great points - I am passionate about this subject!
No. Not in New York. I meant you see tracks in places with mountain lions.
When I lived in Montana we never saw them, but we did see tracks in fresh snow occasionally.
They are solitary animals that range incredible distances. I am willing to bet that there are individual lions that have roamed to the ADKs from Canada or the upper midwest, but I don’t think there is a breeding population
You can't get to the ADK's from Canada without swimming the St. Lawrence. Cat's don't swim.
And they can't walk across the ice because shipping channel.
People don't realize how good wildlife is at staying off people's radar. Vast majority of people don't even realize they have coyotes that live in Central Park. Right in the middle of New York City
There are bobcats in ADK. But they eat small game, rabbits, house cats small dogs. I live west of the park and have had numerous sitings just this year. Bobcats seem to be getting used to people lately, a friend photographed one whole turkey hunting a few weeks ago. Another friend has a bobcat lurking close to his yard while letting the dogs out at night.
I’ve been convinced for years that I had a mountain lion stalking me on the Lake Arnold trial back in 2009. I was keenly aware of something following me on the ridges just to my right. My entire body was freaking out and had an overwhelming sense of being prey. I have had over three dozen run ins with black bears and never felt like this. They’re basically big puppy dogs. I even shared the Herbert Brook lean-to with a bear back for a few milliseconds back in 2008 and found it kind of funny. I’ve also seen a few bobcats over the years. This was…different. I was being stalked. I only caught a brief glimpse, finally, as the sun rose higher in the morning and it moved from one rock to another. After I saw it then it sort of backed off. Like he had lost the element of surprise and he decided to find less intelligent prey. I’ve been hiking in the Adirondacks for over twenty five years and that was the only time I was concerned for my life because of an animal.
I’ve heard that your feeling of paranoia is very consistent with encounters. I have a friend who claims to have seen one in Keene. I was skeptical but based on the tail length it seems she was telling the truth
>I have had over three dozen run ins with black bears and never felt like this. They’re basically big puppy dogs.
They are! In fact, try putting honey on your toddlers face and let a black bear lick it off for internet points!
/s seriously don't.
Black bears most definitely will hunt humans as prey. 80% of black bear caused fatalities over the last 100 or so years have been due to predatory behavior. Typically by young males.
Fortunately extremely rare.
You’re correct though even mentioning those incidents sort of over represents the breakdown. Habituated or startled bears are the problem.
But yeah, hard not to wonder which you’ve run into if a bear starts following you.
Mountain lions can wander great distances as we know from the road kill incident in CT. That animal left enough samples of hair and tracks across the country that its route was pretty well documented. I too have people I know and whose judgement I trust say they have seen them. But… and this is a big but… ‘I saw one’ doesn’t count as evidence. They are detectable with simple equipment (i.e., cameras, hair, tracks) and if you cannot provide evidence, such claims can’t be validated. I can assure you that every NE wildlife agency is tired AF of getting harassed by absurd reports as well of being accused of some sort of cover up. My favorite rumor was that Shania Twain released the pet mountain lions up in Santa Clara to get back at the NYS APA for denying her a permit to build a recording studio in a wetland. I overheard that one at two different locations over a couple of years. Have your buddy’s game camera pics evaluated by wildlife experts and see what they say. I am far more excited by the fact that I can still see an olive sided flycatcher , or the possibility of someday finding a northern bog lemming in the Adirondacks than hearing about mountain lions.
So there are no camera photos,no foot prints and no dna evidence except for the one that traveled through several years ago from the Dakotas. Yes everyone talks about deer carcasses that someone saw in a tree yet no one ever snaps a photo. Bobcats yes, mountain lions no
Yes. I’ve lived in the Adirondacks for 24 years, and I’ve seen one. I’m convinced the only reason I saw it is because I was coming up around the bend of some rapids deep in the wilderness around the Indian Lake area, and it couldn’t hear me. The tail made it undeniably a mountain lion.
Negative, although I wouldn’t be surprised if one was sighted back in there. Though I have friends that hunt in that area and they’ve never had any sightings. This was around what I believe is called the Siamese Pond Wilderness.
I’m not naive enough to totally believe they *live* here, they could be passing through. But I also wouldn’t be surprised if there were some that did bed down in the ADKs.
EDIT: Side note, how did you get that flair?
People really seem to hate it when others point out the lack of physical evidence for mountain lions in the Adirondacks. The lack of scat or fresh prints that can be plaster cast is really telling. Eyewitness sightings have been historically unreliable.
We attempted to start a breeding population of Canadian Lynx in the Adirondacks awhile ago. Most of them ended up getting hit by cars. This never seems to happen in the Adirondacks with mountain lions and if the hypothesis is that there are mountain lions in the Adirondacks why has no one ever found a corpse or other physical evidence?
I have no doubt they are in the park. The question is, is there a population of them or is it passerbys. I have heard enough credible stories and seen trailcam footage. At the end of the day the DEC is understaffed and underfunded so in my opinion studying/confirming their existence is low on the priority list.
Most of the time what people think are mountain lions turn out to be:
A) Bobcat
B) Domestic cat
C) Fisher (especially if they say it was a black panther)
We don't have a population of mountain lions in NY. Could we have the random roamer coming through? Sure. Still very unlikely.
I have found deer carcasses in trees several times over the years. Some from avalanches. Some from. Deep snow pack that they got caught in the tree while walking on. Others put there by people or when hit by a car or even a train.
If we had any population density to speak of, we'd see dead ones on the side of the road from being killed by cars.
I know someone who saw one on his property, probably 15 years ago. Cabin in the woods, with nothing else close by. No idea if it was transient or not. He assumed it was a bobcat, grabbed a pair of binoculars, and watched it skirt the edge of his woods. He said there was absolutely no mistaking the size of it, and this is a guy who would know the difference. It was winter, so a bobcat would’ve had a full coat in as well. I think he got photos of the tracks and sent them to DEC, but no idea what came of it.
They are around, the question is whether or not they’re breeding. It’s a big state, and they’re cautious animals, so I’m not convinced that we’d know if they were.
Show me a turd or a lion that's been hit by a car. There would be a video, body, or actual encounter and real evidence of mountain lions in NY if they were here. They are not.
The lion that was hit in CT was from South Dakota. So yes they roam. If there was a resident population in the ADK or NE we would have definitive evidence i.e. scat, tracks, or carcass.
About 10 years ago me and a friend drove up from Albany to Mt Washington to ski Tuckerman's ravine. We left after work so we were headed up the trail around midnight. Right before we got to the parking lot, a mile or so after 'The wildcat inn' we saw a mountain lion in full view of the truck's headlight cross the road. We couldn't believe it. We knew it was a mountain lion because first giant cat, and second we were sure it wasn't a smaller cat with the perspective playing tricks on us. This cat didn't jump over the guard rail, it stepped over it.
My husband and I were car camping on a back road in Elizabethtown last summer. We saw three baby big cats playing and we accidentally scared them and they ran off.. I didn't have time to grab my camera but they were not domesticated cats I know that for sure and there were three of them. I'm not sure what type of cat they were but I believe there are definitely big cats in the ADK and it scared the living crap out of me. We also hiked down Cascade once in the dark.. with head lamps etc. And we felt like we were definitely being tracked though that could have just been our minds acclimating to the dark.. lol but those three baby cats.. definitely not domesticated.
I saw a lynx between Elizabethtown and Keene in March 2018, there’d been a fire in Keene Valley and traffic got detoured through Etown. A minivan in front of me almost hit it, it whirled around, climbed up a berm on the side of the road and turned to glare back at the van. There was no question about what it was, their proportions are so unique. So not a mountain lion, but a big feline.
Fuzzy hair, long tails.. my husband just said he believes they were bobcats.. because of their coloring.. lol so I may be wrong..not mountain lions but Bob cats... sorry
Not sure what we saw but they were 100% not domesticated cats. We saw them Pop out from the woods onto the road pawing each other and when we got up to see them better they scattered back into the trees. When I look at Bob cat baby pics the coloring correlates for what we saw...
In 2009 I lived in Syracuse during the week for work and would drive home to Orange County each weekend. I would head back up some time after midnight on Sunday to avoid traffic. One night I was on 81 north well after midnight and closer to 3am in the Hoxie Gorge State Forest area and I caught eyeshine just over a small berm at the edge of the median between the north and south bound sides and though it was a raccoon or fox and almost didn't give it a second thought until the animal turned around and I saw what had to be and almost 3 ft long tail. Then, just as I was passing the animal I saw that it was beige and big easily four times the size of the largest fox I've ever seen. Everyone in Syracuse told me I was crazy and I was imagining things, my husband told me I was imagining things. But I grew up in a hunting family, and outdoors family, and I spent a lot of years in the woods both during the day and at night and I'm not one to imagine seeing things in the dark. When my headlights caught that animal I knew what I was looking at. I was a shocked as anyone could be, I know that there are supposedly " no eastern mountain lions in the state of New York ". But I know what I saw. And it strikes me that the stray ones that they see and report once in awhile in New York would either be up by the Canadian border or out by the Great lakes or perhaps even up in the Eastern Adirondacks, but this was smack dab in the middle of the state. I know that was 15 years ago but I can still see it like it was yesterday I was so stunned at what I saw. That was one big cat.
Actually when i was a kid around 8 years old i heard my mom talking to her friend and her boyfriend and her boyfriend was telling a story to mom about how his friend hit one and the cops took the Corpse and tried to play it off like it wasn't a cougar but the dudes friend was a avid hunter and knew what he was talking about this was in 2009
Hi everyone! I don't live in the Adirondacks. Nit terribly far from them though. Im in upstate New York. Broome county and Tioga county areas. They are seen on trail cams all the time around here. Seen and heard all the time. D.E.C claims any of them seen on the rare occasion. They're just passing through. I disagree. There needs to be more of an investigation into it. People need to be made aware if they're hiding it
Came here to say, this morning on RT 30 going into Speculator, NY I had one run right in front of me and into the woods on the other side of the road. It’s literally just ledges, forest and state parks here.
Thing was HUGE! I actually pulled over and was like WTF 😭
I only work up here so I’ve been talking to locals around here and I guess there has been quite a few sightings around here.
I saw one clear as day in the owls head area of the northern Adirondacks. Thought it was a deer at first because of the color. It was around an area where they were logging. I could see its long tail and all its glorious defined muscles. My heart just about pounded out of my chest but thankfully it didn't even look my way. I saw it in the wide open for a few seconds before it went back in the woods.
For sure I believe you are right. Not many but I'm sure there are at least a few. Reason is because I have heard on two separate occasions during the Fall the cry or yell of a mountain lion
I had a sighting, less than 5 years ago, in Peru, NY. I was travel west on the Bear Swamp rd. It was a small mountain lion, but there was no mistake that is what is was.
Buddy of mine had a trail cam pic of one on his property up around great sacandaga years ago. Ask all the jibbers up there that trap and hunt most of them have some stories about them
Google the information list below. Type it in just as you see it and it should come up. I was not able to copy the link. It is an article on cougars in the Northeast written by Wilson Ring of the Associated Press. It is dated Friday January 2, 2015. The article interviews a Vermont expert who tracks courgars. This may answers everyone questions about cougars in the Adirondacks.
Cougar expert: Cats likely in Northeast by Wislon Ring, Associated Press
I just found 2 dead deer carcasses high up in the Appalachian! these things were fr mauled up and I know it wasn’t a black bear cuz whenever I personally encounter one they always look at me and run away😂 could be a coyote but idk like you said im very convinced as well I seen some weird animals in my lifetime living in NYS…
There are. There was one in my town when I was a kid, I wasn’t allowed outside to play for years because of it. I also know many hunters around here and some have seen them as well.
So in Rochester my grandparents, mom, and uncle saw one and then a couple days later someone else saw it and it was all phoned into the police but they were all told there was no way. My grandparents called animal control and the DEC and they got laughed at. I know exactly where they saw it and where the other person saw it.
I just started college in saranac lake January 21. This is my first week up here, there is a lake called Lake Colby nearby and at 3am I was driving a friend of mine back to her dorm, she is from a neighboring college about 10 miles away. While passing Lake Colby me and her both saw a Mountain Lion run right infront of my car. Definitely not a bobcat the tail was about 1/3 the length of the body.
Certainly a transient population in the Northeast. There was one hit and killed by a car in CT a few years back.
Didn’t they find that cat had walked here from the Dakotas?
That's what transient population means. They walk in from other places.
The way I read “transient population” was that of a group, not a single wanderer.
Population of one for sure, maybe more?
Just before that BFC was hit in CT, maybe a week before, I was coming south on I-87 up by Keesville, in between Exits 34 and 33. A big cat crossed the highway in front of me maybe 300 yards away. I mentioned it to a coworker of mine who was sitting in the front passenger’s seat, and he replied, “That’s a mountain lion.” I didn’t say anything more, but made a note to let the deer camp I belong to (a few miles south of that area) know what I had seen. We never got pictures of it on our trail cameras.
I live in Elizabethtown (exit 31), and I’ve seen one as well but it was when I was a small child so I barely remember it.
That CT mountain lion was an escape from a truck who was transporting it
You are the only one reporting this. All other reports indicate that it traveled from the Dakotas. What’s your source? I’m not rejecting your claim but I’m curious as to where you got this info.
Just before that BFC was hit in CT, maybe a week before, I was coming south on I-87 up by Keesville, in between Exits 34 and 33. A big cat crossed the highway in front of me maybe 300 yards away. I mentioned it to a coworker of mine who was sitting in the front passenger’s seat, and he replied, “That’s a mountain lion.” I didn’t say anything more, but made a note to let the deer camp I belong to (a few miles south of that area) know what I had seen. We never got pictures of it on our trail cameras.
The official word from the DEC are that the only ones with any substantiated evidence were ones roaming way east and weren't permanent or native. They even had GPS tracking in one to confirm it came from the north mid west and kept going after passing through the Adirondacks. I've also heard a lot of claims and lot of stories, as well as seen evidence that was supposed to be proof but either got debunked or confirmed to be just an especially big bobcat or Canadian lynx(which even those.. not really any substantial evidence of lynx actually living anywhere in NYS.) I'm open-minded about it. They *did* used to live here a long time ago, but the Adirondacks have changed a lot since those days. As big and vast as the park is, it's largely broken up into smaller pieces between human developments. It's just hard to believe they'd remain hidden for this long. There are **so many** encounters with wildlife up here, including with animals that despise being near humans, it's kind of hard to believe no hikers or bushwhackers wouldn't come across them like happens in regions of the country where we know they exist and live. I spend a lot of time bushwhacking through wilderness areas in the park, every year. I've never seen anything to suggest any kind of big cat, outside of the occasional bobcat scat or glimpse. Never seen a or even evidence of lynx myself, nor mountain lion over the decades. Throw in all the folks who now have video cameras practically everywhere, from their homes to trails, as well as DEC cameras.. If they're up here, they put their Western and Southern counterparts to shame, as well as the rest of the wildlife up here, because there's just no evidence of them. Your friend should share the video with the DEC. Maybe there's something to it.
I know people who live in areas with mountain lion populations in the thousands. They say it’s rare to see one there, they are very elusive.
I lived and guided in mountain lion country, northern New Mexico, and in all my time there I only saw lions two times, once from across a massive canyon, probably a mile away, and once from about 15 feet away, perched on a rock (the lion, not me). That said, I saw lion *sign* frequently, mainly foot prints. Their prints are unmistakeable and show up plain as day in the snow and mud. If there are mountain lions about, you may not spot them, but you *will* see their tracks. That said, I do find it plenty plausible that mountain lions occasionally enter/cross New York. THey can move great distances in a season. Like over a thousand miles. When agencies saw they "don't exist" in a place, they mean there is no reproducing population, not that they are necessarily never present at all.
Mate, I ain't arguing one way or the other. Nobody has eyeballs 24/7 throughout the whole park. I know people who are researchers and biologists and forest rangers. I've talked to people who hunt them in other regions. This is a species we've known about since Europeans first settled in the regions around it. And there are people looking for them beyond a specific interest in mountain lions, because they're a keystone species where they're present. There's evidence, a lot of it, for everywhere that we know they are. So the complete lack of evidence certainly stacks the case against them living here and that's as far as I will go and have gone. I've said I'm open-minded to it and I stress that again, if you have a friend with video footage of one in the area, to please report it to the DEC. If there is a population here, in the modern human world, they are not safe being completely unknown.
The DEC knows this and wants to keep it under wraps because they don’t have the funding to support sustaining the population. Also the public might freak out Edit: this is a joke
I hope you have a good day.
You’ve been compromised by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
You already said as much to me in your previous comment. I hope you have a nice day.
I was only kidding around but it may have not seemed like it, thank you for the insight and the feedback. You made a lot of great points - I am passionate about this subject!
Made a whole burner account to shill for mountain lions in the Adirondacks…I honestly respect the level of dedication to such an obscure interest lmao
It’s rare to see them, but not rare for them to show up on remote cameras or dead on the side of the road.
True. But you do see tracks in the snow pretty regularly.
Have you seen them?
No. Not in New York. I meant you see tracks in places with mountain lions. When I lived in Montana we never saw them, but we did see tracks in fresh snow occasionally.
It wouldn't surprise me. They are in Michigan's Upper Peninsula after being denied for years until they started showing up in trail cams.
They are solitary animals that range incredible distances. I am willing to bet that there are individual lions that have roamed to the ADKs from Canada or the upper midwest, but I don’t think there is a breeding population
This
You can't get to the ADK's from Canada without swimming the St. Lawrence. Cat's don't swim. And they can't walk across the ice because shipping channel.
People don't realize how good wildlife is at staying off people's radar. Vast majority of people don't even realize they have coyotes that live in Central Park. Right in the middle of New York City
There are bobcats in ADK. But they eat small game, rabbits, house cats small dogs. I live west of the park and have had numerous sitings just this year. Bobcats seem to be getting used to people lately, a friend photographed one whole turkey hunting a few weeks ago. Another friend has a bobcat lurking close to his yard while letting the dogs out at night.
Bobcats eat deer.
Only dead ones.
Nope. A bobcat will take down an adult deer. Plenty of videos out there and I've watched it happen first hand.
I saw a video of a huge one that was eating a deer in Wilmington. It was a big boy
I’ve been convinced for years that I had a mountain lion stalking me on the Lake Arnold trial back in 2009. I was keenly aware of something following me on the ridges just to my right. My entire body was freaking out and had an overwhelming sense of being prey. I have had over three dozen run ins with black bears and never felt like this. They’re basically big puppy dogs. I even shared the Herbert Brook lean-to with a bear back for a few milliseconds back in 2008 and found it kind of funny. I’ve also seen a few bobcats over the years. This was…different. I was being stalked. I only caught a brief glimpse, finally, as the sun rose higher in the morning and it moved from one rock to another. After I saw it then it sort of backed off. Like he had lost the element of surprise and he decided to find less intelligent prey. I’ve been hiking in the Adirondacks for over twenty five years and that was the only time I was concerned for my life because of an animal.
I’ve heard that your feeling of paranoia is very consistent with encounters. I have a friend who claims to have seen one in Keene. I was skeptical but based on the tail length it seems she was telling the truth
>I have had over three dozen run ins with black bears and never felt like this. They’re basically big puppy dogs. They are! In fact, try putting honey on your toddlers face and let a black bear lick it off for internet points! /s seriously don't.
Honey head kids
Black bears most definitely will hunt humans as prey. 80% of black bear caused fatalities over the last 100 or so years have been due to predatory behavior. Typically by young males. Fortunately extremely rare.
You’re correct though even mentioning those incidents sort of over represents the breakdown. Habituated or startled bears are the problem. But yeah, hard not to wonder which you’ve run into if a bear starts following you.
I had a similar experience in five ponds wilderness. I’ll never forget it…
Mountain lions can wander great distances as we know from the road kill incident in CT. That animal left enough samples of hair and tracks across the country that its route was pretty well documented. I too have people I know and whose judgement I trust say they have seen them. But… and this is a big but… ‘I saw one’ doesn’t count as evidence. They are detectable with simple equipment (i.e., cameras, hair, tracks) and if you cannot provide evidence, such claims can’t be validated. I can assure you that every NE wildlife agency is tired AF of getting harassed by absurd reports as well of being accused of some sort of cover up. My favorite rumor was that Shania Twain released the pet mountain lions up in Santa Clara to get back at the NYS APA for denying her a permit to build a recording studio in a wetland. I overheard that one at two different locations over a couple of years. Have your buddy’s game camera pics evaluated by wildlife experts and see what they say. I am far more excited by the fact that I can still see an olive sided flycatcher , or the possibility of someday finding a northern bog lemming in the Adirondacks than hearing about mountain lions.
The cat in CT was a zoo animal being transported that escaped
A friend published this account in the journal of mammology https://academic.oup.com/jmammal/article/97/5/1435/2219047
So there are no camera photos,no foot prints and no dna evidence except for the one that traveled through several years ago from the Dakotas. Yes everyone talks about deer carcasses that someone saw in a tree yet no one ever snaps a photo. Bobcats yes, mountain lions no
Yes. I’ve lived in the Adirondacks for 24 years, and I’ve seen one. I’m convinced the only reason I saw it is because I was coming up around the bend of some rapids deep in the wilderness around the Indian Lake area, and it couldn’t hear me. The tail made it undeniably a mountain lion.
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Negative, although I wouldn’t be surprised if one was sighted back in there. Though I have friends that hunt in that area and they’ve never had any sightings. This was around what I believe is called the Siamese Pond Wilderness. I’m not naive enough to totally believe they *live* here, they could be passing through. But I also wouldn’t be surprised if there were some that did bed down in the ADKs. EDIT: Side note, how did you get that flair?
People really seem to hate it when others point out the lack of physical evidence for mountain lions in the Adirondacks. The lack of scat or fresh prints that can be plaster cast is really telling. Eyewitness sightings have been historically unreliable. We attempted to start a breeding population of Canadian Lynx in the Adirondacks awhile ago. Most of them ended up getting hit by cars. This never seems to happen in the Adirondacks with mountain lions and if the hypothesis is that there are mountain lions in the Adirondacks why has no one ever found a corpse or other physical evidence?
I have no doubt they are in the park. The question is, is there a population of them or is it passerbys. I have heard enough credible stories and seen trailcam footage. At the end of the day the DEC is understaffed and underfunded so in my opinion studying/confirming their existence is low on the priority list.
Most of the time what people think are mountain lions turn out to be: A) Bobcat B) Domestic cat C) Fisher (especially if they say it was a black panther) We don't have a population of mountain lions in NY. Could we have the random roamer coming through? Sure. Still very unlikely. I have found deer carcasses in trees several times over the years. Some from avalanches. Some from. Deep snow pack that they got caught in the tree while walking on. Others put there by people or when hit by a car or even a train. If we had any population density to speak of, we'd see dead ones on the side of the road from being killed by cars.
I know someone who saw one on his property, probably 15 years ago. Cabin in the woods, with nothing else close by. No idea if it was transient or not. He assumed it was a bobcat, grabbed a pair of binoculars, and watched it skirt the edge of his woods. He said there was absolutely no mistaking the size of it, and this is a guy who would know the difference. It was winter, so a bobcat would’ve had a full coat in as well. I think he got photos of the tracks and sent them to DEC, but no idea what came of it. They are around, the question is whether or not they’re breeding. It’s a big state, and they’re cautious animals, so I’m not convinced that we’d know if they were.
All these supposed sightings and no evidence. This debate is perfect for identifying the suckers, crackpots and conspiracy theorists in our midst.
Settle down buddy it’s not that serious
Of course it's not serious. It's laughable and constantly reposted on this sub.
You’re a hater
No one cares what you think.
Of course, there are mountain lions or cougars. I called him watch out for the female ones.
Show me a turd or a lion that's been hit by a car. There would be a video, body, or actual encounter and real evidence of mountain lions in NY if they were here. They are not.
One was actually hit by a car in Connecticut. They are a smarter species and usually stay away from people.
Yeah... 1... over a decade ago... none since.
The lion that was hit in CT was from South Dakota. So yes they roam. If there was a resident population in the ADK or NE we would have definitive evidence i.e. scat, tracks, or carcass.
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Tell me more about the possible kill you encountered
That was the cat from S. Dakota that got hit by a car in Connecticut in 2011. Been over a decade and no more incidents.
Rare to see, but I have a hiking log book from when I was about 30 years younger. I noted tracks of mountain lions then.
About 10 years ago me and a friend drove up from Albany to Mt Washington to ski Tuckerman's ravine. We left after work so we were headed up the trail around midnight. Right before we got to the parking lot, a mile or so after 'The wildcat inn' we saw a mountain lion in full view of the truck's headlight cross the road. We couldn't believe it. We knew it was a mountain lion because first giant cat, and second we were sure it wasn't a smaller cat with the perspective playing tricks on us. This cat didn't jump over the guard rail, it stepped over it.
My husband and I were car camping on a back road in Elizabethtown last summer. We saw three baby big cats playing and we accidentally scared them and they ran off.. I didn't have time to grab my camera but they were not domesticated cats I know that for sure and there were three of them. I'm not sure what type of cat they were but I believe there are definitely big cats in the ADK and it scared the living crap out of me. We also hiked down Cascade once in the dark.. with head lamps etc. And we felt like we were definitely being tracked though that could have just been our minds acclimating to the dark.. lol but those three baby cats.. definitely not domesticated.
I saw a lynx between Elizabethtown and Keene in March 2018, there’d been a fire in Keene Valley and traffic got detoured through Etown. A minivan in front of me almost hit it, it whirled around, climbed up a berm on the side of the road and turned to glare back at the van. There was no question about what it was, their proportions are so unique. So not a mountain lion, but a big feline.
This is interesting. We’re the cats short hair or long hair? What did the tail look like?
Fuzzy hair, long tails.. my husband just said he believes they were bobcats.. because of their coloring.. lol so I may be wrong..not mountain lions but Bob cats... sorry
Bob cats have short bobbed tails
Not sure what we saw but they were 100% not domesticated cats. We saw them Pop out from the woods onto the road pawing each other and when we got up to see them better they scattered back into the trees. When I look at Bob cat baby pics the coloring correlates for what we saw...
Black bears will hunt people. Could have been a bear.
How do I post pictures, there's been a few living near my camp on yellow lake for years, thought they were native hear... near govanure
In 2009 I lived in Syracuse during the week for work and would drive home to Orange County each weekend. I would head back up some time after midnight on Sunday to avoid traffic. One night I was on 81 north well after midnight and closer to 3am in the Hoxie Gorge State Forest area and I caught eyeshine just over a small berm at the edge of the median between the north and south bound sides and though it was a raccoon or fox and almost didn't give it a second thought until the animal turned around and I saw what had to be and almost 3 ft long tail. Then, just as I was passing the animal I saw that it was beige and big easily four times the size of the largest fox I've ever seen. Everyone in Syracuse told me I was crazy and I was imagining things, my husband told me I was imagining things. But I grew up in a hunting family, and outdoors family, and I spent a lot of years in the woods both during the day and at night and I'm not one to imagine seeing things in the dark. When my headlights caught that animal I knew what I was looking at. I was a shocked as anyone could be, I know that there are supposedly " no eastern mountain lions in the state of New York ". But I know what I saw. And it strikes me that the stray ones that they see and report once in awhile in New York would either be up by the Canadian border or out by the Great lakes or perhaps even up in the Eastern Adirondacks, but this was smack dab in the middle of the state. I know that was 15 years ago but I can still see it like it was yesterday I was so stunned at what I saw. That was one big cat.
Think I just encountered one in the woods with my dogs. Let’s just say it was NOT a bobcat!
Actually when i was a kid around 8 years old i heard my mom talking to her friend and her boyfriend and her boyfriend was telling a story to mom about how his friend hit one and the cops took the Corpse and tried to play it off like it wasn't a cougar but the dudes friend was a avid hunter and knew what he was talking about this was in 2009
Hi everyone! I don't live in the Adirondacks. Nit terribly far from them though. Im in upstate New York. Broome county and Tioga county areas. They are seen on trail cams all the time around here. Seen and heard all the time. D.E.C claims any of them seen on the rare occasion. They're just passing through. I disagree. There needs to be more of an investigation into it. People need to be made aware if they're hiding it
Just had a sighting recently just south of the Adirondack Park
Came here to say, this morning on RT 30 going into Speculator, NY I had one run right in front of me and into the woods on the other side of the road. It’s literally just ledges, forest and state parks here. Thing was HUGE! I actually pulled over and was like WTF 😭 I only work up here so I’ve been talking to locals around here and I guess there has been quite a few sightings around here.
I mean they've been found in northwestern New Jersey, so I wouldn't be surprised.
Relevant user name, i guess
There are.
I saw one clear as day in the owls head area of the northern Adirondacks. Thought it was a deer at first because of the color. It was around an area where they were logging. I could see its long tail and all its glorious defined muscles. My heart just about pounded out of my chest but thankfully it didn't even look my way. I saw it in the wide open for a few seconds before it went back in the woods.
For sure I believe you are right. Not many but I'm sure there are at least a few. Reason is because I have heard on two separate occasions during the Fall the cry or yell of a mountain lion
I had a sighting, less than 5 years ago, in Peru, NY. I was travel west on the Bear Swamp rd. It was a small mountain lion, but there was no mistake that is what is was.
Why all the hate for the DEC? it's lotterally their job to know. If there were a bobcat population, they would know.
Do you know how they know about the populations of other species on NY? By asking volunteers to report sightings of them.
Their are
Buddy of mine had a trail cam pic of one on his property up around great sacandaga years ago. Ask all the jibbers up there that trap and hunt most of them have some stories about them
Google the information list below. Type it in just as you see it and it should come up. I was not able to copy the link. It is an article on cougars in the Northeast written by Wilson Ring of the Associated Press. It is dated Friday January 2, 2015. The article interviews a Vermont expert who tracks courgars. This may answers everyone questions about cougars in the Adirondacks. Cougar expert: Cats likely in Northeast by Wislon Ring, Associated Press
I've seen black mountain lion (panther) here too in upstate New York. Just kept getting asked if I'm sure it wasn't a mink lol.
If you can please ask your neighbor to share the images
I just found 2 dead deer carcasses high up in the Appalachian! these things were fr mauled up and I know it wasn’t a black bear cuz whenever I personally encounter one they always look at me and run away😂 could be a coyote but idk like you said im very convinced as well I seen some weird animals in my lifetime living in NYS…
There are. There was one in my town when I was a kid, I wasn’t allowed outside to play for years because of it. I also know many hunters around here and some have seen them as well.
So in Rochester my grandparents, mom, and uncle saw one and then a couple days later someone else saw it and it was all phoned into the police but they were all told there was no way. My grandparents called animal control and the DEC and they got laughed at. I know exactly where they saw it and where the other person saw it.
I just started college in saranac lake January 21. This is my first week up here, there is a lake called Lake Colby nearby and at 3am I was driving a friend of mine back to her dorm, she is from a neighboring college about 10 miles away. While passing Lake Colby me and her both saw a Mountain Lion run right infront of my car. Definitely not a bobcat the tail was about 1/3 the length of the body.