For anyone interested, I'll be giving a talk on mountain lions/panthers/cougars, their status in the East(sorry, they're not here), their critical role in ecosystems, and eastern recovery efforts, at the Nature Conservancy's Sam's Point visitor center this Sunday, 2.22 at 2 PM:

http://www.shawangunkjournal.com/2009/01/08/news/0901084.html

Hope to see you there.

hey guy! so I guess you didn't get my e-mail? about the sighting in Connecticut? that cat had one loooooooong tail!

would love to make it, but might not be able to... and I am planning on reading that book (where the wild things were...)

Don't remember seeing the note, but if I had a dime for every long-tailed cat report, well...Where the Wild Things Were is a must read for anyone into big predators and ecology:

http://www.thewildthings.net/

I'll be talking about how absent predators means arrested forest regeneration, invasive species, biodiversity loss, and the culprit from white-tail overbrowsing in the Gunks (the entire East, really).

maybe if you don't know where to look

I saw one a few months ago, it was at least 600 pounds..

once again smike, zoo photography is NOT wildlife photography.

As I said in the article, the ECF (and plenty of others) has been looking for and soliciting evidence from Nova Scotia to Georgia and west to the Mississippi for ten years without logging a single confirmed piece of evidence.

Meanwhile, incidental evidence - roadkills, trapping and hunting casualties, random trailcam pics - keep turning up in the Midwest where they were also hunted out a century ago:

http://www.easterncougarnet.org/bigpicture.html

Florida loses 10-15% of its panthers every year to roadkill. If they were here, why shouldn't the same incidental evidence be appearing throughout the East?

Maybe Mt Lions only roam and climb on private property....

well if it's near a road smike, then it's right up your alley cat

There really are cougars in New England. I saw a bunch up at this bar in Killington.