The Mountain Lion Foundation's (acronym, MLF) website at http://www.mountainlion.org/tracks.asp has good info on recognizing cougar sign such as foot prints, scat, walking patterns and scratch marks etc.

So, lets all keep our eyes open as we tramp about the ridge, and see if we can notice some
cougar action west of New Paltz.

this was the size of my hand

John, looks about right, at least as far as the age of the print and photography conditions allow. Thanks for sharing.

Now, now, no need for that.

We've been over this track. I was up there looking at them in situ. John and Hank looked at it. It's canine. Your average cougar print is 3.5" x 3". Smaller than the palm of your hand.

I had remote cams up at Minnewaska and the Preserve for three years: no pics, no tracks, no scat, no deer kills with cougar signatures. Pics and tracks of everything else.

A dozen reports in the Clove over five years. I walk that creek four/five times a week once it snows and freezes over. Your average cougar leaves between 10,000 - 20,000 prints every day. I found one den, cat scat, and some cat tracks in the Clove in five years: bobcat.

The foundation (including cougar researchers with decades of experience) ran sanctioned cam surveys in seven states. We spent tens of thousands of hours on the ground following up reports. The foundation solicited pics of reported cougars from Nova Scotia to Mississippi for twelves years. We got twelve years of pics of bobcats, housecats, dogs and deer, and track pics of canines and bears. We got hoax pics from cougars taken out west.

Not one piece of cougar evidence in twelve years. And not just us. No state wildlife agencies, no researchers studying bobcats, coyotes, bear, fisher or deer have found any collateral cougar evidence, either. Two NY state agencies and two universities collaborated on a massive Daks carnivore study using cams and track traps at 52 locations. They analyzed 660 scats. No cougars.

The Smithsonian has run an exhaustive cam-study along the AT in Virginia for three years. No cougars.

Wisconsin hadn't had a confirmation in a century. They've IDd four individual males through DNA in three years matched to DNA from the Black Hills.

15 are hit every year in southern Florida.

You don't need to be able to find them. That's the point, wherever they live, even in the lowest densities, they appear without anyone having to look for them: hit, shot, treed, wandering into towns and cities, photographed on random remote cams (300,000 sold commercially every year; they're in every hunter's backyard or favorite hunting spot) and on cell phones from tree stands.

http://www.cougarnet.org/totalus.html

One confirmation east of Michigan and north of Georgia in eleven years proves only that there was one cat here.

I wish you much luck, gentlemen. Please give a head's up should you find anything.

Thanks Yorick. I was wondering if you have any access to credible info about the northern Delaware cougar, which is growing bolder every year. Almost weekly one of my patients tells me it was seen and photographed at the door of the local supermarket, prowling behind a neighborhood or running across the street when they came home at 1 AM. The reports now center around White Clay Creek state park and the surrounding areas and I have not seen any sign of it further north in Brandywine Creek S.P. for several winters. Recently those making sightings are describing two different appearing cats, one smaller and lighter colored than had been seen previously. The state isn't talking. Thanks in advance.

No word.

That reported evidence from the Delaware agency was never peer-reviewed, so the Cougar Network took it off the map.

Yorick, all those facts. What a buzz kill. Thank you for setting it all straight and please share anything further you hear regarding the CT cat inquires.

Now what can you tell us about the jackalope and hootenanny sighted in the woods south of the New Paltz campus? RC

i was rasied in a family of hunters, that was not a canine track sorry but you are wrong. crackers buddy a wildlife expert identified it as a cougar track and so did Tom Brown. your facts are a bunch of dudes that sit behind a desk. how come i never see anyone coming out of the woods at night or before sunrise. How do you think i get all those photos? think what you want i know what's out there

Be well, John. And good luck.

i remember a day i was up at skytop we were on a trail that is closed. i could hear you coming from a mile away.