Posted on 10/24/2011 10:42:33 PM PDT by Daffynition
Cougar Rewilding
October 26 6:30-8PM FREE Downstairs at North Cove Outfitters, Main St., Old Saybrook, CT
Bringing Back the Legend: Cougar Recovery in Eastern North America
The search for the eastern cougar is one of the great riddles in North American natural history. Despite thousands of sightings from Maine to Mississippi, only a dozen confirmations have emerged east of Chicago during the past generation. Members of the Cougar Rewilding Foundation have conducted sanctioned remote camera surveys in seven eastern states while investigating a decade of field evidence and cougar reports.
Christopher Spatz has run remote camera surveys at High Point State Park, NJ and in the Shawangunks at Minnewaska State Park and the Mohonk Preserve. Reviewing his survey findings with cougar biology, behavior and their current range, Chris will explain why sightings don’t produce evidence, and how restorations of this magnificent predator are imperative for the recovery of critically declining eastern forests.
Call 860-388-6585 ext. 321 to reserve your seat or sign up in Paddlesports.
I don't know how to post this event on the State of Connecticut portion of FR.
I wanted to alert CT outdoorsmen and hunters of this potentially alarming rewilding that could come to the Northeast.
“The private Eastern Cougar Foundation, for example, spent a decade looking for evidence. Finding none, it changed its name to the Cougar Rewilding Foundation last year and shifted its focus from confirming sightings to advocating for the restoration of the big cat to its pre-colonial habitat. The wildlife service said it has no authority under the Endangered Species Act to reintroduce the mountain lion to the East.”
Without the public knowing, the CT DEEP introduced the fishercat to CT; after much pressure, they finally admitted to it.
Is this another case of the state DEEP overstepping without public input?
I have a feeling this thread is about to get hijacked.
Joan Collins is going to do what?
So big cats are showing up in back yards in every state, and we are adding to them.
What could go wrong?
LOL.... That’s fine...I’ll be an enabler. ;D
Re-introducing mountain lions can be a *good thing* ...maybe they’ll eat all the fisher cats that running around.
They can have the ones that live out behind my place.
If they don’t live trap them and take them away, I guess I will just have to shoot them.
My neighbor lost his German Shepard to them last year, and the lady who lives in East Fork canyon had all of her cats eaten this summer.
But you might want to let those folks know that a mountain lion will also eat people when it gets hungry, they are really not all that fussy.
Easterners and city folk, they really don’t get it do they.
Tell them for me; “WHEN GUNPOWDER SPEAKS, THE WILDLIFE LISTENS”.
People have sure gotten stupid. Our ancestors got rid of the other top of the line predators, but today, some jackass’s want them back...I say let them loose in the idiots back yard first, make sure THEIR pets and kids are out there playing before you open the cages.
Hi Daffy, didn’t someone post that after the local government told him he was nuts and there were no cougars in his area....You know they lied like hell as the animal has a collar on...he took the picture on his property. Hope I remember correctly, old age you know. If I am wrong, well.........OOPs..:O)
Demi Moore is on the prowl in Connecticut?
Without any public input the lynx has been reintoduced into the Cascade Coast mts...just because they used to live there. It is just a matter of time before other predators are released into prime habitat that the p.c. correct wildlife biologists declare as R.T.H. The next generation is going to have to ride the school bus just to not be ate.
If these morons want something extinct brought back to Connecticut and New England, why don't they bring back manufacturing?
**restorations of this magnificent predator are imperative for the recovery of critically declining eastern forests.** ~ Christopher Spatz
Why the Midwest and East Needs the Puma
ECF members are being asked to articulate why they want to see cougars return to the eastern woods. As these essays are received they will be posted here. To start them off, here is an excerpt from Chris Bolgiano's book Mountain Lion: An Unnatural History of Pumas and People (Stackpole Books, 1995):
"In the end, it doesn't really matter whether "eastern" cougars are out there or not. What matters is that cougars should be there. Cougars belong in the East by evolutionary birthright. It is the ripening of this idea that makes our time different from Adam Rudolph's [19th century cougar hunter's] day. Still, it will be difficult to actually turn the idea into reality, to bring cougars back. Unlike bears, which have been teddified for nearly a century, and wolves, whose admirable family life is now well known, cougars offer little on which to hang a notion of kinship. They must be accepted on their own wild terms. To find the humility to atone for past mistakes, to find the greatness of heart to share the woods with a being far beyond our ken -- that is the spiritual challenge of the eastern panther.
"Ambivalence has long been recognized as fundamental to the human psyche. Sigmund Freud began writing about it in 1912, and many other students of human nature have explored its dimensions. Ambivalence develops through stages that children pass through; perhaps cultures pass through them, too. A child might say on one day she loves her brother and on the next, hates him. With growth comes first the recognition that two opposite emotions might be aroused by one experience or person, then the understanding that those emotions might coexist simultaneously. The final step to maturity is integration: to balance the extremes without denying the complexities.
"Sometimes at dusk I sit on my deck and watch sunset-streaked clouds fade away behind Cross Mountain. I wonder how it would be to know a panther crouches there again, yellow eyes gleaming, muscles taut, utterly focused. How it would be to accept the risks with understanding and respect, in return for the rightness. A dank breeze slides down Cross Mountain and a chill rises up my back. It would feel, I think, like freedom."
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