Despite Evidence, PA Game Commission Still Denies Big Cats Roam State

Picture of a mountain lion which was hit by a truck on Mill Creek Road east of Altoona, south of State College, between Mt. Union and Huntingdon PA.

Well, What Do You Know – Maybe They Are Really Here After All!

"There have been frequent denials by the PA State Game Commission that there are any in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. There were some years ago, but now they no longer exist in the state -- that is, according to Game Commission officials. We citizens of Pennsylvania have come to the place where we regard these people on about the same level as our politicians in Harrisburg and with about the same amount of credibility when they speak on certain issues, such as the existence of mountain lions in the Commonwealth. You have to have lived a while in our fair state to fully appreciate that!

So look at the above photo once more -- that really isn't a household tabby cat that guy is holding! So what does one do when Game Commission people tell you one thing and then something comes along that shoots their claim full of more holes than you find in Swiss cheese?

A close friend of mine saw one of those critters walking by his bee boxes a few months back in broad daylight -- maybe he saw an apparition or something -- maybe he was hallucinating or had been out in the sun too long!" - Posted on Facebook

Eastern Cougar: Historic Accounts, Scientific Investigations, New Evidence

The Quest For The Eastern Cougar: Extinction or Survival?

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Somerset County cougar sightings are unfounded

The Pennsylvania Game Commission has no evidence that cougars are roaming the state. That doesn’t stop the agency from receiving calls weekly about potential cougar sightings.

In early November, there was a report of one possibly being killed along Route 219 near Boswell.

Tom Fazi, information and education supervisor for the Pennsylvania Game Commission Southwest Region in Bolivar, said every township in his region has a story about a cougar.

“The Pennsylvania State Police investigated the call and there was no animal found other than a deer carcass,” Fazi said. “If a state police officer would see a cougar he would report it to us.”

A Boswell couple reported that a cougar ran in front of their vehicle around 1:15 a.m. on Jan. 8 while they were returning home from work. They said it was large, had a “creamy” color with a long tail. They were unable to get a photo because it was running at a high rate of speed.

“There isn’t a species in Pennsylvania that doesn’t cross a highway,” Fazi stated. “We have never had a confirmed kill in the state, which is why we have not been able to independently verify a cat living in the wild in our state. That is our best evidence — if it hasn’t shown up dead along the side of the road, it isn’t here.”

Fazi said if state police found a dead cougar they would take the carcass to the agency for a necropsy and DNA testing to determine if it was a wild or captive animal. He also said the Game Commission would advertise where they found it because it would be big news.

Kerry Gyekis, an officer with the Cougar Rewilding Foundation — formerly the Eastern Cougar Foundation, has been working on sightings for 30 years. He said there is no breeding population in the state, and that if there is a cougar or cougars loose in the state they more than likely were raised by people and escaped or were set free from preserves.

“We are just starting to identify cougars in the state of Indiana,” Gyekis, 70, of Tioga County, said. “We will gradually see them move across Indiana and into Ohio. They have a hard time getting across the Mississippi River area. Immature males are seeking new territory and are getting killed for one reason or another along highways. That limits breeding.”

A cougar is also known as a mountain lion, puma or catamount and is an endangered species.

According to National Geographic, they at one time roamed nearly all of the United States but were prized by hunters and despised by farmers who suffered livestock losses. By the dawn of the 20th century, they were eliminated from nearly all of their range in the Midwest and Eastern United States — although the endangered Florida panther survives in the Everglades today.

The cougar is normally a solitary creature that interacts only to mate, which can happen at any time of the year, or when a female is raising her 2-3 kittens.

Offspring leave their mother at around two-years-old and will travel great distances in search of territory. They maintain territories an average of 100 square miles in size, according to mountainlion.org, the website for the Mountain Lion Federation.

The cougar usually hunts at night and during dawn and dusk. They use stealth to stalk their various prey which consists of rodents, rabbits, deer, moose and livestock such as sheep looking for an opportunity to pounce. They strike the back of the neck with a fatal bite and drag and hide a large carcass under leaves and pine needles to feed for several days. They will kill a deer every one to four weeks, according to mountainlion.org.

“If they were to come to Pennsylvania they will be at the top of the food chain,” Gyekis, who worked with cougars out west as a federal forester and with other large cats for two years in Asia, said. “They would move ahead of the coyote and the bear, because they are such deadly predators. But they rarely kill people. There have been between 15-20 people killed since the 1990s. Most of those killed were mistaken for other things. Children can be mistaken for prey.”

Gyekis also said that the best habitat for cougars would be in the northern tier of the state above Interstate 80 from Warren to Tioga because that is forest area.

They prefer areas with dense undergrowth and cover, and will leave an area where they perceive a threat, according to mountainlion.org. They live in climates that range from deserts to humid coast forests, arid hillsides, scrub and oak woodlands, from sea level to snow-covered mountains.

The coat of a cougar is a grayish tan, buff or reddish color with lighter parts on the underbelly. The tail, which can be 23.5 to 33.5 inches long, has a black spot at the end. - dailyamerican

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