My father used to tell the story about hunting in the Adirondacks in the early 1950s. He was bringing out a deer when this unknown animal started tracking him in a manner that spooked him, so he shot it. He said that he brought the animal back to Saranac Lake and nobody knew what it was.
Years later, when he was visiting me in Alaska, we were at the Mat-Su Vistor’s Center and he suddenly pointed to a pelt on the wall and said, “That’s the animal I shot.” It was a wolverine.
Wildlife experts say that the animals haven’t been seen there since the 1850s. Except my father claimed that he shot a wolverine 100 years later.
My guess is that there are a fair number of mountain lions back East, simply due to the huge numbers of white-tailed deer and the lions themselves are quiet and discreet. I’ve spent weeks on end in wilderness in the Pacific Northwest, and saw one mountain lion the entire time, and that’s in an area where they’re common. As far as coyotes go, my wife and I saw one on Cape Cod in 2001.
My other guess is that no wildlife official wants to declare a population of lions in their state, since it possibly might create a nightmare of endangered species regulations. Best not to attrack the attention of those people.
Yep. Good point. The wildlife officials sound down-to-earth sensible to me. Lions? We don't have no steenking lions! Thumbs up to them. :^)