Don't let cat get your tongue: Report lion sightings in Upper(NJ)

Press of Atlantic City ^ | 17 Aug 2006 | MICHAEL MILLER

[Calpernia]

Re-wilding

The Middle Atlantic region is one that historically had a healthy population of cougars but it is also a region that in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was heavily cleared and/or logged and game was decimated. The land since then has become heavily reforested and game has returned. Today, deer are very abundant making it potentially a good environment for the return of cougar to the landscape. However, there does not appear to be any evidence of either transients or remnant populations at this time. The occasional confirmations are most likely escapees or intentional releases and/or their progeny.

[Calpernia]

Meow!

[Graymatter]

Or maybe it's just the Jersey Devil.

[dljordan]

" I don't think it's too far-getchged that cougers could have taken up habitat in the Pine Barrens....?"

Nah, the Jersey Devil would have eaten them all.

[LaineyDee]

I tend to agree with you. We have big cats here....puma, panther and bobcat.....and I'm in the woods of East Texas. They obviously adapted well....because I have spied them on several occasions....and all look very healthy.

[Calpernia]

Yup. It is RE Wilding.

Rewilding and Biodiversity - Goals for Continental Conservation

Rewilding as a Responsibility


In addition to the scientific justifications for rewilding there are ethical and aesthetic justifications, although some are specific to the North American situation. First, there is the ethical issue of human responsibility. In many regions the deliberate government policy has been to exterminate large carnivores. Unfortunately, this practice continues. The federal agency charged with this task, Animal Damage Control (recently renamed Wildlife Services) still exists. Because carnivores are generally long-lived, produce few young, and nurture those young over a long period of time, their capacity to recover from over-hunting or extirpation campaigns is relatively limited (Noss et al. 1996, Weaver et al. 1996). This underlines the need, if only temporary, for benign human intervention in the form of reintroduction or augmentation of carnivores.

Second, by insuring the viability of large predators, we restore the subjective, emotional essence of "the wild" or wilderness. Wilderness is hardly "wild" where top carnivores, such as cougars, jaguars, wolves, wolverines, grizzlies, or black bears, have been extirpated. Without these components, nature seems somehow incomplete, truncated, overly tame. Human opportunities to attain humility are reduced.

Nonetheless, rewilding is not the only goal of most regional reserve design efforts. The Wildlands Project encourages planning groups to address the major "wounds" or ecological insults caused by abusive land uses of the past that require redress, a notion that is easily traced to Aldo Leopold and other early ecologists (Foreman, in prep.). Among the most common of these wounds to wildlands is the extirpation of large predators, but there are several others that often require treatment, including overgrazing and destruction of riparian habitats, irrigation and hydroelectric projects, poor forestry practices, over-fishing, habitat abuse and stress in animals from mechanized recreation, introduction of exotic species, draining or pollution of wetlands, and habitat changes stemming from decades of fire suppression. Rewilding does not address all of these, but it is one essential element in most efforts to restore fully functioning ecosystems. Repairing all past insults requires a comprehensive effort. We encourage the use of focal species (Miller et al. In press) when addressing these wounds.

[Atlas Sneezed]

Bobcat?

[Calpernia]

The Wildlands Project

Taken From: The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, Article8a-e; United Nations Global Biodiversity Assessment, Section 13.4.2.2.3; US Man and the Biosphere Strategic Plan, UN/US Heritage Corridor Program, “The Wildlands Project”, WildEarth, 1992.

And a zoom section of the NE.

[Calpernia]

ping

[LIConFem]

This was bigger than a bobcat, if I remember correctly (it was in winter of '02, I think). I guess I'll never know for sure what it was.

[Jack Hammer]

That Russian Chris and Paulie shot was ex-spetnaz, and tough as nails. I always thought the fact that he was never found, and that Paulie's car went missing, meant that the writers/producers had planned a follow-up wherein the Russian shows up again - but it never happened.

[Jack Hammer]

You may be right about that - I'm certainly no expert, or even close. But I have the feeling that with all the crowding of habitat that's going on, what with eco-friendly hunting bans and so forth, the animals are increasingly being forced to adapt to whatever they can get.

[swain_forkbeard]

"The Jersey Devil would have eaten them all."

Or the pineys would have.

[Calpernia]

UN and rewilding.

[johnny7]

Years ago... they had a couple of sportswritters in the Springfield, MA paper that always had blurbs about cougar sightings. They even went out and took plaster-casts of the 'tracks'. All they ever had were sightings & tracks... never any scat(poop).

Once these oldtimers retired... the stories went away. ;)

[Exit148]

A couple of years ago, there was one roaming around Westport. CT.

As far as Cape May goes. Smart cat! I believe Cape May is a town that cares for its strays. They are all over the place, well-cared for and well-fed. Maybe he thinks he can blend in?

[OldFriend]

You have no idea what you are talking about. I live in Hunterdon County at 1100 ft. above sea level.

There is a mountain range here too. Watchung Mountains.

[Tired of Taxes]

Lots of people think of New Jersey as nothing but refineries, but the Pine Barrens are a huge wilderness area

Growing up in PA, I thought NJ was just one long shore line. We just thought of the beaches here. I had no idea, until I moved here to south Jersey, that there was so much wilderness. A lot of farms, too. The longest-running rodeo is in NJ. But now the shopping malls are building up more and more and beginning to take up a lot more space...

[Tired of Taxes]

the Pine Barrens are a huge wilderness area (I always loved that episode of The Sopranos in which Chris and Paulie get lost in there...)

Didn't see the episode, but that's funny because, the rumor is, the Pine Barrens (a.k.a. Pinelands) is where a lot of missing mobsters end up. ;-)

[Clemenza]

Pine Barrens: Home of Kalliwicks and Mosquitos. Made the mistake of visiting Batso village after a period of heavy rain and must of lost a pint of blood to those pests.