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Coyotes-Wolves-Cougars.blogspot.com

Grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, coyotes, cougars/ mountain lions,bobcats, wolverines, lynx, foxes, fishers and martens are the suite of carnivores that originally inhabited North America after the Pleistocene extinctions. This site invites research, commentary, point/counterpoint on that suite of native animals (predator and prey) that inhabited The Americas circa 1500-at the initial point of European exploration and subsequent colonization. Landscape ecology, journal accounts of explorers and frontiersmen, genetic evaluations of museum animals, peer reviewed 20th and 21st century research on various aspects of our "Wild America" as well as subjective commentary from expert and layman alike. All of the above being revealed and discussed with the underlying goal of one day seeing our Continent rewilded.....Where big enough swaths of open space exist with connective corridors to other large forest, meadow, mountain, valley, prairie, desert and chaparral wildlands.....Thereby enabling all of our historic fauna, including man, to live in a sustainable and healthy environment. - Blogger Rick

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Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Missouri starting to get confirmed sightings of Mountain Lions.........dispersers going farther and farther East from the Dakotas..........will a couple of female cats join the Toms in setting up family units?

Mountain lion sighting confirmed in northwest Missouri



The Missouri Department of Conservation has confirmed a mountain lion sighting in northwest Missouri.A landowner in southern Platte County near the Missouri River contacted the MDC with a photograph he took on Nov. 26 of a mountain lion in a tree on his property, according to the department.

"The photo is clearly of a mountain lion," said Jeff Beringer, resource scientist with the Mountain Lion Response Team. "We visited with the landowner, who wishes to remain anonymous, to confirm the location and to gather additional information."
The department receives dozens of reports each year from Missourians claiming to have seen a mountain lion. Of the more than 1,500 reports received since 1994, only 11 -- including the Platte County sighting -- have yielded enough evidence to confirm the presence of a mountain lion.
Mountain lions are nocturnal, secretive and generally avoid contact with humans.


Beringer said that there have been no documented cases in Missouri of attacks on livestock, people or pets by mountain lions.

Beringer added that he identified claw marks on the tree where the mountain lion was photographed and collected hair samples from where the big cat was perched to submit for DNA testing.


"We will use the DNA results to help us identify where the cat came from," explained Beringer. "We will compare the results with our database of captive mountain lions in Missouri and also look at mountain-lion DNA information from western states."

The Mountain Lion Response Team conducts field investigations in situations where there is potential physical evidence such as photographs, wildlife or livestock kills, scat, hair or tracks. The Team has investigated hundreds of mountain lion reports since it was created in 1996.

Beringer said most mountain lions confirmed in Missouri in modern times, such as two killed on highways, are thought to be young males traveling from western states looking for new territory to the east.

"While mountain lions occasionally wander into Missouri from other states, we have no proof of a self-sustaining, reproducing population," Beringer said.

The department has never stocked or released mountain lions in Missouri and has no plans to do so, he said.

Mountain lions are a protected species in the state under the Wildlife Code of Missouri. The Code does allow the killing of any mountain lion attacking or killing livestock or domestic animals, or threatening human safety

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