{"id":744636,"date":"2026-07-05T13:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T13:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/744636\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T13:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T13:30:11","slug":"readers-respond-catamount-curiosity-bobcat-sightings-spike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/744636\/","title":{"rendered":"Readers respond: Catamount curiosity, bobcat sightings spike"},"content":{"rendered":"

But the emails keep coming, from Massachusetts<\/a> to Maine<\/a>. Some subject lines jump out: \u201cI definitely saw one.\u201d \u201cNo mountain lions in Mass? Hah!\u201d I\u2019ve heard from readers insisting they \u2014 or someone they know \u2014 have seen cougars here, though state officials and scientists say the bobcat is the only known wildcat in the state. Jeff Kaufman, a retired surgeon, recalled doing \u201ckitchen-floor surgery\u201d on a sheep attacked by a bobcat at the farm of a nurse colleague in Conway. \u201cSo she knew bobcats,\u201d he said. \u201cShe also encountered footprint evidence of a much larger cat on her property, a print the size of her hand, clearly not that of a bobcat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some readers also wrote in about the \u201ccoywolf<\/a>,\u201d a cross between a western coyote and an eastern wolf \u2014 perhaps a topic for another time. Mostly, though, you sent in photos of bobcats: frolicking, slinking, stalking, and staring at the camera. I also saw the occasional photo of a bobcat misidentified as a mountain lion. Two words: face ruff. Bobcats have it, mountain lions<\/a> don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

As to why so many people are seeing \u201cghost\u201d mountain lions in Massachusetts, I heard a few theories. Sarah Van Arsdale, who wrote the book-length poem \u201cCatamount<\/a>,\u201d which captures humanity\u2019s fascination with the apex predator, suggested recent reported sightings might have to do with \u201ca deeper longing\u201d to connect with wild things in our technological age. \u201cIt\u2019s totally understandable,\u201d she said, \u201cbecause we\u2019re so divorced from the natural world, living in cities and immersing ourselves in the internet every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Artificial intelligence is only confusing people more, said Kathleen Carroll, an assistant professor at the University of Rhode Island who leads the Rhode Island Bobcat Project<\/a>, which uses cameras, GPS collars, and citizen science to track the state\u2019s bobcats. One local resident recently called the police to report a mountain lion after asking AI to identify a photo of a mysterious cat. Instead of helping, AI catastrophized, she said: \u201cIt was like, \u2018Seek shelter immediately! Call law enforcement!\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

The cougar, it turned out, was actually an orange tabby. <\/p>\n

Listen, I\u2019m not judging. Along with my parents, my husband and I once thought we were on the trail of a rare Florida panther<\/a> in the Everglades<\/a>, when we were actually stalking a stray dog. We wanted to believe, to experience awe \u2014 and, very briefly, we did. We just didn\u2019t see what we thought we saw.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suspect one reason so many people think they\u2019re seeing mountain lions is because they know they\u2019re missing from the ecosystem and they belong here,\u201d said Glenn Hurowitz, founder and chief executive of the environmental nonprofit Mighty Earth<\/a>. <\/p>\n

I interviewed Hurowitz and Renee Seacor, the organization\u2019s rewilding director in the Northeast, who helps lead \u201cCatamount Conversations<\/a>\u201d around the state. The eastern cougar is \u201cculturally iconic\u201d for Vermonters, she said, noting that it\u2019s the official mascot of the University of Vermont<\/a>. Middlebury roots for the Panthers<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Vermont is also home to the Catamount Trail<\/a>, a catamount license plate<\/a>, and a Catamount IPA<\/a>. But it hasn\u2019t been home to an actual catamount since 1881, when, as the story goes<\/a>, a boy noticed tracks in the snow and followed them to their source: a very large panther. A hunter shot the catamount and posed behind it in a now-famous photograph. <\/p>\n

Now, 145 years later, there\u2019s a new effort to bring cougars back to the Northeast. A bill<\/a> proposing to study the scientific feasibility of reintroducing the catamount to the Green Mountain State died in committee, but Seacor said she expects it to resurface next year. Hurowitz said he\u2019s hopeful the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department<\/a> will see \u201cbipartisan support inside and outside the Legislature is not going away.\u201d <\/p>\n

Hurowitz noted that forest restoration has helped beavers<\/a>, turkeys<\/a>, and white-tail deer<\/a> \u201ccome roaring back\u201d to the Northeast. \u201cThis great continental rewilding is something to be celebrated,\u201d he said, \u201cbut it\u2019s missing the capstone.\u201d He argues that cougars could make both forests and humans healthier since they would reduce deer populations, thereby reducing tick-borne diseases like Lyme and Alpha Gal.<\/p>\n

I have to say, as much as I worry about ticks, I might worry even more about running into a cougar in Vermont. Restoring carnivorous predators to the top of the regional food chain could be socially problematic to say the least, said Carroll, the bobcat tracker, and Christopher Hickling, the project\u2019s lead graduate student, who also has a background in pumas.<\/p>\n

\"AA cougar in a tree.NPS<\/p>\n

There are more people now compared to 200 years ago, not to mention pets, livestock, and other magnets for potential conflict between humans and mountain lions. While fatal encounters are very rare, they\u2019re not unheard of, and the risk can go both ways. In 2019, a Colorado jogger killed a young cougar that attacked him on a trail and later recounted the experience<\/a>. First he heard the rustling of pine needles, then \u201cI was bummed out to see a mountain lion,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The thing about mountain lions, said Carroll, is that \u201cthey\u2019re not going to stay where you put them \u2014 nothing ever does \u2014 so you can\u2019t be like, \u2018I\u2019m gonna put a puma in Vermont and that puma is never going to go anywhere else.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

Unlike coyotes<\/a> and other pack animals, cats are individualistic and tend to strike out on their own. \u201cThey travel long distances, they have large home ranges, they go to really interesting places and do interesting things,\u201d said Hickling. <\/p>\n

Carroll tries not to anthropomorphize too much but conceded that bobcats \u201creally do capture the imagination.\u201d Watching mothers overwhelmed by their kittens, \u201cyou can just tell how exasperated they always look, like, \u2018Oh my God, I\u2019m ready for a break.\u2019\u201d One of Carroll\u2019s favorites is a small and \u201cscrunkly\u201d older female named Owl, who likely can\u2019t see or hear very well and \u201changs out in people\u2019s yards and just stares at them,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Bobcats may not be as iconic as cougars, but they can be just as elusive, which adds to the thrill of seeing one. <\/p>\n

\"AA bobcat in Wayland.Ken Kolpan Photography<\/p>\n

Reader Richard Butler, of Pittsfield, recently shared a photo that I love of a lean and muscular bobcat creeping through high grass. He took the picture at the start of the pandemic in spring 2020, when many people were stuck at home and seeing wildlife they might not have otherwise encountered. <\/p>\n

Butler had been hoping to revisit some breeding osprey and was walking on a path along the Housatonic River with his camera when the large cat poked its head out of the grass to look around. \u201cIt did not jump, it did not sprint. It just went into that low walk right across the trail,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was just astonished.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA bobcat creeping through high grass near the Housatonic River.Richard Butler<\/p>\n

Brooke Hauser can be reached at brooke.hauser@globe.com<\/a>. Follow her @brookehauser<\/a>.<\/p>\n