Sk8man

Just as an aside, I have personally met and chatted with dawsonscreek and he is a serious committed student in a great conservation program here at the college in Canandaigua. I'm also confident that he may be much closer to the actual data there in that program than the rest of us might be so it might behoove us to listen with an open ear to what he is saying despite a lot of unsupported claims of sightings being offered by folks who may fully believe their heartfelt but unsubstantiated claims.

I'm with Great Lakes Lure Maker on this. I believe it is perhaps possible for a mountain lion to migrate elsewhere from its usual habitat when pushed out by various forces (development, competition from other species e.g. coyotes for food) and possibly transit through NYS but given all the different places in NYS these alleged sightings have occurred there should be some camera footage someplace to support their presence and it just doesn't seem to be there. I also think that in looking at some of the Internet responses that many other alleged sightings have been made in other states (where they are not known for sure to inhabit) without confirmation or definitive proof and it seems to closely resemble the "Bigfoot"or "Sasquatch" phenomenon. It is not to say that for sure it does not exist ....but where is the proof?

I don't think he had one of his better days either Nice work!

Nice going Dre. beautiful buck....I'm thinking three yrs.

John I should have noted that the pic of the Fisher was not taken by me.....I pulled it from the Internet to illustrate what they look like....I have done a lot of photography including many animals but have never been that close to a Fisher to get a shot

Hey Musky many thanks for the recipe. I just now used it as the base recipe and then added seafood stock instead of chicken broth. perch, salmon, clams, shrimp, and a little cumin to it and man is that stuff addictive. You really conjured up a real winner!

Sean's pic of the bobcat is a good one and it sort of points up the mistaken identity issue. If someone didn't see the tail and the bobcat was on an angle viewing just the powerful hind quarter midsection and head from a distance where actual size might be hard to determine it could be mistaken for something like a mountain lion by someone that had never seen the two of them before especially. If the two were displayed side by side though the differences would be very apparent.

The top probability would be bobcat in this region. They are fairly common in sparsely populated areas in New York State. The Canadian Lynx was once an inhabitant of southern Canada and northern US but they are very rare now in these areas. They have huge paws and tracks that could perhaps be mistaken for a cougar or "mountain lion" but not when viewed as they also have a much smaller tail and are much smaller in size.They also compete with coyotes for food sources and with the strong populations of coyotes around here they probably wouldn't make a go of it anyway. Most folks around here haven't ever seen a cougar or a bobcat to be able to compare so a casual observation in the wild could easily lead to confusion and inaccurate reporting. With that said there are also repetitive rumors abounding that the DEC had placed cougars selectively in New York State to help control the deer population.....I would think that to be unlikely (but not impossible ) too.

Nice work Johnny.

WTG John. I just put my boat away this afternoon given the upcoming weather picture....sure wish I had been out today though....looks as though you had a good time out there. Les P.S. Did this yesterday from shore though