Mountain Lions in Oklahoma

W

William Suter

Well-known member
I got a text this morning from the Ok Wildlife Dept. Seems someone has got a female with 2 kittens on camera in Osage County and in Cimmaron County they have a female with 3 kittens on a trail camera. I knew we had them all along but no proof.
 
IDK, but for years we would hear of someone, including myself, having a mountain lion sighting and people would think you were crazy or full of crap. Maybe both.
 
Think they pass through about every state in the US. We don’t have a breedable population, but still get some roaming up from Florida. Now these are the normal colored panthers, the Black ones seem to be behind every tree down here yet none have ever stepped in front of a camera, lol.
 
With the amount of trail cameras in the world there should be pictures everywhere of any animal in existence. I have lived in lion country most of my life and have seen one that wasn't treed by dogs. And I called him in and shot him. But I have dozens and dozens on trail cameras. They are elusive in daylight. But where they don't exist or do in small numbers they are seen with great regularity but never leave tracks or show up on cameras. Wolves in certain areas are the same. Everyone sees them but again no evidence. Black Panthers and Bigfoot are in the same class.
 
I believe the key takeaway from the Oklahoma message is that there is now evidence of a breeding population of mountain lions in the state. Seeing young male lions roaming through is one thing, but an established population of breeding lions is something else.
 
Odd sightings.,

My folks had an one go through their rural backyard in WI near Webster. The warden came out and verified it by the tracks in the snow.

My friend near Or MN had one cross the fire road while skijoring, exercising her sled dogs. She said it was quite a wreck when the dogs saw it.

I've had bear and lion tracks in the mud around my duck blind in coastal WA. My hunting partner saw one on the bank of the Humptulips River on the way out to the blind one morning. I saw bear, bobcat, otter, raccoons and deer but never saw the big cat.
 
At one point, probably 10-12 years ago, the company I work for tried some hiring from the local refugee center. The center suggested a nice Ukrainian kid. The catch was that he spoke zero english. The solution was to hire an English speaking Russian kid as well, who could act as a translator. I didn’t care for this, but our COO at the time knew everything, so they were hired and put in my shop against my better judgment.

The Ukrainian kid lasted about 1 week. I ended it when I caught him grinding a hunk of scrap sheet aluminum into a knife shaped blade in the metal shop instead of punching holes in the sign blanks as he should have been! But the Russian kid (Daniel) was pretty solid, so I kept him for a while to see where it went. He made it a few months before things went south with his health. Something about a problem with his heart, caused from taking some home remedy to lose weight that contained GUN POWDER!!!… :oops:

Anyway, one conversation with him, he told me that there were “Werewolves” on his grandfather’s land and that he had seen them. When I said that Werewolves didn’t exist, he told me that there were a family of them that lived in a “cave” in the woods. 🤪

Further conversation and a little deductive reasoning, he changed Werewolves into Wolverines, which again does not exist in our neck of the woods. Through more discussion and the help of Google images, we came to the agreement that it was a family of Fishers, and the “Cave” was a hole in a large dead tree! :LOL:
 
hunt0168 said:
I’m about 99.9% sure I seen one in NY about 20 years ago, but our Department of Environmental Conservation says no. Even though one was hit by a car and killed about 10 years ago? :unsure: :rolleyes:

Hey… It’s NY. We don’t have a problem with illegal immigrants either if you ask our asshat governor!
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I have seen one in NH
 
AWS said:
My friend near Or MN had one cross the fire road while skijoring, exercising her sled dogs. She said it was quite a wreck when the dogs saw it.
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That brings back some OLD memories. When I was 4-5 years old, dad had a large hound mix which was my constant companion. One day I got the grand idea to hook my tricycle to the hound's collar with about 6' of rope from the garage. Everything went just great until the dog jumped a tom cat. What a ride.....until the cat jumped a foot high curb around a neighbors property.
 
struggling_hunter said:
I have seen one in NH
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I don’t think we have an established breeding population here in NY. The one I am pretty sure I seen was near Booneville NY.

Now the thing that makes this interesting is that about 2 weeks prior to my “sighting”, a friend of mine that lives about 12 miles south of Booneville had called me and said that he just saw a mountain lion in his back field. He sent me pictures of tracks and a picture of his boot print next to one. It was definitely big cat. At the time, I was on a beagle forum, and there was a houndsman that was on there that ran hounds on big cats. His last name was Richardson. I can’t remember his first name. Anyway, I sent him the pictures and he said definitely a big cat. He went on to say that the track pattern looked to be a cat that (I think?) was “Stepping out” which he said they often do when approaching a road or open space.

The second point of interest was that I was on my way to Booneville with my wife, and sister who was visiting from Florida. We were going to take a horse drawn sleigh ride at another friend of mine’s place of employment. He works for a millionaire guy that owns thousands of acres of land, has all kinds of exotic animals. My friend manages the ski trail systems and oversees the care of the animals. I told him what I thought I saw, and he told me that Butler (His boss and owner of everything) had lost some exotic cattle of some sort to a big cat and that it had been reported to the NY State Department of Environmental. Conservation.

I never heard anything more about it after that. Just a crazy turn of events in a short span of time where I knew 2 people that had been impacted by an uncommon visitor to the area.
 
hunt0168 said:
I don’t think we have an established breeding population here in NY. The one I am pretty sure I seen was near Booneville NY.

Now the thing that makes this interesting is that about 2 weeks prior to my “sighting”, a friend of mine that lives about 12 miles south of Booneville had called me and said that he just saw a mountain lion in his back field. He sent me pictures of tracks and a picture of his boot print next to one. It was definitely big cat. At the time, I was on a beagle forum, and there was a houndsman that was on there that ran hounds on big cats. His last name was Richardson. I can’t remember his first name. Anyway, I sent him the pictures and he said definitely a big cat. He went on to say that the track pattern looked to be a cat that (I think?) was “Stepping out” which he said they often do when approaching a road or open space.

The second point of interest was that I was on my way to Booneville with my wife, and sister who was visiting from Florida. We were going to take a horse drawn sleigh ride at another friend of mine’s place of employment. He works for a millionaire guy that owns thousands of acres of land, has all kinds of exotic animals. My friend manages the ski trail systems and oversees the care of the animals. I told him what I thought I saw, and he told me that Butler (His boss and owner of everything) had lost some exotic cattle of some sort to a big cat and that it had been reported to the NY State Department of Environmental. Conservation.

I never heard anything more about it after that. Just a crazy turn of events in a short span of time where I knew 2 people that had been impacted by an uncommon visitor to the area.
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They are definitely in New England and New York, I have spoken to a few people in the North East that have either seen a lion or the large prints or know someone that has seen one.

I emailed a NH biologist and their response was "You saw a bobcat" I said " Does a bobcat have a 4 foot tail and as large as a small doe?. Saw it crossing the road while driving about 150 yards away in Bow a few years back.

I spoke to an animal control guy that lives in Dunbarton and he also had an encounter with one. He told fish and game and fish and game denied it was a lion but responded with
"Yea that animal you saw was also reported in a few other towns nearby"
 
I grew up in southern NM. A family friend, Roger Snow, had a pack of hounds to run with the coons upon the Mimbres River. I got to go a couple of times when I was around 10 or 11 years old. Fun. He drove by our house in town one time with a mountain lion hung over his old Dodge pickup that he had treed and killed on the Mimbres River. Biggest memory is the size of the paws and the teeth. Also a small store in Glenwood, NM had one in a cage outside of the entrance. I remember seeing a time or two and was impressed by how much it was constantly pacing around in the cage which was not very big. That was also in the late 50's - it was later released to my best memory. Different times.
 
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