SamPratt.com

Where the wild things are—or aren’t

This photo of a mountain lion, found at a hunters’ discussion site, purports to have been taken in June of this year in Hillsdale; however, its authenticity can’t be verified. UPDATE: Thanks to web research by Alan Coon, it now appears that as suspected, the photo above is from another area—Michigan.

Several years ago, another photo said to be of a mountain lion dragging a deer past a local video camera circulated on Facebook, but that appears to have been a hoax using footage from a a faraway game preserve. 

Anecdotally, this site has heard many accounts from residents of seeing both mountain lions and bobcats in the area—and I’ve seen what looked like one of the latter bound across 9G in Livingston earlier this year.

An acquaintance has also claimed to have seen a very large-tusked wild boar on her property in Hillsdale. About a decade ago, newspapers were awash with humorous stories about a Vietnamese pig that was running wild around Tivoli for much of one summer.

Certainly, there are black bear all over the County. And I’ve seen them twice in a dozen years right in downtown Hudson: once in the churchyard of the First Presbyterian Church sometime around 2004, and once in a neighbor’s garden in the 100 block of Warren Street in 1998. (In the latter case, law enforcement officers were actually seen tossing donuts over the fence to the bear until the game warden could show up with a tranquilizer.)

A 2008 About Town article by Arlene Wege discusses the range of possible or mythical sitings of various large beasts in the region. As she notes, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation does not acknowledge mountain lions’ presence here, but some hunters at the site above note that DEC is often slow to make major changes in their inventories.

Home stretch

This well-fed and friendly cat (named Squirrel) can often be found sunning himself on a sidewalk in front of his Hudson home.

Glencohort

One of these things is not like the others... in Glenco Mills (NY).

Rabid beaver bites Boy Scout leader’s butt

Once again, a toothy rodent is putting Columbia County on the national media map. Only this time, it’s a rabid beaver.

Image: National Geographic

Boy Scout Troop 32 out of Elizaville was camping along the Delaware Water Gap in Pennsylvania when its leader, a Pine Plains resident, was attacked repeatedly by a beaver. The Troop leader “suffered bites [on] his backside, his leg and arm” before his scouts “killed the animal as it clung to its victim even after he reached shore.”

According to The Pike County Courier and dozens of other media outlets around the country, the beaver was tested and found to be rabid. The man is being treated for rabies, and of course is wished a speedy recover.

(Growing up along a small river, in my experience these animals avoid humans whenever possible, and aren’t to be feared—but rabies will turn any critter into a crazed killer.)

Woodchuck story goes viral

The news that a varmint, not a vandal, was responsible for stealing flags from veterans' graves in Hudson’s Cedar Park cemetery is going viral, as this Google News search on “woodchuck hudson” shows. The local woodchuck is now famous on ABC and CBS News, The L.A. Times, and more.

Hudson ought to capitalize on the publicity by giving the patriotic fella (who appears to have been literally wrapping himself in flags in his burrow) a name.

Lynx rufus

The Albany Times-Union featured a Sunday opinion piece about saving New York State’s bobcats. Noting that unlike wolves and cougars, bobcats have made an improbable comeback here, Tom Woodman of the Adirondack Explorer argues:

We should celebrate this victory of wild nature over senseless destruction and do what we can to extend the bobcat’s reign. Instead, the state Department of Environmental Conservation has proposed expanding the hunting and trapping of bobcats.

Woodman notes that EnCon (DEC) has received 1,200 comments on its cruel and unnecessary proposal, with 80% of commenters opposed to the idea. “These opponents should continue to speak out,” he concludes, adding that “There is no justification for continuing the sanctioned killing of these wild creatures at any time.”

According to Wikipedia, the bobcat (Lynx rufus) has been roaming the planet for 1.8 million years. Meanwhile, Homo sapiens emerged about 200,000 years ago, and only achieved “full behavioral modernity” in the last 50,000 years. Leave ’em alone—they were here first.

Stock photo

Local sportsmen assist the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) with stocking the Taghkanic Creek with trout. (Photo: Water Street Road, Livingston)

Don't try this at home

Polar bears are one of the only animals which literally will eat you alive. [Via Clusterflock]

Poochie

Puff piece

Seen just off Warren Street, Hudson (NY).

Dominic

(At an undisclosed Dutchess County location.)

Tank

Spring Garden, Greenport (NY). Photo: Laetitia Hussain