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• Anonymous

  Well i guess that was an ewok that ripped my cousins face off.

• Anonymous

  The Republicans want to declare (Unions) Extinct!

• acadiashores

  I don’t see how they can discount all the sightings in Maine. It’s sad that they are removing them from the list because if they do indeed exist, and I believe they do, there won’t be any protection for them.

• Anonymous

  Good…now can we just shut the heck up about it? People know what they see…unless they are blind drunk, the differences between the eastern cougar and other animals is obvious. The government is in no way saying they don’t exist…they’re just saying that the ones around were captive at one time(a certain Waldo county huntin&funin’ ranch that never got off the ground comes to mind), or just gettin the heck out of Dodge. So we seem to be all set, correct?

• Anonymous

  Good.

• Anonymous

  can we declare you extinct?

• Anonymous

  Since when do the feds know anything about anything . . . ?

• Anonymous

  This means we can light one up, and then let the scientists decide what it is.

• Anonymous

  Why would the Feds intentionally mislead the public? Cougars are a threat to a persons safety and I suspect if the Feds had any evidence that a sustainable Eastern cougar population was amongst us they would be wasting all kinds of money on “Beware of Cougar” signs! giggle…

• Patten_Pete

  “However, we believe those cougars are not the eastern cougar subspecies. We found no information to support the existence of the eastern cougar.”

  —- Based on what?

• Anonymous

  FYI They must have “just become extinct” since this past summer as my husband and I had one walk across the road in front of our car last summer in Machias. As a believer…they will never be extinct to me as I know what we saw with our own eyes!!!

• Anonymous

  Well, they didn’t discount the fact that western cougars may have migrated to the east, did they? I don’t think most people could tell the difference in the two…but they do know they saw a cougar!

  The argument will continue on.

• Tedlick Badkey

  Liars, each and every damned one of ‘em…

• Anonymous

  They will be back on the endangered list once some hunter shoots one

• Anonymous

  That is my question also, Patten_Pete! Did they acquire DNA samples to draw this conclusion, or is it just a “hunch”?

• Anonymous

  Beware of cougars, lol! Maybe in downtown Bangor!

• Anonymous

  The Government is never wrong.

• Anonymous

  Not having another threatened species to worry about, the Lords of Development will have even greater opportunity to rape the Maine woods. This ruling is occasion for sorrow. So is the likelihood the feds actually have it right.

  Peter Taber
  Publisher
  Wild Maine Times
  Searsport

• Patten_Pete

  If they found several cougars’ DNA samples (from here) and they all matched, let’s say, the Florida panther strain, it would obviously not mean that an indigenous Maine or eastern strain is not out there in Maine somewhere.

  Moreover, if the Maine strain hasn’t been here for 70 years or so as they would like us to believe, where do they get a DNA sample that they know represents a Maine cat?

  My thought is that the moment they were to say that there are indeed Eastern cougars or native timber wolves here, all kinds of protections would kick in that would upset people with monied interests. For example, it might get in the way of John Baldacci’s cronies’ wind farms. We wouldn’t want a pesky native big cat standing between someone like Kurt Adams and free taxpayer-supplied money, now would we?

• Patten_Pete

  And if so, that makes him an in-migrant, as much of a Maine resident as someone moving here from Mass or Ct. If he came here on his own, e.g., by way of Canada (which bypasses the big rivers), then he is perfectly natural.

• Anonymous

  Has anyone actually seen an agent of the US Inland Wildlife & Fisheries check out any of the sighting reported?

  Maybe if they got out of their offices and actually went into the wild they might think differently, that is if they are allowed too.

• Anonymous

  Dang it…even the flatlander animals are invading!

• Anonymous

  If this in fact true…HOW SAD!!!!!!!!!!!!

• Anonymous

  Right: the feds don’t know nawthin, particular them scientific ones what with all them studies and surveys. Nothing us real peeple are bound to respect, anyways. They don’t think we’ve got wolverines either, but one winter night up on the Magalloway, my uncle Ferd saw one so close up he almost got him with an empty Four Roses bottle.

• http://travelah.blogspot.com/ Conservative Monstrosity

  Word is that intelligent U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents are near extinction themselves.

• http://travelah.blogspot.com/ Conservative Monstrosity

  Maybe you could invent another one .. maybe the Spotted Moose Darter … Nobody has seen one of those for YEARS! That out to lock up 80% of the state and preserve it just for the readers of your magazine.

• http://travelah.blogspot.com/ Conservative Monstrosity

  I think those are the polecat subspecies. They hang out under streetlights on side streets.

• http://travelah.blogspot.com/ Conservative Monstrosity

  The red shirted socialists are doing a pretty good job of getting themselves to thatpoint

• Anonymous

  Hundreds of Sasquatch Sightings in America. Do they Exist?

• Anonymous

  Nobody has harmed one yet that we know of, or there would have been proof one way or another. As far as protection goes, the Endangered Species List hasnt been protection for animals per se, so much as it has been used by animal rights activists as an avenue to push their agenda in other areas, i.e. hunting and trapping. If a poacher were going to shoot an animal, they wouldn’t care if it were on a list or not, remember, they are not the most intelligent lot. The problem with the “sightings” is that since nobody has brought enough evidence to determine which subspecies it actually belongs to, they might as well be reporting bigfoot sightings.

• Anonymous

  “Feds declare” Whoop-De-Friggen-Do…..

  The feds mess-up everything they touch. We’ll just let them keep thinking that, and keep fools from messing with the cats. These cats will make a comeback, and when they do the feds will probably just say they are a different breed….

• Anonymous

  So cute & cuddly, wish I had one for my very own.

• DonHorchKingofMen

  So,we know that cougars do live in Maine,a carload of us and several other cars that stopped,saw one leap across rt 1 in Damarascotta Maine in the late ’90′s.The question is,Why is it so important to the feds to have this a secret? I heard that a cougar ripped a deer up in the Brooks Maine area last fall.Another sightings a few days later in Waldo.Why the big cover up?

• Anonymous

  What do you people really want ?
  Stop and think about it minute.
  Just shush.

  If the are are here, and sure they are, and if they are an endangered species, then all of Maine would the protected habitat of an endangered species.

  But I don’t really think mountain lions need very much the of the kind of protection that any government agerncy might have to offer.
  Do you ?

  So really read what the ruling says…. they are here, but not a native endangered species.
  If they were declared an native endangered species and given they range over the whole State, we would have to write mountain lion impact statements to expend a pier.

  The worse thing that could happen is some damned fool shooting a pregnant female just to prove, ayah, they are so heah in Maine.

  It is possible to be right, to know what you think you saw, and still be really dumb to insist on convinsing those with good reasons to not want to believe you that you just have be right.

  We see that all time in what all usual suspects post here about their politics, don’t we ?

• Anonymous

  What I saw in the woods of Warren was no housecat,nor was it a bobcat, it was a Mountain Lion and no one will ever convince me otherwise.

• Anonymous

  “Feds declare Eastern cougar officially extinct”

  -The feds need to head to Barnabys on ladies night and they might reverse their decision…I’m quite confident they’d probably be taken of the list altogether.

• Anonymous

  No, we want the pleasure of driving unions to extinction! Big difference!

• Anonymous

  But that would require them to get their shoes muddy! That would never do!

• Anonymous

  On two seperate occasions I have seen Cougars in the woods of Maine. The first encounter was very close. As close as aybe 20 yards or so. Big cat – long tail and sandy colored. maybe 80-100 lbs. A friend and I heard it coming . It was fall a dry and leaves were down and it was very cold,so everthing was crunchy. It came out of the edge of a clearing we are in near a road, and crossed both the clearing and the road,. It was running quite fast. My friend and I looked at each other and basically exclaimed ‘ Did you just see what I saw ?”
  The second occasion was while I was hunting and I saw two of them , one on each side of a “twitch path”. I fired at one and missed But scared them off and away from me.

• Anonymous

  Invent another one? When it comes to the eastern cougar the only inventor I’m aware of here is, I suppose, the Supreme Inventor. It’s certainly true that if and when the last eastern cougar has perished from the earth no human being is going to “invent” another one. It’s also true that the earth has in that geologic instant since human beings came into their own seen a mass extinction of species of a magnitude not seen in about 63 million years. People of a knuckle-dragging fundamentalist persuasion complacently awaiting the rapture might not be too concerned about this, but many others of us are. Not only would I love to see a little more of this state as well as many other places on this earth locked up and preserved, as you say, for what readers I may have, I’d love to see these locked up and preserved for my children and grandchildren — and, yes, whether you value it or not, for YOUR children and grandchildren.

  Peter Taber
  Publisher
  Wild Maine Times
  Searsport

• Anonymous

  Pets or not, they are here and the black one and her baby’s prints were perfect match. How can people believe politicians more than real people who don’t stand to gain anything from reporting something they saw that is suprising, beautiful and amazing.

• Anonymous

  This cougar is the exact cat that loped across the road in front of my car 9 years ago heading towards Mt. Waldo in Frankfort. I’ve still got he picture etched into my mind, a sight I’ll never forget in my lifetime. Huge cat, lighter colored, long tail and a boxy head, wish I could see him again. The feds might say they are extinct but they are wrong. I know what I saw. Agree with you.

• Anonymous

  All it would take is 1 confirmed Cougar living in the North Maine woods to close down all woods operations

• Anonymous

  Thank you for the good belly laugh! That’s rich!

• Anonymous

  Peter, do you really think anyone gives a rat’s arse what you think?

  The Pinchot-Muir debate is over a hundred years old. Pinchot won by a long shot and for good reason, mainly that people are a bit more empathetic towards other people than they are towards this psuedo-altruistic attitude towards wildlife you attempt to convey on behalf of other humans who simply do not agree with you.

  oh and BTW, 98% of ALL species that EVER existed on this planet were gone before humans finally learned to walk upright…….as a “naturalist”, you sure don’t understand nature, especially the human component…..you should try reading some philosophy sometime and perhaps you’d get a clue.

• Anonymous

  keep wearing the red shirts……easier to pick out in a crowd

• Anonymous

  Based on the fact that they are sucking the taxpayer dry with 80K a year salaries, sweet pensions, and fantastic health care…….they have to say something Pete!

• Anonymous

  Wait…the cougars were unionized?

• Anonymous

  Sorry buddy but between the Lynx and the Atlantic Salmon, the entire state is ALREADY a protected habitat of an endangered species…….haven’t you been paying attention?

  Oh yes, and did you pay your taxes this year? They would like some more money to take more land rights away next year….

• Anonymous

  The “scientists” are the new religious leaders of our day……ever notice how they always talk about those that “believe” in global warming and if you don’t you are a climate change “denier”……sounds like the cardinals calling out heretics of the middle ages! And these are the educated ones?

• Anonymous

  So start buying land or shut your pie hole…MOONBAT sighting….

• Anonymous

  I dont think so !!!!!!!!!!!

• Anonymous

  Really? I may have to swing over there to investigate that ;)

• Anonymous

  Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. If they declare it extinct then no one can be prosecuted for accidentally shooting one; like the guy they tried to hang for shooting a timber wolf. ( or wwas it grey wolf?)

• Anonymous

  I know of some people who would get right off on that…I didn’t say I liked them, just that I knew of them. ;)

• http://pulse.yahoo.com/_NYB6SBFCHOYSTDTURB5BUGZNEI M Scribbles

  Haha I love Mainers. Give em hell!

• Anonymous

  And having picked them out, then what, tough guy?

• Anonymous

  back in the day the Tiki Lounge in Caribou was full of cougars

• Anonymous

  “We are from the government, we are here to help”
  If you believe that, then there are no cougars either.
  I can’t say that I have ever had my own eyes on one, but I wouldn’t write them off just yet. I do know a couple very experienced woodsmen who claim to have seen one. I would tend to believe them over some government desk driver.

• Anonymous

  My son and another family had one out back of our house in Central Maine within a period of a week a couple of years ago.We both lost our housecats too,never to return that week?I was told that cougars will eat them?The feds are wrong and most likely overpaid.Maybe they are looking to show that they do something for there money,lol?

• Anonymous

  Guess they’ve never been to Pete and Larrys…. Plenty of cougars

• Anonymous

  I saw Elvis walking his pet Cougar at Mardens in Brewer las Tuesday…….

• Anonymous

  Yeah,what the heck do we know- we not the “guv’mint”

• Anonymous

  Check the welfare line, they be there for all the freebies,lol!

• Anonymous

  GOOD!!! I hope everyone believes that!

• Anonymous

  not all cougars are eastern cougars. Western cougars are undoubtedly moving east, and there has been physical evidence of isolated cougars in the east, but they are most likely released and escaped pets and there is not an actively breeding population.

• Anonymous

  it is still a distinct subspecies. This article is about eastern cougars being extinct, with is highly likely. Western cougars are undoubtedly moving east, and there has been physical evidence of isolated cougars in Maine, but they are most likely released and escaped pets and there is not an actively breeding population. They (western cougars) will certainly continue to migrate east eventually through upstate New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and into the western mountains of Maine.

• Anonymous

  exactly :)

• Anonymous

  What is more plausible? The hundreds of reports of sightings or the biologist who claims the cat is probably an escaped pet? It’s beginning to look as if these “experts” wouldn’t believe their existence even if the cougar walked right up to them and introduced itself……..

• http://travelah.blogspot.com/ Conservative Monstrosity

  You poor anti-Christian wretch. You couldn’t resist puking your bigoted intolerance all over yourself, could you? What in hell does your hatred for Christians have to do with anything I stated? May your grandchildren marry a pack of Indian Mormons.
  That wishful thinking aside, I suspect you know as much about the wilds of Maine as the average scrapped kneed trollop in Providence, Rhode Island. I grew up in the woods of Maine long before you farted your dreams of writing about them.

  In any event, thanks for exposing your hate filled bigotry for all to see. How do you feel about Jewish people?

• Anonymous

  Just heard on the radio this morning that they did a three year study…wonder how much that cost the hardworking tax payers of Maine…since they are more or less calling the people who have seen these beautiful creatures…a bunch of liars…get a clue you scientific idiots!!!

• http://www.facebook.com/people/Gary-Hill/100000727316419 Gary Hill

  I have seen a cougar of some species about 3 years ago on Rt.191 by the cemetery. It crossed the road in front of me, and I watched it for about 5 mins. in the field next to the cemetery. Now this was no housecat, it had a long tail and was about 100 lbs. As others have said, it may have been another species of cat, but it was definitely a cougar of some type.

  I wonder what biologists have on file as a DNA profile of an Eastern Cougar?

• Anonymous

  “Locked up and preserved”…
  That is generally code for removing landowner rights, creating a “park”, eliminating vehicle traffic, eliminating logging rights, eliminating hunting, and creating a new level of government oversight for the area… right?

  How come people like you never actually live in the “wild” areas that you so ignorantly try to “defend”. Is it because that you really don’t have a clue as to how a forest works? Or is it because you just need to pretend you are doing “good” so you can sleep at night?

  I do find it interesting that the only place in Maine with a sizeable green party contingent is Portland, where there is no forest, and the publisher of Wild Maine Times, lives in Searsport, where the only wild thing is a house cat that has been left out for too long…

  Why don’t you leave the forest to those that actually know something about it and you can go back to drinking your wine and driving your prius? Thanks.

• Anonymous

  Really, you’re going to resort to childishness? Let me guess, you have a ponytail, right?

• Anonymous

  So glad to hear these big cats are extinct here in Washington County. So the picture I took of a footprint showing the right front paw is not real. Good thing as it was bigger than my out stretched hand. And no it’s not a bear paw. Cats and bears are totally different. Now I don’t have to worry about getting eaten when I go for a walk. Thanks guys!

• Anonymous

  So glad to hear these big cats are extinct here in Washington County. So the picture I took of a footprint showing the right front paw is not real. Good thing as it was bigger than my out stretched hand. And no it’s not a bear paw. Cats and bears are totally different. Now I don’t have to worry about getting eaten when I go for a walk. Thanks guys!

• Anonymous

  So glad to hear these big cats are extinct here in Washington County. So the picture I took of a footprint showing the right front paw is not real. Good thing as it was bigger than my out stretched hand. And no it’s not a bear paw. Cats and bears are totally different. Now I don’t have to worry about getting eaten when I go for a walk. Thanks guys!

• Anonymous

  So glad to hear these big cats are extinct here in Washington County. So the picture I took of a footprint showing the right front paw is not real. Good thing as it was bigger than my out stretched hand. And no it’s not a bear paw. Cats and bears are totally different. Now I don’t have to worry about getting eaten when I go for a walk. Thanks guys!

• Anonymous

  So glad to hear these big cats are extinct here in Washington County. So the picture I took of a footprint showing the right front paw is not real. Good thing as it was bigger than my out stretched hand. And no it’s not a bear paw. Cats and bears are totally different. Now I don’t have to worry about getting eaten when I go for a walk. Thanks guys!

• Anonymous

  This approach is based on the though-process… “if we deny their existence, we do not have to manage the population”. I have personally had several sightings along the Androscoggin River, spoken with a Maine Game Warden that has had several sightings of his own and met a handfull of Mainers that have had similar experiences. It is probably not in the budget…. but in my mind… the State should just say it like it is!

• http://pulse.yahoo.com/_DQYJRNTL4E3A3B7OXXQVK74HZM Kathy S

  You fired at one and missed?

  What’s wrong with this picture? Were you not aware that you were firing at a protected species? Or did you just not give a hoot. Kinda like that guy up in the county about 20 years back who shot a wolf. “I didn’t know what it was.” He was heard to say. It could have been someones beloved and lost Alsation or perhaps an endangered species. But hell, ignorance is bliss, so he shot it anyway. Which, BTW, violates on of the first hunting safety laws. Identify your target.

• Anonymous

  Let’s nmake sure they stay that way.

• Anonymous

  You really do live in a funny paper world, don’t you?

• Anonymous

  It’s amazing what some people read into someone else’s comment. You seem to think you know everything about me. The only thing I know about you is, one, you’re life-threateningly stupid, and, two, you’re no Christian.

• Anonymous

  Another tough guy heard from. Keep on peeping.

• Anonymous

  the problem with the idea of “locked up and preserved” is that you would not be able to enjoy it, neither would your grand children. it could not even be expected to exist as it is or was. the “outside” would effect it and change it regardless of your locks and desires that it remain”as is”. it is impossible for the human race to exist and not have an effect on the planet.

• http://travelah.blogspot.com/ Conservative Monstrosity

  You, sir, are not a reputable publisher.

• http://travelah.blogspot.com/ Conservative Monstrosity

  What is this publication called “Wild Maine Times”? Does it actually exist?

• Anonymous

  These people are the same ones that decided that Speaker Nutting was an honest public servant!

• DonHorchKingofMen

  I remember the cougar that we all saw and I was struck by the long tail.And also that it could leap across Rt 1 with 2 leaps..

• DonHorchKingofMen

  People in Maine are so charmed by wildlife that isnt human that they will shoot at anything that moves.

• Anonymous

  Smart move on their part.

• Anonymous

  Smart move on their part.

• Anonymous

  Smart move on their part.

• Anonymous

  Smart move on their part.

• Anonymous

  Whenever these cougar stories come up the people that have seen one come out of the woodwork. Seems like more cougars are sighted than bears in Maine and there are 30,000 of those wandering around.

  With a couple hundred thousand snowmobilers on the trails every winter, another couple hundred thousand hunters and countless woodcutters in the woods all day you’d think some more credible evidence might appear of cougars in Maine.

  I guess Eastern cougars must only travel roads and mainly feed on house cats in peoples backyards.

• Anonymous

  ’twas 1972, just past dawn, driving up Rt 191 in Meddybemps to a construction site in Princton. Four of us, all hunters, in the car (including my cousin, familiar with cougars from Idaho & Oregon mountains). We saw this streak barrelling accross the blueberry barrens, which at a distance looked like a bobcat…itself unusual in the open during daylight.

  However, as the big cat literally leaped the road, we realized its body was 3-4′ long, with a tail of ewquivalent size. We jumped out of the car, and there were large/deep paw tracks on the road’s shoulders, both where the cat kicked off and landed.

• Anonymous

  I saw one coming home one night not far from Machias …no question in my mind what I saw. It was sitting in the middle of the road and as I approached it took one leap into the woods. A HUGE blonde cat with a long tail.

• Anonymous

  You didn’t really say what you tax grumps really do want, though, did you ?

  Is it to add the eastern mountain lion to the endangered species list so you have more to complain about ?
  What, then, is your point ?

• Anonymous

  Our family has hunted for years and years, whether it be deer, bobcat, or coyotes, none of them have ever seen a cougar or mountain lion track in the snow. Unless they have magical powers, and can fly from place to place as far as we are concerned they do not exist here. That doesn’t mean that someone’s pet hasn’t escaped from it’s cage. You’d think as many hunters that there are in Maine, someone hasn’t popped one yet. If you see one, please shoot it or photograph it so to prove us wrong. Which reminds me, I just saw Bigfoot………………………………………on a Jack Link’s beef jerky commercial!!!

• Anonymous

  Our family has hunted for years and years, whether it be deer, bobcat, or coyotes, none of them have ever seen a cougar or mountain lion track in the snow. Unless they have magical powers, and can fly from place to place as far as we are concerned they do not exist here. That doesn’t mean that someone’s pet hasn’t escaped from it’s cage. You’d think as many hunters that there are in Maine, someone hasn’t popped one yet. If you see one, please shoot it or photograph it so to prove us wrong. Which reminds me, I just saw Bigfoot………………………………………on a Jack Link’s beef jerky commercial!!!

• Anonymous

  Really? I may have to swing over there to investigate that ;)
  *************************
  oh, but Captain…Cougars go for YOUNGER men……you don’t stand a chance….lol

• Anonymous

  This cougar is the exact cat that loped across the road in front of my car 9 years ago heading towards Mt. Waldo in Frankfort.
  *****************************
  here, kitty, kitty, kitty…….

• Anonymous

  It’s years of piracy and plunder that keep a man looking young.

• Anonymous

  I agree with you entirely when you say it’s impossible for the human race to exist and not affect the planet. The issue to consider is whether it’s our responsibility as a self-described intelligent and moral species to strive to manage these effects in the best possible way.

  That means doing everything we can to hold the line on reducing biodiversity. Loss of habitat to human development is the primary agent of extinction. If we’re responsible, then we have to recognize it’s vital that as soon as possible we set aside significant portions of the planet where we refrain to varying degrees from messing with the natural order. It’s probably not an exaggeration to say our own survival as a species depends on it.

  Maine’s considerable forestlands — at about 90 percent we are first among states in the portion of our land that is densely overgrown with trees — comprise a 12 million-acre expanse extending east from the White Mountains up into the Allagash Wilderness Waterway and across to the Downeast coast. This is the greatest continuous
  expanse of mostly undeveloped and unfragmented forest in the Eastern United States, the largest intact temperate broadleaf and mixed forest in this country, one of the most environmentally significant in the world.

  If we were to do this, then I would be happy to acknowledge that I and my heirs — and you and your heirs — stand to “enjoy” it.