The thing that bothers me is how long it took the DEP to realize (or admit) that there were coyotes in the state back in the '70s, and black bears in the '80s and early '90s. I don't doubt that they will be just as reluctant to admit that another animal they have not considered is in the state.

If I'm not mistaken, catamount prints and scat were found not far from quabbin reservoir within the last 7 or 8 years. I'm pretty sure that state lines don't have much effect on these things, and if they are that close, there's not way you can cast they CAN'T be in CT.

I have to say I was not aware there was a population of Lynx in CT. Are they resident or do they roam through looking for food?

.....289FS was born....but he wasn't born yesterday!

We have coyotes in Connecticut???

That regulation has been on the books for a very long time. It was probably put into effect back when the regulations were first created. At that time there were no bears in CT either. Bears and mountain lions were indigenous to Connecticut but were exterminated or pushed out of the state by the wholesale removal of the state's forests in the 1700 and 1800's. The regulation may have been a last ditch effort to stop the final extermination of those species.

I am not saying definitively that there are not any mountain lions in CT. Could there be? Yes. Is it probable? Maybe. I've been a police officer for over 30 years and as such I don't believe anything until I see the evidence. When I see a good photo (not a grainy one that might be a dog, a large yellow tabby cat or raccoon)that was taken in CT not California, a dead cat or other hard evidence then I will believe it. With all the thousands of hunters that are in the woods every year, many sitting motionless for hours in treestands, we haven't had them reporting mountain lion sightings. With all the fishermen climbing through underbrush and fishing in remote streams and rivers, we haven't had them report sightings. The one's we get are from motorists seeing "something" run across the road at night, or someone looking out of their kitchen window and seeing "something" in the woods behind their house. They swear up and down that it was a mountain lion, but everyone we have located has been a bobcat, caracal, large domestic cat or yellow lab.

There may occasionally be Canada Lynx in CT, and they have very large feet. Their footprints can easily be mistaken for a mountain lion. The have been sighted in the NE portion of CT and I believe also the extreme NW. Their main food source is snowshoe hare so their populations are very dependent on the hare populations. http://www.beardsleyzoo.org/teachers-parents/animal.asp?mc_id=91

I will never say never, but provide some proof, other than "I know they are there" and I will believe it. After all, there are still Elvis sightings all over the country too and we all know for a fact that the government is hiding preserved alien bodies in Area 51.

Locals in Pomfret we talked with hunting the state forest, swear that there is a mountain lion attacking livestock in that area.....