Hiker reports possible mountain lion on Lexington trail

LEXINGTON―Every year, state forest rangers respond to the aid of dozens of hikers in distress. But last week one such situation in Greene County was a little bit different. A hiker called 911 to request assistance out of the woods after reporting a potential mountain lion sighting.

“The caller feared the animal might be following him,” the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) said in a statement Monday.

That call came into the Greene County 911 Center just before 11 p.m. on Wednesday, July 8 from a 23-year-old hiker who was on Devil’s Path in the town of Lexington.

A ranger, along with State Police and the Greene County Sheriff's Office, trekked into the hiker’s location and by 3 a.m. had escorted him out of the woods without incident, DEC reported.

Mountain lions, or easter cougars, do not have a native, self-sustaining population in New York State, as per DEC.

“They have been absent from this state since the late 1800s,” DEC reported Monday. “However, there have been a few isolated sightings.”

A couple of those sightings involved captive mountain lions that escaped from licensed facilities within New York, while another involved a cougar that traveled through the state nearly 1,800 miles east from South Dakota.

DEC even has a page on its website devoted to fake claims of mountain lions in New York State.

“There are many images of mountain lions circulating on the internet with false claim they were taken in New York. Many of these photographs were copied from previous news reports or articles from western states where native populations of cougars exist,” DEC reports.

The agency also addresses rumors that it has deliberately released cougars to control deer populations.

“Some of these rumors claim that Officer 'Jones' participated in the release, or that people have actually seen cougars with ear tags or neck collars, so they must have been released by the state. This is not true. The DEC has never released cougars, despite what you may hear to the contrary,” the agency maintains.

Mountain lions can weigh anywhere from 80 to 225 pounds and can be as long as five to nine feet, including their tail which ranges from 26-32 inches in length.  

With the exception of Florida, where they are considered a federally protected endangered species, cougars have been considered extirpated from states east of the Mississippi River since the 1900s. In the west, they are still quite common in wilderness areas of the Rocky Mountain states and British Columbia.

“DEC staff will only investigate reports where physical evidence of tracks, scat, or hair exist, or when a captive animal has been reported to have escaped,” the agency says.

And while DEC receives several reports of cougar sightings every year, it says those are mostly cases of mistaken identity and actually found to be bobcats, fishers or even domestic housecats or dogs.

As for last week’s potential sighting on Devil’s Path, DEC says their wildlife staff suspect the animal was likely a coyote based on the behavior described.