Wildlife in Westminster
Original Story by Jay Shenk
Photo and Updated Content provided by Ally Aubuchon
Videos provided by Westminster Police Officer Jason Tamulen
Other local sightings provided by various Westminster residents
Not our best wildlife video, but these cute coyote pups are smart enough to only come out at night--both the pups and the video are fuzzy. These coyotes are located within half a mile of the town center.
This photo and other bobcat photos below (unless otherwise identified) were taken by
Westminster Police Officer Jason Tamulen on West Main Street on New Year's Day, January 1, 2010.
This photo was taken by Ally Aubuchon of West Main Street on Christmas Morning, December 25, 2009.
Update: December 2009
by Ally Aubuchon
This picture was taken at 8:54am on Christmas morning right through my picture window on West Main Street in Westminster. It walked across my front yard, which was unusual--normally the wildlife is seen in the back yard. We get deer that come just about up to our back door. There have been moose and black bear sightings in our neighborhood. In this case, the cat began to walk into the woods and we watched it stop right at the edge of Aubuchon Drive. When we whistled, the cat turned its head back for a second then quickly leaped into the air and cleared the width of Aubuchon Drive, then continued to move toward the center of town. We were not outside when I took the picture--we had just finished opening presents. My daughter, Jayd (6) thought it was cool and surprisingly enough she couldn't be worried less. She had no fears whatsoever and my son, Tyler (3) was too busy with his new race track to be bothered to look out the window.
I never doubted it was a Bobcat. Actually it is part of the Lynx family, scientifically known as Lynx Rufus. After reading up on this animal it says that they are two times the size of a domestic cat. This one was much bigger. You can tell from the photo that it is easily bigger than two cats. Canadian Lynx are bigger and they are pretty close to this area, but they don't have the prominent spots like the Bobcat. My theory is that the Canadian Lynx and the Bobcat got together and had some kittens. Normally Bobcats will only attack if they feel trapped, otherwise they will run.
New Year's Eve 2009
A Knower Road family, who had just read the Wildlife in Westminster story, sent us this picture of what certainly isn't the West Main Street Bobcat...
This same family sent these Moose pictures taken earlier in the year on Knower Road.
Christmas Eve 2009
A Blueberry Hill Lane family reported that they were leaving for church at 6pm and heard a chorus of coyote very close by, down the street. This was an unusual time of evening to hear coyote.
October 2009
by Jay Shenk
Over the last month or so there have been two alleged cougar sightings on Carter Road, according to Westminster police logs. There was also a possible sighting recently in the field by Wachusett Brewery that was not reported to police, while an alleged mountain lion sighting on Betty Spring Road near Maki’s was reported to the Gardner police. One of those sightings was subsequently determined to be a bobcat, while the others remain unresolved. I personally have heard similar reports of either cougar sightings or scat (otherwise known as ‘droppings’) off and on during the twelve years I’ve lived in Westminster, but have never personally seen a cougar or anything that could be mistaken for a cougar (thankfully), despite living across the street from Leominster State Forest.
Adult male bobcats, the most likely cause of cougar mistaken identity, vary greatly in size, but an adult male can reach 40 inches in length excluding the tail (which being “bobbed” isn’t very long), stand two feet tall at the shoulders (the size of a medium to large dog), and weigh as much as 30 lbs. They are not an animal we see often, and it’s easy to imagine how they could be mistaken for a young cougar, particularly late in the evening or if seen just briefly, which is about as long as you are likely to see a big cat. Their paw prints are about 2 inches across, and they have been known to attack animals as large as sheep, goats and small deer when in dire need of food, although they prefer smaller game such as rabbits or even mice.
Interestingly, a big article in the October 15th 2009 Wall Street Journal (now the largest paper by circulation in the US) dealt with the increase in Cougar sightings in the Midwest. I’ve attached links to both the article and an associated slide show, which show photos of cougars that turn out to be something else, mainly bobcats, with an occasional housecat or hoax mixed in. This is very worthwhile viewing and reading, although take my advice and avoid the reader comment section, which is simply a bunch of dumb jokes about sports teams and worse. It’s a well researched article, and the conclusion is basically what also seems to be the case in Westminster—it’s very unlikely there are cougars in the area, and after you see pictures of bobcats, you can see why it’s hard to tell an adult bobcat from a young cougar.
According to the Mass Dept. of Fish and Wildlife, there are no mountain lions (also known as pumas, catamounts, cougars, and sometimes panthers) in Massachusetts. The last mountain lions were extirpated in 1858, and there have been no verified sightings since then, although there was one confirmed scat in Franklin County in 1997 in the area of the Quabbin Reservoir. What do we then make of the reported sightings?—either people are mistaking bobcats or housecats for mountain lions, or the Dept. of Fish and Wildlife is wrong.
Here is what The Cougar Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to studying cougar habitat has to say about it, which essentially agrees with the Mass Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. Massachusetts has one confirmed instance of a cougar. In April, 1997, John McCarter, an associate of Paul Rezendes, discovered a beaver kill in the north Quabbin area of central Massachusetts. He also found a number of scats, one of which was sent out for DNA analysis and proved to be cougar. Additionally, there was a beaver kill buried in leaves in typical cougar fashion and beaver DNA was found in the scat, indicating the cougar had eaten some of the beaver.
Central and western Massachusetts and adjacent areas of Connecticut have had a number of sighting reports, but no hard evidence. The issue for us, in light of all these reported sightings, is that while it is impossible to prove absolutely that there are not mountain lions in MA, it is also difficult to confirm that there are mountain lions in MA, even if there were any. By nature cougars are very solitary creatures that live deep in the woods, and in the best of times there are very few of them in an area. The fact that the reported sightings are often around the Quabbin, and that wildlife is returning to Massachusetts, argues that it makes sense that the mountain lion eventually will return as well. Out west the population of cougars is currently expanding slowly into the Midwest from their established range, in the Rocky Mountains and westward as far as California. Another interesting website is the Canadian Geographic website which also illustrates a problem with confirming or debunking cougar sightings—male cougars have a huge range (up to 1000 sq. kilometers/620 sq. miles) and can travel 50 kilometers/31 miles in one day). Therefore it is possible to see a cougar in an area without having a breeding population of cougars in that area. They are solitary animals that cover large distances.
I’ve also heard reports of alleged wolf sightings in the area, and here again the same situation exists. The Mass Dept. of Fish and Wildlife on their website says there aren’t any wolves around, but there was a confirmed sighting near the Quabbin in 2007 as well. A wolf seems more likely to be identified incorrectly since it resembles both a dog or a coyote, but what’s strange about this one is that there is a confirmed instance of a wolf shot in Shelburne, MA (again near the Quabbin) on the Mass Fish and Game website.
By GEORGE W. CLAXTON Recorder Staff
[Originally published on: Wednesday, March 05, 2008]
GREENFIELD -- An animal shot on a sheep farm in Shelburne last autumn was the first wild gray wolf found in Massachusetts since they were eliminated locally in the 1800s, according to the federal Fish and Wildlife Service -- which did genetic tests to determine the exact lineage of the animal.
The body of the wolf, which had killed a number of lambs and sheep in western Franklin County and was slain in October of 2007, was shipped out to a forensic laboratory in Ashland, Oregon, where the DNA testing was done.
Originally, officials of the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife said they believed that the animal most likely escaped from, or was illegally released by, someone who was keeping it unlawfully at home, but that opinion seems to have changed.
'We have no indication that this wolf was ever held in captivity,' said Thomas J. Healy, special agent in charge of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's northeast region.
I think what’s important to note about this wolf confirmation is that there is a lot of difference between one wolf and a breeding population of wolves. One animal might have wandered down here, or have been a pet that was released, but that is a vastly different scenario that having a reproducing wolf population, which we obviously don’t have or we’d know about it. Packs of wolves roaming the area are unlikely to go unnoticed.
The Internet too, admittedly not the most reliable source of information, has plenty of stories of alleged sightings of cougars in the Quabbin area. Reading an article on a blog should be given the same degree of credibility you’d give to someone you don’t know telling you the story—just being written down does not make it true. However, they are fascinating reading, and one is excerpted below that seemed somewhat credible:
Along with the McCarter find, I have heard firsthand two reliable accounts of mountain lion sightings in the same area of the west side of the Quabbin Reservoir. These sightings were not related to me by city folks out for a weekend jaunt, but by loggers who have spent their lives in the forests of New England. What struck both of these men was the way the animal they saw moved, unlike any animal they had seen before. In one of the accounts, the lion cleared the forest road with one leap from snowbank to snowbank.
According to the logger who witnessed the leaping animal, the next time he ran into an environmental officer while he was out logging his plot at Quabbin, he told him about the cat. The officer supposedly confided in the logger (who he had known for quite awhile through their Quabbin connection) that mountain lions had indeed made the area home, at least temporarily, if not permanently. Apparently, in the winter, to help the resident eagle population out, the good folks at the Quabbin (and they do an awesome job) will sometimes put a fresh-killed deer on the ice for the birds' dining enjoyment. This particular officer claimed to have witnessed mountain lions feeding on these carcasses, as well.
I relate this second-hand, so it is subject to scrutiny and certainly unofficial in every sense of the word, to be sure. I've been interested in the question of whether mountain lions are among us here in Western Massachusetts for quite awhile now, but for now, history records 1858 as the year the last Massachusetts mountain lion was killed. Officially, there are no resident mountain lions in Massachusetts.
Stories like this do make you wonder. So, are their mountain lions in MA near the Quabbin, and do we have to be careful in the woods around Westminster? We’ll each have to decide that for ourselves. I myself hold what is perhaps the opinion of most people, which is the official opinion of the State Wildlife Commission and other wildlife groups—it’s almost impossible there are breeding populations of cougars in the area, and very unlikely there are even wandering mountain lions in the area, but it isn’t completely out of the question either, given the number of sightings reported over the years.
It’s also important to remember that cougar attacks are extremely rare even in areas where the cats are known to live. In Canada, for instance, there are plenty of cougars, but there have been only 7 documented deaths from cougar attacks in the entire 20th century. I’m only guessing, but that number is so small that there are probably more deaths attributed to family dogs in a year than to cougars in a century. They steer clear of people.
Even if we completely discount all accounts of mountain lions and wolves in our forests, it’s still a very good idea to use common sense and caution when hiking, particularly in the deep woods. There are plenty of animals now living in our forests, and some can be dangerous under the wrong circumstances. There are definitely bears in our woods, as well as bobcats, fisher cats, coyotes, and moose. Although all these animals, with good reason since we often shoot them, will be more afraid of us that we are of them, you never want to make a bear feel you are threatening its cubs, for instance, or surprise a moose during mating season. And don’t forget the creature that inhabits our woods that has killed many times more humans than any other animal…the mosquito. By some estimates mosquitoes are responsible, by spreading diseases, for at least a million human deaths a year, primarily from malaria, so this winter when it snows three feet overnight and you are shoveling your driveway, be happy we aren’t in a tropical climate, and wear insect repellant during the summer.
| YTD Animal Problem Reports to Westminster Police |
| | Skunks | Porcupine | Moose | Injured Fawn | Big Cats | Owl | Coyote | Escaped Highlander Bulls | Bears | Geese in road | Alligator | Foxes |
| Reports | 8 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Note that all big cat reports have happened since August.
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