Once again, people are asking if there are mountain lions in the Mountain State
BECKLEY, WV (WVNS) — After a few locally viral Facebook posts, people are once again questioning whether the Mountain State is home to mountain lions.
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Todd Dowdy, Wildlife Biologist with the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources, said no, there are no native mountain lions remaining in West Virginia.
He said, if there were, someone would have gotten more concrete proof, especially in this day and age.
'Most hunters use trail cameras at this point so there's thousands of trail cameras on the landscape here in West Virginia every fall. We have several houndsmen that pursue bears with dogs and raccoons. So, these sportsmen are gonna run into a mountain lion at some point, if there were mountain lions on the landscape,' said Dowdy.
Dowdy said in the 25 years he has been with DNR no one has provided hard evidence of a mountain lion in the state.
He said hard evidence would be a very good quality photo, a print or casting of a track, mountain lion scat, or the full mountain lion carcass.
Dowdy said it would be hard to mistake a creature that is nearly seven feet long, tip to tail, and weighs upwards of 80 pounds.
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