According to an informed source by John C. Street

In the last year or so, I have fielded a number of inquiries from people who asked me to look into the Game Commission’s stocking or trapping of mountain lions, bobcats, river otters, chukars, ruffed grouse, eastern rattlesnakes and Michigan whitetail deer.  Some of these stories I have run to ground personally, others I have relied on an informed source in the Pennsylvania Game Commission.  I use the term, “Informed Source,” loosely because this individual wanted me to report that “it’s all true and we’re looking to bring in ‘Bigfoot’ just as soon as we can find a reliable breeder.”  I’m pretty sure he was just kidding. 

Although the tongue-in-cheek report of a Bigfoot (or a man dressed up like Bigfoot as reported in the June 13, 2000 issue of the tabloid, Weekly World News) killed in northwestern Pennsylvania stretches credibility, there is an interesting story behind the other “sightings.”  I always find the origins of these “eye-witness reports” interesting because invariably there is some little kernel of either truth or misunderstanding that gets the rumor started. 

For instance, the mountain lion and the bobcat stories generally begin with someone “hearing them screaming in the woods behind our house.”  Of the two that I have gone to investigate, the only thing I heard were screech owls which have a repertoire of sounds, one of which is comparable to the yowl that a person - with a slightly overactive imagination - could believe a large cat would make.  I have a lovely family of the little owls living around my home and while my bird book describes their call as soft purrs and trills, they also have a screech - in keeping with their name - that can set a person’s hair on end if they happen to be in close proximity.  Unfortunately, as interesting as these mini owls are, mountain lions they are not and the Pennsylvania Game Commission - despite my “Informed Source’s” comment - is not stocking them.   

Now bobcats are another story.  Although I have never seen them, my father and I found their tracks and scat when we were running a trap line back in the 60s.  One of my high school buddies, who also ran a line, caught a bobbed-tail feline of some sort and the local Game Warden (that’s what we called Wildlife Conservation Officers back then) was called.  After a cursory inspection he said it was a bobcat but it sure didn’t look - aside from the color and the short tail - like any of the pictures I’d ever seen but then my young mind was probably looking for a ferocious looking critter while this one resembled a slightly oversized house cat.   

Although they are plentiful enough now to sustain a limited season, bobcats are - of the wildlife native to Pennsylvania - probably our most infrequently seen neighbors.  The Game Commission reported that hunters and trappers harvested 58 of them this past season and there were 119 more killed on our roads.  Although Pennsylvania went over thirty years without a season, the PGC - after completing fifteen years of research - believes they are plentiful but they are not, despite “eye-witness” reports, being stocked. 

The Michigan deer story came from a real monster of a buck that was taken over in the Knox area.  I wasn’t present when it was put on the scales but an “Informed Source” told me it weighed 225 pounds field dressed and had one of the largest - and heaviest - ten point racks anyone could remember seeing. It had lived a long and reclusive (there had been no reports of people seeing it prior to the day it was harvested) life, probably five and a half years guestimating from its size, in a little woodlot beside several hundred acres of corn fields.  It was a pig of a big deer but it was not trapped and transported from Michigan. 

The Chukar story came from a group of guys who were home on vacation and decided to get together for some small game hunting.  In the years since they’d been away from this area, a pay-to-hunt preserve had leased ground adjacent to their family’s property and was putting out the colorful little game bird for its customers.  Evidently, quite a few of them had banded up and moved, probably due to there being less hunting pressure on the adjacent property, and gave the group quite a surprise when they all flushed in a bunch.   Presumably the little flock is still outside the pay-to-hunt area since they’ve been seen several times since the season closed. 

The ruffed grouse trapping rumors came from a gentleman who stumbled onto the wire cage capture pens over on the Moshannon State Forest where researchers have been live trapping and radio collaring grouse for four years as a part of a long-term mortality study. There were two grouse in the trap when this man found it and the trap was constructed discreetly away from the back road where he’d parked his car so he assumed the Game Commission was live trapping to take them out of the area.  In fact, as I wrote in an article called “A Bird In Hand” that appeared in October of 1999, the PGC is only marginally involved in this research and is not removing these grouse from the area.    

A beagle dog aficionado passed along to me that he knew someone who knew someone else who had heard that the Game Commission was releasing rattlesnakes in an area where he frequently trained his dogs.  He told me that he believed this rumor was true because he knew of a dog that was bitten. I was not able to find the owner of the snake-bit dog but I can believe there is some truth in this one.  Rattlesnakes, according to a professional trainer I know, have a smell that dogs apparently find interesting.  However, despite the number of rock outcroppings in that area that would make suitable habitat, the Pennsylvania Game Commission is not “stocking” them.  At least that’s what my “Informed Source” told me. 

With all this bogus information out of the way, I am happy to report that the rumors that otters are being reintroduced to Pennsylvania are completely true albeit they are not rumors since the Game Commission reports these activities on their web site (www.pgc.state.pa.us/).  Since 1982, more than 100 of these reclusive former residents have been brought in and released in our rivers.  On May 15, 2000, six more were let loose on the Youghiogheny and six more were released in other remote waterways.  Reliable sightings have been confirmed on both the Clarion and the Allegheny rivers and an “Informed Source” has verified the presence of young otters meaning that natural reproduction is occurring.    

Now I better get out and talk with that woman who claims she saw two men in green uniforms dragging a hairy, man-shaped creature out of the back of a PGC vehicle.  Like I said, I’m pretty sure my “Informed Source” was just kidding about stocking Bigfoot but you can never be sure.