Syracuse.com - Was a mountain lion struck and killed by a truck near Port Byron recently?

HuntingNY-News · April 2, 2014

He added that a mountain lion is not a ghost. "It has a body. And my question is, 'Where is it?' " he said.

Port Byron, N.Y. - I've spent the past few days running down a rumor that has been circulating around Cayuga County that a mountain lion was recently hit by a motor vehicle and killed near the village of Port Byron.

Bottom line: I could not verify it.

I originally heard the story from two readers who approached me independently at Saturday's Big East Camping and Outdoors Show at the Turning Stone Events Center in Verona. Then in church Sunday morning, another man approached me and wanted to know if I had heard anything about a mountain lion that was hit by a school bus recently near Port Byron.

This week I was sent a photo of what was supposed to be the mountain lion in the back of someone's truck. I could not find out,though, who took the photo or where it was taken.

Corey Rooker, transportation supervisor for the Port Byron School District, said he also heard the rumor that the animal was reportedly struck by a school bus. He said he was approached on the street this past weekend by a local resident inquiring about the veracity of the report.

Rooker said he looked into it this week and was told it was not a bus driver who hit the animal. He was told that it was a pickup truck and that it happened sometime around March 22. He was unable to find out from this sources, though, who was driving that truck, or where the carcass (if there is one) is at this time.

"I heard it was hit on Route 38, near Guidone farm," he said, adding he first saw the picture of the animal above "on Facebook" and that it had been shared by "a friend, of a friend of a friend."

Rooker said several years ago there were reports of mountain lion sightings around Port Byron, but as time passed he just chalked it up to an "urban legend."

Steve Joule, chief wildlife biologist for the DEC's Cortland Office, said there are no viable, reproducing populations of mountain lions in this state.

"That's not to say someone couldn't have released one, or that it could have escaped from a (privately-owned) holding pen," he said.

He added that a mountain lion is not a ghost. "It has a body. And my question is, 'Where is it?' " he said.

He said that if a mountain lion was actually hit by a truck, the driver should turn it over to the DEC so it can be conclusively identified.

View the full article on The Syracuse Outdoors Blog