Here we focus on what constitutes evidence, which is defined as "the available body of facts or information indicating whether an assertion is true or valid." In particular to our topic, an unacknowledged species living in North America, let's review what we know about the animals in this Neo-arctic biome. Sightings, pictures, or carcasses of large animals, or any animals for that matter, are bonus, but not required as proof they inhabit an area, if sufficient signs and markings are present that typically indicate such. This can include, but not be limited to: their scat, their leftovers, and other signs of activities of daily life. Wildlife biologists and ecologists accept these as evidence the animal is present, as do park rangers, and act accordingly in the protection of both humans enjoying a day at the park, and the safety of the animal populations in question. The amount and age of the evidence will determine numbers, length of stay, perhaps whether it is migratory or not (requiring longer term monitoring and knowlege of potentially distant resources) or was maybe just a fluke appearance. This is textbook for hobby sightseers and professional wildlife management alike, as a general rule and common practice.
Information below comes mostly from the Mountain Lion Foundation
SCAT
Raccoons frequently use the same potty location, and hence, their feces are discovered in huge piles known as latrines. Coyote poop is also cylindrical and may include the same items as bear scat, while both bobcats and mountain lions poop in segments. Coyotes frequently deposit their piles of scat in the middle of pathways as a territorial sign, cylindrical and about 3 to 5 inches long and 3/4 inches wide. It is left behind as a tubular, knotted rope with a twisted end that sets it apart from the bear’s plain, blunt tubes. Bears consume a lot of grass and insects in the spring, which causes their excrement to frequently be green and cylindrical with grass visible. Bear scats tend to be looser and larger in the late summer and early fall, with noticeable berries and apple fragments.
Bear-like in shape but smaller in size, coyote poop is cylindrical and is about 3 to 5 inches long and 3/4 inches wide. It
is left behind as a tubular, knotted rope with a twisted end that sets
it apart from the bear’s plain, blunt tubes. Coyotes frequently deposit
their piles of scat in the middle of pathways as a territorial sign. As is typical for feline scat, bobcat scat is cylindrical like a bear’s
but smaller, more circular, and divided. When you tread on it, it won’t
compress because it is incredibly dense. The scat is 0.5 to 1 inch wide
and 3 to 5 inches long. It also has hair and bones and berries, fruit,
and grass. Additionally, you might notice a scrape from the bobcat’s
attempt to hide its scat. All these are readily available for viewing online.
If there were other apex animals, they would be leaving scat unidentifiable or at least confusing and difficult to categorize.
KILLS
BEAR leave deep tooth marks (about ½-inch in diameter) on the neck directly behind the ears on the carcass. On large animals, look for large marks from claws (½ inch between individual marks) on the shoulders and sides. After an animal is killed, a black bear typically will open the body cavity and remove the internal organs. The liver and other vital organs are eaten first, followed by the hindquarters. Udders of lactating females are consumed. Predation by bears must be distinguished from attacks by coyotes or dogs. COYOTES typically attack the throat of their prey. DOGS chase their prey, often slashing the hind legs and mutilating the animal. Tooth marks on the back of the neck usually are not found on kills made by coyotes and dogs. Claw marks are less prominent on kills by coyotes or dogs, if visible at all. Livestock behave differently when attacked by bears. Sheep tend to bunch when they are approached, and three or more often will be killed in a small area. Cattle tend to scatter when a bear approaches usually resulting in the death of a single animal. Hogs evade bears in the open, and are more often killed when they are confined. Horses rarely are killed by bears, but they do get clawed on the sides.
MOUNTAIN LION kills are typically found under brush, shrubs, and trees. They don't leave their food under open sky, but cover the carcass with leaves, sticks, and grass. Around the stash can also show the raking of the paws in the dirt as the lion pulled debris over it. The lions nip deer fur from their kills, leaving a telltale incisor - shaved tufts around the area about 1" across. The feeding begins at the ribs, eating the lungs, heart, and liver first. The stomach will be missing, as the cats remove it upon opening the chest cavity to prevent the contents from spoiling the meat, since it takes a few days to eat it all. The spine and partial skull will be ingested to gain nutrition from the marrow that the cats cannot synthesize for themselves.When left to their meal, a mountain lion leaves the toothy part of the skull, the tail and the legs.
If there were other apex animals, they would be leaving kills that are outside the norm, or at least confusing and difficult to categorize.
This kill was attributed to coyotes.
Not to hammer it too heavily, but in case anyone else needed to see more experts weigh in or any confusion remained about what puma do in North America:
FOSSILS, PHOTOS, VIDEOS, RECORDINGS
The Mammoth Steppe was a complex biome that changed over time and across the region. This resulted in a mosaic-like ecosystem that varied in response to a constantly changing climate. During the Pleistocene, the climate changed much more dramatically than it has during the last 10,000 years, the period known as the Holocene, a remarkably stable climatic period compared to the preceding million years or so. The unstable climate of the Pleistocene caused rapid changes in the plant communities and thus forage for megafaunal herbivores. Abundance and distributions of these animals would have varied in response to the changes. Being large, the megafauna would have been able to move across the landscape tracking favorable patches of habitat both seasonally and over longer time scales.
This was a complete ecosystem of megafauna with herbivores and the predators that consumed them. Like most ecosystems, there were many more herbivores than carnivores. The giant short-faced bears may have mostly scavenged already-dead herbivores (Matheus 1995), but brown bears, lions, and wolves undoubtedly hunted and killed their prey. Radiocarbon dates suggest the lions may have specialized in hunting horses, which coincidentally comprise more than half of the number represented in the cave paintings to date. It is also interesting to note the location of the entrances to some of these caves is what rules out homo sapiens for access, which could be answered by this hominid and their purported abilities. We have an abundance of fossils with a variety of speciation.
There can be too much emphasis placed on using fossils for any argument. C-14 analysis is effective for bones up to about 45,000 years
old; older bones do not retain enough carbon to be dated using this
method. Unfortunately, there are no effective techniques for dating
bones older than this, so many finds on file remain silent as to their
age. Then there is the barrier of cost -- hundreds of dollars per sample. A true
scientist has to ask themselves, what is the statistical significance of
data from such a small sample number of available or appropriate
sources, if the result is such a low confidence figure
that it's rendered tantamount to useless?
Especially in light of other, much larger sample
numbers of sources that have been not just accepted by courts of law, but encouraged -- and
sometimes, by subpoena, REQUIRED. These are
thousands of pictures, videos, and recorded sounds, plus hundreds of
thousands of matching eyewitness accounts around the world, spanning hundreds of years
into historical texts. There's more proof that a human-ape hybrid type
hominid extisted, and continues to exist, than there is about the life
of Jesus. The rational mind has to ask why one is acceptable and the
other is denied, and they don't even correlate to the side with the
larger body of supporting information. It would appear on the surface
that any argument relying on absence of information from a mode as problematic as fossils and carbon dating has nothing to offer as an explanation here or move us forward.
Ultimately, Geiss was a believer in the ability of the White Tail deer species to adapt and overcome -- how equally applicable and appropriate is it to say of any higher-end species trying to thrive these days than "I hold out hope based on all the above that whitetails can take whatever is thrown at them, that even human ignorance can’t end a multi-million-year-old survival specialist." Some years after this article came out, here we are, watching the populations strain:
Lindsay Thomas, Jr., an editor of multiple deer-focal magazines (among other things) concluded his article The Oldest Deer on Earth with a gentle warning that there are "new threats" that individually have been unsuccessful, but compounded could net a future where only stabled deer exist, which would mean the extinction of anyone else depending on them. He writes, "I know many hunters yawn at the paleontology .... But knowing that whitetails are the oldest deer makes me feel an even greater responsibility to be a good steward of this animal. We hold no less obligation to protect other deer, other game species, or any other wildlife."
When we look back and see only one set of footprints in the sand, we will know we were poor stewards.
🙔
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