Eastern Cougar Declared Extinct
03/03/2011
 Courtesy of the USFWS |
It’s official: The eastern cougar, that subspecies of the cat also known as puma, mountain lion, painter, and panther, is extinct, according to a new report by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
“We recognize that many people have seen cougars in the wild within the historical range of the eastern cougar,” said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Northeast Region Chief of Endangered Species Martin Miller. “However, we believe those cougars are not the eastern cougar subspecies. We found no information to support the existence of the eastern cougar.”
Between 1900 and 2010, there were 108 claimed sightings of cougars in the East, the Christian Science Monitor reported, but they turned out to be released pets. The new document concludes that the eastern cougar should be removed from the endangered species list.
The FWS listed the subspecies nearly four decades ago, but experts suspect that it has been extinct in the region for much longer. A cougar trapped in Somerset County, Maine in 1938 may have been the last one to roam the northeast.
Yet genetic testing conducted in 2000 shows that there may not be a difference between eastern and western cougars after all. What’s more is that western populations are slowly moving east. A breeding pair now calls Nebraska home, said Mark McCollough, a Maine-based wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Still, when it comes to the eastern cougar as it’s currently classified, McCollough says, “It’s extinct.”
“But it’s not?” he was asked, according to an article in The New York Times.
“But it’s not,” he confirmed. “It may well return to part of its range.”
That's one way to let the cat out of the bag.
For more on cougars, check out these Audubon stories:
- "Safe Passage," November-December 2010
- Green Guru: Are there Cougars on the East Coast? November-December 2009
- "Going Catatonic," Incite, September-October 2004
Comments
Dear Shari: Why do you
Dear Shari:
Why do you imagine that you “could not even comment” on my feral-horse piece? All you had to do is send an email or write your comment into the blog box. Not rocket science. If you are a fan of feral horses, why would you want the BLM to leave them on habitat that can’t sustain them and where they were slowly starving even as they wiped out native fauna? And why is it that whenever someone complains about the feral-horse crisis in the West the horse mafia starts talking about the cow problem in the West. I agree that there’s a cow problem. I’ve even written about it in Audubon. So what? Finally, the USFWS has it right about eastern cougars. The subspecies does appear to be extinct. There are certainly cougars in the East. I know lots of people who have seen the, including the wildlife photographer I used to work with at the Mass. Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. But all these cougars appear to be recently escaped or discarded pets--just as most of the feral horses in the West are recently escaped or discarded livestock. Your notion that the new status of eastern cougars somehow affects the status of western cougars and somehow enables the feds to kill cougars is incorrect.
Oh MY WE CAN COMMENT HERE !
Oh MY WE CAN COMMENT HERE ! When Audubon let Ted Williams try and denigrate wild horses for the BLM we could not even comment. Well I'm sure the USFWS would like MOUNTAIN LIONS it to be extinct so they could be free to kill any they find and tI'm sure USFWS and their buddies at BLM & USDA are responsible for murdering most of our wildlife INCLUDING MOUNTAIN LIONS .
Heres some wild life that HEROES -WWP are saving from government agencies like the BLM whom are responsible for murdering our wildlife and destroying our public lands water and wildlife with MILLIONS & MILLIONS & MILLIONS & MILLIONS OF PRIVATELY OWNED WELFARE CATTLE !
BLM DESTROY SOUTHERN IDAHO W/MILLIONS & MILLIONS & MILLIONS of WELFARE CATTLE- BLM DESTROYERS OF THE AMERICAN WEST
BLM removed all the wild horses off the Jarbridge HMA and are attempting to never return them-but zero out the HMA..Thank you again WWP for all your hard work- WWP-Heros of the American West!!
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Very interesting article!
Very interesting article! Here in the province of Quebec there have been 'sightings' in the rural areas. In the mountainous densely forested area of Megantic there are said to be Eastern cougars. In past years there have been rare incidents where farmers have found remains of cows and calves that wildlife officials insist were killed by large cats. The wounds on the animals being classic.