No current reintroduction plans are in place, except for Florida, where cougars from Texas have been introduced as a possible way to boost population numbers and diversity for the Florida panther subspecies. "So therefore, reintroductions are good viable alternatives." "We won't see it in the next 10 years," he suspects. Male cougars are known to roam large distances in search of territory or mates, but when females are spotted in the East, it would be one sign of a rebounding population, says Elbroch.
![eastern mountain lion eastern mountain lion](https://wildlifeinformer.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/cougar-drinking.jpg)
Once documented only west of the Rockies, Western cougars have been popping up in the Midwest, and some males have even been found closer to the East Coast. There's no doubt that Western cougar populations are heading east. Watch: Cougar Comes Face to Face With Hikers "This will allow states to be in control of that process." "It removes all those loopholes and complications of introducing a species where they're listed as endangered," notes Elbroch. In a statement about the de-listing, Robinson called on state governors to come up with local protections for the animals. In most places, cougars can legally be hunted with a permit. According to conservation organization the Cougar Fund, all Western states except Texas have at least some protections for cougars. (The de-listing did not impact the subspecies of Florida panthers, a big cat considered to be one of the world's most endangered mammals.) What's Out West?īoth Robinson and Elbroch suggest that removing the Eastern cougars from the endangered species list could open up new conservation opportunities. While cougar populations in this region have declined to the point of non-existence, it's more accurate to say only a certain population of the North American cougar species overall has vanished. Whether or not this can be really characterized as an extinction, he says, depends on how loosely you use that term. "There are even scientists arguing it should be removed for taxonomical error." "There was never any real justification for giving it that status in the first place," says Mark Elbroch, the lead scientist for the puma program at the big cats conservation group Panthera. Fish and Wildlife characterized eastern cougars as long extinct. agency first began investigating the population in 2011, and officially recommended removal in 2015. In the past 100 years, they haven't been regularly spotted since, and Fish and Wildlife officials say there's no evidence of a sustained, breeding population in the area. Some were trapped and killed for their fur while others were culled to prevent the cats from interfering with livestock. Not on the Listīeginning in the 1800s, European settlers began rounding up and killing off cougars in the northeast. " was based on things like the fur coat of animals and nuanced differences in sizes," says Robinson.Ī cougar living in the desert, for example, might look slightly different than one more adapted to a forest in Canada.īut advances in genetic testing have since proven that these differently named American cats are genetically the same. Eastern cougars, Western mountain lions, the North American cougar, and the Florida panther, for example, were uniquely labelled. When early European settlers first moved to North America, taxonomists began classifying the cats as different subspecies. The words cougar, puma, mountain lion, and catamount all refer to the same large cat, known scientifically as Puma concolor.
![eastern mountain lion eastern mountain lion](https://zooinstitutes.com/img/animals/45/451576855145_15.jpg)
![eastern mountain lion eastern mountain lion](https://media.conservationjobs.co.uk/2015/07/Cougar-sitting-700x525.jpg)
Cougars have a long, complicated history of existence in North America, but conservationists see a future where that's not the case. Surprisingly, some scientists say, this removal could be a good thing. and removed from the endangered species list by the U.S. However, on January 22, the Eastern cougar subspecies was officially declared extinct in the U.S. Before the 19th century, cougars were abundant in this range. But the big cats weren't always so scarce. Not since 19 in New Brunswick and Maine, respectively, were cougars officially recorded in the northeastern U.S.-at least in terms of breeding populations. is even more rare, almost certainly a fluke. When most people come across one in the wild, it's usually by accident. He's referencing the fact that cougars often travel alone, often at night, and they're hard to track. "Cougars are very cryptic animals," says Michael Robinson from the environmental advocacy group Center for Biological Diversity.