NAMES

The large, tawny, long-tailed cat native to the New World probably has more common names than any other animal: cougar, puma, mountain lion, panther, painter, and catamount are the best known names in the United States, but several dozen additional names have been recorded across North and South America. All refer to the same species of cat, whose current scientific name is Puma concolor. The multiplicity of common names probably arose from the extreme elusiveness of the cats, which made them very difficult to see and understand. Not until radio telemetry became available in the 1970s were wildlife researchers able to identify and track individual cougars to learn how they behaved.

HISTORY

Cougars (along with wolves) were the top predators throughout the forests of eastern North America. The European settlers that began arriving in the late 1500s were familiar with wolves but had no knowledge of cougars, because cougars live only in the New World. Nonetheless, cougars were quickly viewed with the ancient prejudice that Europeans had against all predators. At first, settlers thought cougars were African lions or leopards (the black phase of which is called panther). Only gradually, over a period of about a century, did Americans realize that the cougar was a distinct species. Cougar folklore combined European ideas about predators with Native American knowledge, inextricably mixing psychological fantasy with biological fact. Not until about the mid-twentieth century were scientific methods used to study cougars and determine their true nature.

Because cougars are powerful predators, settlers feared for their own safety and for their livestock. Cougars were hunted with dogs until they were believed extirpated in the eastern United States and Canada by about 1900. Widespread deforestation across the East in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the market hunting of deer herds almost to extirpation during that same time span, also contributed to the decline of cougars.

However, cougar sightings in remote areas never completely ceased. By the 1960s, sightings had increased to the point that the eastern cougar was believed to be possibly still existing and was listed on the first Endangered Species Act in 1973. An official U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service search for cougar sign in the late 1970s and early 1980s turned up several likely scats (droppings), but technology available at that time could not confirm them as cougar and no other confirming evidence was found. But in the 1990s, DNA analysis as well as other methods began to confirm field evidence of cougars.

Consequently, the dispute over whether cougars are present in the East has shifted. Many state and federal wildlife officials now acknowledge that some cougars may roam the eastern woods, but claim that these cats cannot be native easterners, and must be released or escaped captives. While evidence collected in the 1990s, such as the kitten killed in Kentucky bearing both North and Latin American DNA, suggested the possibility of breeding between remnant native cougars and former captives, repeated examples of mixed genetic unions have failed to materialize in the past decade. Indeed, since 2000, beyond the Mississippi River basin, evidence has virtually stopped appearing in the eastern United States. Sanctioned studies this decade in NY, NJ, PA, MD, VA, WV, KY, and TN have failed to produce cougar evidence. And incidental evidence like road kills, accidental trappings and shootings, and random wildlife camera photograghs documenting the return of cougars to the Midwest have also not appeared.

Recent evidence collected in eastern Canada suggests they may be surviving in New Brunswick and Quebec, but given the region's historic absence of cougars, it is likely that these, too, are former captives or their descendants. However, recent legal restrictions on the trade and ownership of exotic pets may explain the dwindling of even this apparent source in the eastern United States. With a seventy-year gap existing between late nineteenth century bounty records and the reappearance of isolated evidence coinciding in the 1960s with the burgeoning exotic pet trade, every objective indicator now suggests that native cougars in the East did not survive into the twentieth century.

Because of the very small sample size on which the taxonomy of the eastern cougar subspecies (Puma concolor couguar) was established, it is probably impossible to define an "eastern cougar subspecies" even with DNA analysis. It appears likely that the Unites States Fish & Wildlife Service's current five-year review of the subspecies will result in removal of the eastern cougar from the endangered species list. Until that time, any cougar found in the wild in the East remains protected by both state and federal regulations.

A large body of verified evidence is accumulating that documents movement of wild cougars from west to east. Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota report cougars appearing where they haven't been seen in a century or more. Breeding populations in the Dakotas appear to be the likely source for these dispersing cougars, such as the juvenile male that left evidence across southeastern Wisconsin before killed in Chicago in April of 2008, and whose DNA was revealed to be consistent with genetic stock from the Black Hills.

Cougar populations in the West were also greatly diminished by ranchers aided by government-sponsored predator eradication programs of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Some populations of western cougars have rebounded to some extent since the 1970s, when bounties on them were removed. Cougars can be legally hunted in eleven western states.

The regrowth of forests and the successful reintroduction of deer across the East in the twentieth century have now recreated good habitat for cougars. Especially in the southern Appalachians, with more than seven million acres of national forests and parks, in Pennsylvania with its extensive state forests, and in the heavily forested Northeast, the two fundamental necessities of cougar habitat -- cover and prey -- are once again sufficient to support cougar populations. The question of cougar recovery is not so much biological as psychological and political. Will human beings tolerate cougars in the East?

LEGAL STATUS

Eastern cougars (now known as Puma concolor couguar) and the Florida panther (now known as Puma concolor coryi) are fully protected under the Endangered Species Act. Because no one can visually distinguish these subspecies from other possible cougar subspecies in the woods, and because even DNA analysis cannot define a genetic profile for the eastern cougar subspecies, all cougars living wild in the east must be considered protected under the Act from all harm and harassment.

BIOLOGY & BEHAVIOR

There is no reason to think that cougars native to the East were significantly different in biology or behavior than cougars out West. Below are some basic facts about cougars. To find more information, see the Bibliography and Related Links.

Original Range: Cougars were native throughout most of North and South America when European colonizers arrived in 1492. Except for tundra, which offers no cover from which to ambush prey, cougars lived in every type of habitat from coastal swamps to high elevation mountains.

Home Range: Cougars are territorial and males defend their home ranges against other cougars. Size of home range varies, depending on how abundant prey animals are and what kind of ambush cover (such as trees or boulders) is available while stalking prey. Cougars in parts of Nevada have some of the smallest home ranges at about 30 square miles, while some Florida panthers (Puma concolor coryi) have the largest at 400 square miles, because of the extensive swamps that don’t support many deer. Males usually have larger home ranges that overlap the smaller ranges of several neighboring females.

Size and Color: Adult cougars weigh an average of 140 pounds and are seven feet from nose to tip of tail (tail is almost as long as the body). Color is brown to gray above and whitish below. Black cougars have been reported, especially in South America, since at least the seventeenth century (see image at left margin of 1812 book with a chapter on "The Black Cougar"), but no scientific specimen exists of a black cougar in North America. Young are born with spots that fade during the first year.

Physical Characteristics: Cougars have binocular vision, which is important for depth perception and judging distances. Their eyes allow them to hunt both day and night. They can detect ultrasonic frequencies. The cup-shaped rounded ears can move together or independently in the direction of sound. Cougars make a variety of sounds including chirps, peeps, purrs, growls, moans, whistles and screams, but they can’t roar-- only lions, leopards and jaguars can do that. Cougar screams are legendary – like a baby wailing or a woman being murdered -- but few people have ever heard them in the wild. Many other animals make sounds that might be interpreted as cougar.

Cougars easily follow scent trails because the back of the nasal cavity is densely packed with olfactory cells. The skull is short and rounded with powerful jaws and strong teeth. The heavy bones of the jaw and strong neck and shoulder muscles absorb the shock of biting large prey. Usually they bite on the back of the neck; occasionally the throat. Generally, they drag their prey out of sight and try to cover it with leaves, grass, or twigs.

Cougars prefer deer as prey, but will eat a wide variety of large and small mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians, and occasionally insects. They generally do not eat carrion, which is why they were not eradicated by the poisoned bait campaigns out West that killed so many other predators, from foxes to bears to eagles.

Cougars can jump 15 feet high and 40 feet wide, climb trees and swim rivers. They have 4 toes on the hind foot and 5 on the front, which is larger than the rear. The fifth toe on the front foot is a dewclaw which is the equivalent of our thumb. It does not touch the ground but is used to grasp prey. The heel pad has 3 lobes. Cougars keep their claws retracted, which helps keep the points extremely sharp, enables the cat to stalk quietly, and usually prevents the claws from registering on tracks.

Cougars have 30 teeth. The canines are large and used for delivering a lethal bite, preferably at the back of the neck. Their other teeth are specialized at slicing & shearing flesh.

In the wild, cougars have been known to live 12 years; in captivity, up to 20 years.

Behavior: Cougars are solitary hunters, taking prey by ambush rather than long pursuits. They stay low to the ground and use whatever cover is around. When they get close enough to their prey, they explode in a sprint of up to 35 miles per hour.

Although cougars are generally solitary except for mothers with young, they communicate through scent in urine and feces deposited in scratched up areas called scrapes. Through scrapes, cougars keep track of each other to maintain a social network based on mutual avoidance. They mate at about 2 years of age, remaining together only for a few days to a week. Mothers have a gestation period of 3 months and raise the litter without help from the males. The young stay with their mother until they are 17 to 23 months old, when they leave in search of their own territories. Females often stay close to their mother’s home range, but males usually travel farther away, sometimes hundreds of miles. Young males are at serious risk of fatal attack from all adult males, including their father.

QUOTATIONS

We welcome additions to this collection.  Send them to HelenMcGinnis@easterncougar.org

On Ecology…

My real goal is to save large sections of pristine wilderness for all types of wildlife. One way to do that is to make sure that the top predators have enough safe territory to thrive in. Because big cats need so much territory, when you save them, you’re really saving whole ecosystems and you’re saving the other animals down on the food chain. This is what’s called the “apex predator strategy” in conservation.

Alan Rabinowitz, quoted in the New York Times, December 18, 2007.  Dr. Rabinowitz is executive director of science and exploration at the Wildlife Conservation Society.

****

Left unmolested in their natural habitat they are marvelously efficient predators, at the pinnacle of the food chain which in its totality ensures the overall health of the environment. This is the ecological and scientific rationale behind preservation: the pug mark as a medical certificate for the habitat as a whole.

Jug Suraiya, referring to tigers in India, but the same applies to cougars.  From an article in The Times of India, February 14, 2008

On Recovery…

It's the most amazing big-carnivore comeback story in the history of the world," says biologist Maurice Hornocker. "Lions will hit the Mississippi in the next decade. The East is beautiful cat country—full of deer and cover.

Outside Magazine, May 2003.

http://outside.away.com/outside/features/200305/200305_stalker_2.html

The return of the mountain lion, whether as individuals or in sanctioned restoration programs, will be one of the grandest opportunities---and greatest challenges---most wildlife professionals in the Great Plains, Midwest, and the East will ever face.   

Jay Tischendorf,  2007

On Psychology…

... if we understood them better, we would fear them less; we over-value them, and then fright at them, They fear the lion is painted more fierce than he is; ...

"The Whole Works of the Reverend John Flavel - 1770

*****

...I explained that by protecting large areas of forest for the use of wide-ranging predators, smaller species that are not as easily studied can be protected as well.  People listen when you talk about saving big cats....Humans show an empathy for these creatures that they often don't extend to many less noticeable species.

From page 6 of Chasing the Dragon's Tail: The Struggle to Save Thailand's Wild Cats by Alan Rabinowitz. 1991.  Doubleday, 242 pp.

****

When I am hiking in grizzly bear country, ….my adrenaline levels are somewhat higher than when I'm sitting in front of my computer putting together a budget for a grant proposal. I notice everything around me-including every tree I might scamper up should Old Scarface pop up from behind a boulder. This state of mind is different from fear. It is more like the attitude one achieves in Zen meditation: aware, yet calm and unhurried. Breathing comes easily. There is no hint of fatigue and very little distraction. You hold out your hand and it's as steady as the mountain in the distance. Could this be the original harmony with nature that modern humanity has lost?

Knowing that we are not all-powerful, that there are animals around us bigger and meaner than we are, and that how we conduct ourselves is of some consequence is an enlightening experience. It is the kind of experience that would do people in our over civilized society a world of good. Of course, one can be humbled by other phenomena in nature: thunderstorms, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes-not to mention diseases. All teach the receptive observer that we are not entirely in control of our destiny. Nevertheless, something about a potential encounter with a large, hairy, and possibly violent creature really catches our attention. I believe that the feeling of humility one acquires in country inhabited by wild beasts carries over to other contexts. It makes us better persons. It also makes us acutely aware of the emptiness of landscapes that now lack their native megafauna.

Reed Noss, Pages 9-10 in Maehr, D.S, R.F. Noss and J.L. Larkin.  2001.  Large mammal restoration: ecological and sociological challenges in the 21st century.  Island Press, Washington, DC, USA

*****

Wild wolves, not made-by-humans wolves, wild grizzlies, wolverines, cougars, great spotted cats, large primates, and all their dependents should be the goal of all large “protected” areas wherever these species are found and, in supportive ways, their surrounding lands.  Having such places is a matter of humility.

Page 269 of John B. Theberge with Mary T. Theberge.  Wolf Country: Eleven Years Tracking the Algonquin Wolves.  McClelland & Stewart Inc., Toronto

 

Humanistic Perspectives…

Controls we may need, what is called game-management we may need, for we have engrossed the earth and must now play God to the other species. But deliberate war on any species, especially species of such evolved beauty and precise function diminishes, endangers, and brutalizes us.  If we cannot live in harmony with other forms of life, if
we cannot control our hostility toward the earth and its creature, how shall we ever learn to control our hostility toward each other?

Wallace Stegner (in McCall and Dutcher 1992)
Cougar: Ghost of the Rockies

*****

I cannot and do not pretend to speak for those few whose lives still carry the daily prospect of disaster at the jaws of professional killers. I cannot speak with the entitlement earned by the Tanzanian farm who dutifully sleeps among lions, or muster the authority of the Sundarban woodsman who goes to work wearing only faith and a facemask to shield him from tigers. I have only to convey what those of science have found, of the fool's experiment unfolding, and the impending impoverishment of life in the void of great predators. All I can personally but crudely attest is that there is something fundamentally different about a land roamed by big meat-eating beasts, a sense that becomes forcefully apparent in a solitary walk through their realm. And I can only believe, from somewhere deeper than any logic center of the brain, that a life of incomprehensible loneliness awaits a world where the wild things were, but are never to be again.

Page 217-218 in WHERE THE WILD THINGS WERE by William Stolzenburg (2008)

*****

The data clearly shows cats are living among us, though we rarely see them. Just because one is spotted in a neighborhood doesn't make it a threat, our research clearly reveals cougars and humans share the same habitats at times. If the environment can support a mountain lion, it indicates a healthy, vibrant ecosystem. The more we learn, the more we realize mountain lions are also our protectors of the natural world.

Rocky Spencer, Project CAT (Cougars and Teaching) and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. circa 2007

*****

There is something truly magical about the cougar . . .

Let's think of the magnificent animals that have been eliminated [in Oregon] because of our fear of anything with teeth and claws: Grizzly Bears, Wolverines, Lynx, Wolves (though they are reportedly soon to be back), and probably a half-dozen more that don't immediately come to mind. All of these creatures were once pretty common here, but predator hysteria and "livestock protection" (money) hounded them right out of the state.

It's something that should shame us.

In over 40 years of wandering Oregon's woods I've seen a single Cougar; and it's one of those brief, rare moments that will be etched in my memory forever. I wouldn't have traded that 5 minute staredown for thousands of dollars. Even as I watched, it simply "evaporated" into thin air. It didn't run. It didn't jump. It didn't slink away. It evaporated.

There is something truly magical about the Cougar; and about the others...the ones that were eliminated. They deserve to be here, and we deserve to have the chance to see them. So do our kids; and theirs.

Sure. Hunt Cougars. But hunt them in a way that gives them a sporting chance. The present law, without ODFW manipulation is adequate.

A response to "A hunter's view of cougar management" by Lori Cooper in the OregonLive.com

Posted by orydude

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/03/a_hunters_view_of_cougar_manag.html

ENCOUNTERS WITH HUMANS

Cougars are shy and generally avoid people.  Many people live entire lifetimes in cougar country out West and never see one.  Cougars have been known to follow people, apparently out of curiosity.  Fatal cougar attacks are extremely rare: a total of 21 human deaths have been documented in the United States and Canada in the last 118 years.  In comparison, dogs kill 18 to 20 humans every year.  There are simple ways to avoid or to mitigate threats from cougars.  Residents in the new housing developments rapidly being built in cougar habitat out West, for example, are advised not to feed pets outdoors, never to feed deer, and avoid landscaping designs that provide cover.  If you encounter a cougar in the woods:

1. Don’t run away – running triggers the cougar’s instinct to attack.
2. Stand tall – open your arms to make yourself big.  Speak loudly but calmly.  Keep eye contact.  Back away slowly, taking care not to trip.  Keep children close to you.
3. Fight back – if attacked, use sticks, stones, or fists.  Cougars can be driven away by resistance.

WHAT TO DO WITH A COUGAR IN AN INAPPROPRIATE PLACE
Advice from California’s State Mountain Lion Coordinator

An estimated 4,000 to 6,000 cougars (mountain lions) share California with almost 38,000,000 human beings.  The human population continues to grow and expand into cougar habitat.  California’s climate is conducive to outdoor recreation, and Californians spend millions of days outdoors in cougar habitat.  But in the last ten years, there have been only two fatal and two nonfatal attacks on humans (http://www.dfg.ca.gov/news/issues/lion/attacks.html ).  Almost any other risk of death is greater, including being hit by lightning or being killed by dogs.

The deaths of a young male cougar from the Black Hills of South Dakota, shot by law enforcement officers in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on October 7, 2008 while it was lounging in a back yard, and another young male that was shot after an abbreviated tranquilizing attempt in Bossier City, Louisiana, on November 30, 2008, led us to ask Doug Updike of the California Department of Fish and Game what their personnel do when a cougar shows up in a residential area.  The following is derived from a telephone conversation on December 4, 2008:

Updike said that generally the DFG will tranquilize an out-of-place bear or cougar and take it back into wild habitat, if the animal has no history of causing a public safety threat or a being a depredation animal.  These animals are generally no threat to public safety. 

Responding public officers--"First Responders" as he called them--have the authority to act as they see fit to protect public safety, even if a wildlife officer might not agree with that action.  He had viewed the video recording the death of the cougar in Bossier City and said that a similar situation had occurred in Palo Alto, CA in recent years.  Peace officers reached a treed cougar first.  Because an elementary school was about to be letting students out nearby, they decided it should be killed to protect the public.  (Police officers must err on the side of public safety.)  If a wildlife officer had been there, s/he might have recommended a different course of action.  They could have pulled people back and given the cougar an avenue of escape.  But the decision of peace officers has precedent over other decisions.

I asked what he would have done if he'd been in Bossier City and had been in charge of the situation.  He said he would have pulled everybody back a few blocks, giving the cougar space to come out of the tree and run back into the woods.  This approach would be especially important in Louisiana, where cougars are listed as endangered and protected by both state and federal law.

I asked him for his recommendations for the Eastern Cougar Foundation.  He said:

(1)  Wildlife agencies respond to the public.  The public is their biggest challenge.  In California public attitudes toward mountain lions have changed dramatically from the 1950s, when they were still being killed for bounties.  The DFG now puts out a consistent message, emphasizing that the risk of being attacked is exceedingly small and that mountain lions are an incredible resource.  Police officers and the public need to better understand the behaviors of cougars. In general, cougars tree because they are afraid.  They will wait for the opportunity to come down from the tree and run away.

Legislators reflect public opinion.  Generally they will provide what the base of the public wants.

The ECF needs to tell the public again and again and again that the risk of attack by cougars is exceedingly small, emphasizing what incredible animals they are.  He didn't see why we couldn't get cougars reintroduced to the East..

(2)  Educate police officers.  The DGF is working on a training DVD for law enforcement officers and first responders on how to handle cougar situations, consistent with the Department’s policy.  It will be completed within the next 6 months.  They plan to issue thousands of them to law enforcement officers through California.
 
Earlier this year Updike went to Florida and spoke with panther groups because some goats have been killed by panthers.  He was surprised that owners of little hobby livestock farms tucked into remote places have lower property taxes, promoting many alternative food sources for panthers.  The main concern of the groups was the possibility that a panther might attack a human.  Updike told them that the likelihood of that happening was extremely small.

LIVING WITH COUGARS AND OTHER WILD ANIMALS

The California Department of Fish and Game has set up a new website on co-existing with large wild animals, such as black bears, cougars, coyotes, deer, wild turkeys, and wild pigs. (Note that not all states have open season on wild pigs/boars.) There is also a section on wildlife-resistant products. Worth a look.
www.KeepMeWild.org

ENCOUNTERS WITH LIVESTOCK

Kills made by dogs or coyotes are frequently blamed on cougars.  Dogs, a major problem, usually injure the hindquarters.  Coyotes inflict many bites around the throat, flank and back.  Cougar sign includes a bite to the back of the neck (occasionally the throat), large canine punctures, claw marks along the shoulders, and (often but not always) drag marks and an attempt to cover the carcass.  Proper livestock management methods, such as bring animals in to safe areas during birthing or using guard dogs in pastures, can greatly reduce losses.

 

HOAXES

Hoaxes far outnumber legitimate confirmations of cougars in the East.  Most of them are legitimate photos that have been mislabeled as to when and where they were really taken.  Here are some of the most commonly used photos with the actual state where the cougar was killed and/or photographed.  Go to snopes.com for more information on some of these pictures.

You can control this slid show by right clicking on it and choosing the control you want

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Helen McGinnis has rewritten and reorganized our bibliography. It now deserves a page of it's own.