Mountain Lions Moving Back Into Historic Territory

[Shrike]

A new study published in the Journal of Wildlife Management has been getting a lot of press today from different media outlets:

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/di...(News+&+Features+from+Minnesota+Public+Radio)

I would have liked to link to the actual journal article but access is restricted. Anyway, it's great to see some positive news on the conservation front.

---------- Post added 06-14-2012 at 10:30 AM ----------

And this will surely be of interest to our Canadian friends:

http://easterncougar.org/pdfs/Cougar evidence in Ontario CFN 2011 125 (2) 116-125rosatte.pdf

 

[loxoscelesfear]

maybe the wolves and bears will follow

 

[pitbulllady]

maybe the wolves and bears will follow

Black Bears haven't gone anywhere; they quite common in much of the Eastern Seaboard and Midwestern states. They have become quite the pests in suburban NJ, and there have been a few attacks on humans. We have plenty of 'em here in SC, and bear vs. car collisions are fairly commonplace, especially in the Low Country and near the Grand Strand area.

In spite of what the official word from our wildlife people says, we still have cougars, too...and no, I'm not talking about the two-legged kind. I've seen cougars myself on more than one occasion, in the wild, and I definitely know a cougar from a dog or a deer or a bobcat, since I used to have captive cougars. En route to a dog show about 20 years ago, I stopped and moved a big tom that had been hit and killed by a car off the road. I didn't have a cell phone in those days, and I was on a deadline to make ring time on schedule, so I couldn't call anyone. When I came back, someone had already picked up the body. This was a lean adult male, with full claws(I checked), which is not typical for a captive cat, which are almost always declawed, at least on the front. Two years prior to that, on the same stretch of SC highway, a friend of mine moved a kitten out the road(also DOR), that was still heavily spotted. She'd seen enough cougar kittens at my place to know what it was, as well as my bobcats, so she was certain it was a baby cougar. Almost everyone I know who spends a lot of time outdoors has seen at least one cougar, and most of these folks are people who are very familiar with animals like deer and bobcats. An old guy I knew "back when", who was a fur trapper specializing in bobcat trapping, caught one in one of his traps, and had to choke it out long enough with a catch pole to release it. He said it was definitely a young cougar, with a tail longer than its body, with faint spots still visible, meaning that it, too, was young, which indicates that there is a breeding population here. He was quite certain it was not a tamed animal, either! I was the only person who kept big cats around that area at the time, so he contacted me just to be sure, but all of mine were accounted for.
Now, that doesn't mean that every alleged big cat sighting is legit; most are actually of ordinary house cats with the size greatly exaggerated, but real cougars are definitely here on the East Coast.

pitbulllady

 

[Shrike]

real cougars are definitely here on the East Coast.

I don't doubt your encounters, but then I trust your judgement more than the average East coast casual hunter/hiker/youtuber. The question is, do you think those cats came from established breeding populations within SC, or were they males (outliers if you will) roaming widely in search of territory? Personally, I find the latter easier to believe, although I certainly wouldn't discount every sighting. We have large pockets of habitat and we definitely have enough deer to go around. Take the Minnesota boundary waters: With such abundant habitat and prey, coupled with lack of hunting pressures, you'd have to think there would be cats living there, regardless of the official line.

I'm happy to see a species trending towards recovery of its historical range/gaining a better foothold in locations where it was believed to be extirpated.

 

[Thistles]

I'm from Loudoun County, Virginia. It is one of, if not the, fastest developing and richest counties in the country. I also saw a roadkill cougar. I am absolutely certain of what it was. When I was younger I also saw what I believe was a cougar, but I cannot say for certain. It was just a glimpse after dark and it was moving. I am not politically inclined, but it is my understanding that in my area authorities refuse to acknowledge the cats because they would have to protect them. That is bad for the development businesses, which are extremely influential. It's nice to see an article that is acknowledging the beasties.

 

[pitbulllady]

I don't doubt your encounters, but then I trust your judgement more than the average East coast casual hunter/hiker/youtuber. The question is, do you think those cats came from established breeding populations within SC, or were they males (outliers if you will) roaming widely in search of territory? Personally, I find the latter easier to believe, although I certainly wouldn't discount every sighting. We have large pockets of habitat and we definitely have enough deer to go around. Take the Minnesota boundary waters: With such abundant habitat and prey, coupled with lack of hunting pressures, you'd have to think there would be cats living there, regardless of the official line.

I'm happy to see a species trending towards recovery of its historical range/gaining a better foothold in locations where it was believed to be extirpated.

I personally believe they've always been here. The cougars I've seen are smaller, more lightly-built cats than the cats out of Canada and the western states, more like the pumas in South America and the FL panthers. The male I had to drag out of the road probably weighed between 80-90 pounds, which while small for a Western cat, is about average for a male from a more southerly population. One of my captive cats, a female, was supposedly a cross of FL and South American bloodlines, bred by a guy named Frank Weed in FL, who was actually on the verge of producing a fully domesticated cougar. He, and his father before him, had been selectively breeding smaller and more calm-natured adults for many generations, only using cats that remained very tame as adults and had smaller sizes, with the goal of producing a adult animal with a weight range between 45-70 pounds, and he was really close to achieving that at the time of his death. The southern subspecies are finer boned animals, with shorter coats; I would use the analogy, for those of you familiar with domestic cat breeds, of a southern cougar comparing to a western cougar in the same way than an Oriental Shorthair cat compares to a British Shorthair. The dead male I moved was more like the southern cats in terms of build. I could not have moved an adult Western male cougar, I don't think. It's not uncommon for those to weigh in excess of 150 pounds, and even their summer coats are fairly thick. I don't think that what we have is a population that is based on escaped/released captive Western cougars or of Western cougars that have moved down here from other states. Most of the "outlying" cats that have been killed in Northeastern and Midwestern states have been adult males, no kittens as far as I know, but as I said earlier, at least two people I know and trust have encountered obvious young cats, which means that there has to be breeding taking place. One of the park rangers at Santee State Forest made plaster casts of paw prints of an adult female and a kitten that he'd seen, but after turning them over to the state DNR, was told later that they had no idea what he was talking about. When people call our DNR to report cougar sightings, they are told that they either saw a dog or a bobcat(with a tail longer than its body, no less), or that if they DID see cougar, it was an escaped/abandoned exotic pet. Exotic pet owners are an easy scapegoat to blame sightings of animals that people feel shouldn't be there, after all.

pitbulllady