The Puma Among Us

Whether you call it a Panther, Mountain Lion, Catamount, Cougar or perhaps the more proper common name, Puma, this big cat is a creature of legend and lure throughout North America. The last bona fide native Vermont Puma concolor was shot and killed on Thanksgiving Day in 1881 just a few miles north of my house in Barnard. But people are always contacting me about the catamount they saw or that someone they knew saw. Are they still lurking in the Green Mountains? Have they returned to the region from some other population? What’s the evidence?

Unlike the Prairie and Midwest regions where Pumas appear to be coming from farther west, the origin of Puma sightings in the Northeast remains uncertain. Many experts and state wildlife departments believe they are likely intentional releases or escapees and in some cases DNA tests of scat have helped to confirm this. There has been one amazing exception, the famous “Connecticut Cougar.”

A car struck and killed a Puma in Connecticut just 70 miles outside of New York City last year on June 11th. At first, it was assumed to be an escaped exotic pet or intentionally released. But, biologists were able to compare its DNA to a library of samples and determined that it was from the Black Hills of South Dakota, over 1,500 miles away. Amazingly, DNA samples in a national library from scat found in Minnesota, Wisconsin and New York was an exact match. He traveled eastward for over two years to get to the Nutmeg State. Biologists don’t know why the big cat traveled so far. The Black Hills population has grown to about 250 cats over the last decade and perhaps this young male was on the prowl for his own territory and mate. Previously, the farthest documented dispersal of a Puma was less than 700 miles.

Big cats are very elusive. Sightings are often just a blur. Misidentifications are common with dogs, bobcats, and even deer being mistaken. Biologists continue to follow up credible sightings of big cats in the Northeast and, whenever possible, gathering as much evidence as they can to determine if there are indeed Pumas among us.

For more information and to learn about other sightings in the Northeast, visit the Cougar Network at http://www.cougarnet.org/northeast.html

Tags: Big Cats, Bobcats, Cougar, mammals, Mountain Lion, nature, puma, wildlife

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 28th, 2012 at 8:36 am and is filed under Entires by Kent McFarland. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.