eastern cougar in usa

Ghost cat. Catamount. Puma. Painter.Panther. Mountain lion. Cougar. The manynames given the nation's largest catconvey the mystery surrounding thissolitary hunter. But the variety of namesalso demonstrates the cougar's originaldistribution across the North Americancontinent and from southern Canada tothe tip of South America.

Once the most widely distributed landmammal in the Western Hemisphere,cougars have been eliminated in most oftheir native habitat. Only western cougarsstill live in large enough numbers tomaintain breeding populations, and theylive on wild lands in the western UnitedStates and Canada. Observations ofwestern cougars provide biologists withinformation for the cats that once livedeast of the Mississippi.

Although generally presumed extinct inthe wild, eastern cougars remainprotected by the Endangered Species Act.Eastern cougars historically ranged fromMichigan, southern Ontario, easternCanada and Maine south to SouthCarolina and west across Tennessee. Atone time, they lived in every Eastern statein a variety of habitats including coastalmarshes, mountains and forests.

The cougar's Latin name gives a clue to itsappearance; concolor means with onecolor, and adult cougars' fur is a uniformred-brown or gray-brown. Cougars havelong, slender bodies with very long tailsand broad, round heads with erect,rounded ears. Adult cats average from 6 feet (females) to 8 feet (males) long,including their tail. Males, at around 140pounds, are larger than females at about105 pounds. Cougars can swim, climbtrees and leap horizontally and verticallyequally well. Eastern cougars' primaryprey was white-tailed deer, but they alsohunted eastern elk (now extinct) andporcupines and other smaller mammals.

Cougars usually do not chase down theirprey, but stalk and ambush; a cougar mayleap as far as 20 feet onto a deer's backand can kill an animal with one bite to theneck. One cougar consumes a deer everyweek to 10 days, or more frequently if afemale is feeding cubs. Cougars have nonatural enemies, only humans.

Cougars are mostly lone animals, exceptfor mothers raising cubs and the time apair spends together while mating. Malesmay occupy a range of more than 25square miles and females between 5 and20 square miles. Both females and malesdefend home territories. Cougars beginbreeding at two or three years old andbreed once every two or three years.Females initiate courtship, and produce alitter of two to three kittens after a three-month gestation. The kittens reach 10pounds at eight weeks, and may weigh 30to 45 pounds at six months. Females spend18 to 24 months raising cubs to maturity.Cougars live an average of eight years.

Early settlers perceived the cougar as adanger to livestock and humans and acompetitor for wild game. With bountiesset by states, the eastern cougar washunted and trapped relentlessly until theywere extirpated throughout most of theirrange. Cougars were gone from much of

the East by the late 1800s. At the sametime, much of their habitat was eliminatedthrough deforestation, which, along withhunting, also reduced the population andrange of white-tailed deer. Although theforests and the deer have returned in theEast in recent decades, conflicting landuses, fragmented habitat, roads, diseasesand parasites from domestic animals, andexpanding human populations will likelyprevent cougars from returning to most oftheir former range. Habitat able tosupport small populations may still occurin some of the larger undeveloped tractsof forest in the East.

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

MARCH 3, 18

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Eastern cougarFelis concolor couguar

Cougars in the Western Hemispherewere originally classified into 32subspecies. Recent genetic researchinstead identifies six groups, five ofwhich are in Central or South America.Some, but not all, cougar biologistsbelieve that this information suggeststhat all North American cougars areone subspecies. However, a completetaxonomic evaluation includingmorphology, ecology and biogeographyhas not been completed. An isolatedpopulation, like the Florida panther,can develop some genetic differencesthrough past genetic bottlenecks andinbreeding within a small population.The Florida panther is the onlybreeding population of cougareast of the Mississippi.

While confirmed cougars sightings have occurred recently in the wild in the East,there is currently no physical evidence documenting the continued existence of apopulation of wild eastern cougars. The cougars examined in the Northeast in thepast 70 years are likely released or escaped captives. Some cats had a SouthAmerican genetic profile. Some may be animals that dispersed into the region fromwestern populations. Confirmed cougar sightings have increased in the Midwestand Great Lakes states in recent years. Some believe that a small residualpopulation of wild cougars persisted in the Canadian Maritime Provinces wherethere has also been recent confirmed evidence of cougars.

Northeast RegionU.S. Fish and Wildlife Service300 Westgate Center DriveHadley, MA 01035413/253 8200http://northeast.fws.gov

Federal Relay Servicefor the deaf and hard-of-hearing1 800/877 8339

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Servicehttp://www.fws.gov1 800/344 WILD

December 2010

illustrations: Robert Savannah