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The eastern cougar or eastern puma (''Puma concolor couguar'') is a subspecies designation proposed in 1946 for
cougar The cougar (''Puma concolor'') is a large Felidae, cat native to the Americas. Its Species distribution, range spans from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes in South America and is the most widespread of any large wild terrestrial mamm ...
populations in eastern North America. The subspecies as described in 1946 was declared extinct by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2011. However, the 1946 taxonomy is now in question. The
Canadian Wildlife Service The Canadian Wildlife Service or CWS (french: Service canadien de la faune), is a Branch of the Department of the Environment (Environment and Climate Change Canada), a department of the Government of Canada. November 1, 2012 marked the 65th ann ...
has taken no position on the taxonomy. Cougars are currently common in western North America and may be expanding their range. Individuals are occasionally seen as vagrants in eastern North America.


History of taxonomy

In 1792, Robert Kerr of the Royal Physical Society and Royal Society of Surgeons assigned the name ''Felis couguar'' to eastern North America cougars north of Florida. Naturalist
John James Audubon John James Audubon (born Jean-Jacques Rabin; April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851) was an American self-trained artist, naturalist, and ornithologist. His combined interests in art and ornithology turned into a plan to make a complete pictoria ...
in 1851 believed that cougars in both North and South America were indistinguishable. The eastern cougar was first assigned to the subspecies ''Felis concolor couguar'' and the
Florida panther The Florida panther is a North American cougar (''P. c. couguar'') population in South Florida. It lives in pinelands, tropical hardwood hammocks, and mixed freshwater swamp forests. It is known under a number of common names including Costa R ...
to ''F. c. coryi''. Young and Goldman based their description of the eastern subspecies on their examination of eight of the existing 26 historic specimens. In 1955, Jackson described a new subspecies, the Wisconsin puma (''F. c. schorgeri''), from a small sample of skulls. A 1981 taxonomy by Hall accepted ''F. c. schorgeri'', the Wisconsin puma, and also extended the range of the eastern puma into Nova Scotia and mapped the
Florida panther The Florida panther is a North American cougar (''P. c. couguar'') population in South Florida. It lives in pinelands, tropical hardwood hammocks, and mixed freshwater swamp forests. It is known under a number of common names including Costa R ...
's (''F. c. coryi'') range as far north as South Carolina and southwestern Tennessee. In 2000, Culver et al., recommended that based on recent genetic research, all North American cougars be classified as a single subspecies, ''Puma concolor couguar'' following the oldest named subspecies (Kerr in 1792). The 2005 edition of '' Mammal Species of the World'' followed Culver's recommendations.''Puma concolor''
. Mammal Species of the World. Bucknell.edu.
This revision was made by Dr. W. Chris Wozencraft of Bethel University, Indiana, as the sole reviewer. However, the publication's Web site as of 2011, as well as that of its affiliate, the
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with 7. ...
, continued to maintain the ''Puma concolor couguar'' (both western and eastern cougars) as a subspecies of ''Puma concolor''. Judith Eger, a scientist at the
Royal Ontario Museum The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is a museum of art, world culture and natural history in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the largest museums in North America and the largest in Canada. It attracts more than one million visitors every year ...
in Toronto, Ontario, and the chair of the
American Society of Mammalogists The American Society of Mammalogists (ASM) was founded in 1919. Its primary purpose is to encourage the study of mammals, and professions studying them. There are over 4,500 members of this society, and they are primarily professional scientists ...
checklist committee, believes that the Culver work was not a proper taxonomic revision, as it offered no evaluation of the existing subspecies of the puma and failed to include morphological, ecological, and behavioral considerations. According to Eger, the Culver revision is accepted only by some puma biologists. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) continues to accept the Young and Goldman taxonomy. "While more recent genetic information introduces significant ambiguities, a full taxonomic analysis is necessary to conclude that a revision to the Young and Goldman (1946) taxonomy is warranted," the agency said in 2011. As of 2017, the Cat Classification Taskforce of the Cat Specialist Group recognizes only two cougar
subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...
: '' P. c. couguar'' for
North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
and possibly northwestern
South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
, and '' P. c. concolor'' for all other South American populations.


Uncertainty of survival

A consensus exists among wildlife officials in 21 eastern states that the eastern cougar population has been extirpated from the eastern United States. The federal government of Canada has taken no position on the subspecies' existence, continued or otherwise, and terms the evidence "inconclusive." The FWS reviewed all available research and other information, and concluded in 2011 that the eastern cougar has been extinct since the 1930s, and recommended that it be removed from its list of endangered species. The agency used the 1946 taxonomy of S.P. Young and E.A. Goldman in defining the eastern cougar subspecies. While noting that some taxonomists in recent years have classified all North American cougars within a single subspecies, the agency's 2011 report said, "a full taxonomic analysis is necessary to conclude that a revision to the Young and Goldman (1946) taxonomy is warranted." The agency acknowledged the occasional presence of cougars in eastern North America, but believes these are of wanderers from western breeding ranges or escaped captives. Its review expressed skepticism that breeding populations exist north of Florida, noting, among other things, the lack of consistent road kill evidence comparable to known cougar ranges. However, the presence of cougars in the wild — whatever their
taxonomy Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...
or origin — in eastern North America continues to be controversial. Various residents of eastern North America, especially in rural regions, have reported as many as 10,000 cougar sightings since the 1960s, and many continue to believe the subspecies has survived. Bruce Wright — a wildlife biologist and former student of
Aldo Leopold Aldo Leopold (January 11, 1887 – April 21, 1948) was an American writer, philosopher, naturalist, scientist, ecologist, forester, conservationist, and environmentalist. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin and is best known for his ...
— popularized the idea that a breeding population of cougars persisted in northern New England and the Maritime provinces through a series of articles and books published between 1960 and 1973. Wright based his idea mostly on unconfirmed sightings, track photos, and plaster casts, and photographs of pumas killed in New Brunswick in 1932 and in Maine in 1938. Since the 1970s, privately run groups have formed in nearly every state to compile and investigate records of cougar sightings. Many of these groups are convinced that breeding populations of cougars exist throughout the region. Some believe that a conspiracy to hide information or secretly reintroduce cougars is actively underway by state and federal governments. Some endeavor to promote the recovery of cougars in eastern North America. Large numbers of cougar sightings have been reliably reported throughout the Midwest.


Possible colonization of the east by western cougars

At least several dozen or more reported sightings have been confirmed by biologists, many of whom believe they are accounted for by escaped captives or individual members of the western subspecies that have wandered hundreds of miles from their established breeding ranges in the Dakotas or elsewhere in the west. Eastern U.S. reported sightings, many of which reviewed in the recent federal report, in various locations, including
Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...
,
Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
, Southern Indiana,
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,
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,
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,
Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...
,
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...
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,
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,
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,
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,
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,
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,
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,
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Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...
, and
Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
.Tennessee Officials Confirm First Cougar Sighting in 100 Years
Field & Stream
Until around 1990, reports of mountain lions in the Midwest and East were highly influenced by the "
Bigfoot Bigfoot, also commonly referred to as Sasquatch, is a purported ape-like creature said to inhabit the forest of North America. Many dubious articles have been offered in attempts to prove the existence of Bigfoot, including anecdotal claims o ...
factor", according to Mark Dowling, co-founder of the Eastern Cougar Network. "None of it was really real", he said in an interview, but the situation has changed dramatically since that time according to Dowling, whose group collects and disseminates data on the shifting mountain lion population. Dowling said in 2003 that sightings in the eastern half of the nation, including Michigan, etc., were "almost certainly" escaped captives, but he added that the notion that (western) cougars "will eventually reach New Jersey" is a reasonable prediction, in part due to increased populations of
white-tailed deer The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known as the whitetail or Virginia deer, is a medium-sized deer native to North America, Central America, and South America as far south as Peru and Bolivia. It has also been introduced t ...
(''Odocoileus virginianus''). However, some of these cougars found far in the east were established to be of western origin. As noted in an opinion piece by David Baron in the ''New York Times'', concerning a cougar killed by a car in Connecticut in 2011:
"Wildlife officials, who at first assumed the cat was a captive animal that had escaped its owners, examined its DNA and concluded that it was a wild cougar from the Black Hills of South Dakota. It had wandered at least 1,500 miles before meeting its end at the front of an SUV in Connecticut."
Recolonization is entirely dependent upon dispersing subadult females, who typically range far less than subadult males. While subadult females with Black Hills DNA have been documented since 2015 in Tennessee, Missouri and Iowa, as of 2018, the easternmost breeding colony north of Florida is the Niobrara River Valley in central Nebraska.


Possible reintroduction

A study in 2016 by several management and wildlife experts found that by reintroducing cougars to their historic range in the Northeast U.S., white-tailed deer density and deer-vehicle collisions (DVCs) could be reduced by 22%, which could prevent 21,400 human injuries, 155 fatalities, and $2.13 billion in preventive costs within just 30 years of reintroduction. The eight eastern states with the biggest areas of viable cougar habitat, as analysed in the study, were: New Hampshire and
West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...
(both 75%), Vermont and Maine (both 65%), Massachusetts (33%), Connecticut (32%), New York (31%), and
Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
(29%).


Canadian views

A 1998 study for Canada's national
Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC, French: Comité sur la situation des espèces en péril au Canada, COSEPAC) is an independent committee of wildlife experts and scientists whose "raison d'être is to identify s ...
concluded "that there is no objective evidence (actual cougar specimens or other unequivocal confirmation) for the continuous presence of cougars since the last century anywhere in eastern Canada or the eastern United States outside of Florida." Based on this, in 1999, the magazine ''Canadian Geographic'' reported that for the previous half century, a debate over whether or not Canada's eastern woods host a cougar species all its own has raged. "Now the answer appears to be 'no.' Experts say past sightings were cases of mistaken identification." However, the Canadian committee's website as of 2011 says that data are "insufficient" to draw conclusions regarding the subspecies' continued existence, or even whether it ever existed at all. In March 2011, an official with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources stated that cougars are present in the province. This official said individual cougars in Ontario may be escaped zoo animals or pets or may have migrated from the western parts of North America. As in the eastern U.S., numerous cougar sightings have been reported by Canadians in
Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
,
Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
,
New Brunswick New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and ...
,
Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...
, and
Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...
. The privately run Ontario Puma Foundation estimates that 550 pumas are in the province and their numbers are increasing steadily to a sustainable population. However, no evidence of breeding has been documented east of Saskatchewan.


Extinction recognized

In 2011, the FWS opened an extensive review into the status of the eastern cougar. In 2015, the agency determined the eastern cougar no longer warranted protection under the
Endangered Species Act The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA or "The Act"; 16 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq.) is the primary law in the United States for protecting imperiled species. Designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of ec ...
and planned to de-list it. On January 22, 2018 the de-listing became final and they were officially declared extinct. According to the Center for Biological Diversity, "The eastern cougar was extinct well before it was protected under the Endangered Species Act, as was the case with eight of the other 10 species that have been de-listed for extinction."


Genetic study

In 2015, a group of students and scholars at the
Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvan ...
formed a research group to sequence the mitochondrial DNA genome of this extinct subspecies. The Nittany Lion genome project took samples from preserved eastern cougar skins to obtain DNA for sequencing and further analysis. Complete mitochondrial DNA genome sequences were obtained for five of the six individuals sampled, and the results were compared to previously published cougar sequences. The researchers found that "Nittany Lions are not more similar to each other than to individuals from the Western U.S. and Florida", which strengthens the position that all North American cougars are a single subspecies.


References


Further reading

* * * * * * * * *


External links


The Cougar Fund

The Cougar Network

Cougar Rewilding Foundation
{{Taxonbar, from=Q2044439 Cougar Fauna of the Eastern United States Extinct animals of Canada Extinct animals of the United States Mammal extinctions since 1500