Eastern Puma Survey Media Analysis
Posted by: Loren Coleman on March 18th, 2007
A copyright-free image of the cougar from Webster’s New International Dictionary of the English Language, 1911.
Do eastern pumas exist? Are they an endangered species? Should these “ghost cats” be removed from the endangered species list? Are the eastern subspecies actually different from the western subspecies?
These are a few of the questions that the United States federal government will answer by the end of the year, they promise. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service announced some time ago it is formally reviewing the status of the eastern mountain lion to determine if the felid should stay on the endangered species list.
For some reason, months after the survey was announced and almost two weeks after a press release was issued, the last few days have seen a flurry of interest in this “news.”
The review may be more far-reaching than it seems.
Media attention has touched only the surface of this story in the last few days. Of the hundred or so articles you may or may not have seen in your local newspapers, most are merely copies of a PRNewswire press release from the Pennsylvania Game Commission, distributed on March 1, 2007.
Interestingly, the articles this week and the press release are all based on a government announcement that quietly occurred back in the Federal Register on January 29, 2007.
The status survey is being coordinated by Mark McCollough, a federal biologist, based in Old Town, Maine. In the Pennsylvania press release, the only quote from McCollough was this one:
An important part of the Service’s review will be to compile the best available scientific evidence and objectively assess whether the eastern cougar is truly extinct. Mark McCollough, endangered species biologist, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Northeast Region.
Guess what one quote from McCollough keeps showing up in others’ articles? Here it is from John McCoy’s article “Feds try to get line on cougars” published March 15, 2007, in the Gazette-Mail of Charleston, West Virginia:
An important part of the Service’s review will be to compile the best available scientific evidence and objectively assess whether the Eastern cougar is truly extinct.” Mark McCollough
What did the local officials who gather the West Virginia “eastern puma” material have to say to the press?
We had a couple of cougars turn up [in 1974], but a study of the parasites on them showed that they were Western cats that had been turned loose here. A lot of cougars are available as pets on the black market, and it’s not unusual for people to abandon them after they learn how difficult and dangerous they are to handle. Craig Stihler, endangered-species biologist, West Virginia Division of Natural Resources
If they had remained here, we would have had more definitive reports – road kills, pictures, tracks and sign. With all the hunters and hikers we have in the woods of this state, I doubt cougars could maintain enough individuals to support a population without being better observed. Paul Johansen, West Virginia Division of Natural Resources’s assistant wildlife chief
A repeat of McCollough’s words and those of a Maine wildlife official can be read in an article by John Richardson of the Portland Press Herald:
We’re willing to listen to the evidence and look at it objectively. – Mark McCollough, federal biologist, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service
The vast majority of these [sightings], for sure, are simply mistakes. I’m very skeptical that we could have any wild population here. – Scott Lindsay, regional biologist, Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife.
Trimming out the local details and “what is a puma” background, here is the essence of McCollough’s paraphrased reactions and what he says will be doing with the Maine data:
The sightings in Cape Elizabeth and Monmouth [Maine] will be among the records reviewed by McCollough and others. Confirmed sightings such as those in Maine do not necessarily mean eastern cougars are residing here, he said. Such sightings are so rare that biologists say those individual cougars could have been captive animals, or pets, that escaped or were released. McCollough said there are an estimated 1,000 captive mountain lions in the eastern U.S., either kept with proper permits or illegally….McCollough said the agency is expected to issue its report later this year. Any recommendation to de-list the lion would lead to a separate review process. John Richardson, “Are they here? Cougar’s existence studied,” Portland Press Herald, March 13, 2007
What do you think the United States government, in the person of Mark McCollough, will discover from their review of the current status of the eastern cougar, the cat of many names, Puma concolor cougar?
Let’s step back from this and understand what is going on. McCollough’s review will be based on the information he is getting from state departments and state biologists. What is the tone of their opinion? The reporter from the The Portland Press Herald summarized it well.
It’s clear that state and federal biologists are doubtful that Maine or the other Eastern states have resident cougars. John Richardson, Portland Press Herald
Do you have an insight about this? You can have a say. As part of the process, the USFWS has requested that anyone wishing to submit information regarding the eastern cougar may do so by emailing your comments to [email protected]
Leave your remarks, reactions, and comments here, as usual, and cc those remarks with data and impact to the USFWS.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
The report will say no conclusive evidence, but I hope they will return and establish a viable population.
You can read the Fish and Wildlife review plan and general information here.
Also here, you can see some posted accounts that the US Fish and Wildlife has put up. These were requested by the agency.
Craig Heinselman
Peterborough, NH
I saw a young puma running beside the highway near Cave Run Lake in Kentucky in March 1992. That was fifteen years ago but I will never forget it. I feel sure that it was a juvenile, although it was old enough to have lost its spots. I saw it first from a distance; I thought it was a reddish colored dog at first but it was not running the way a dog runs. As I drew nearer to it I could see that it was a puma. I was alongside it for the space of maybe half a minute to a minute (I’m not sure; it felt like time was standing still I was so thrilled!) before it bounded off into the underbrush of the hillside. It was around midday of a cold, blustery, overcast day.
I do not believe it was a captive escapee, but of course I have no way of knowing for sure. It was clearly a juvenile cat; I think it was probably a rising yearling. Since puma kittens generally stay with their mothers for about 18 to 24 months, the mother was probably nearby. We had seen a couple of deer just a couple of miles before we came upon the puma.
My son was a young teen at the time and we were just driving around, killing time until the judging was completed for an art competition in which he was participating. When we got back to Morehead, I told several people at the university, where the competition was taking place, about the sighting, and none of them were surprised. Everyone to whom I spoke of it had either seen a puma themselves, or knew of someone who had seen one.
From our point of view and with the numerous debacles already committed by state and federal wildlife agencies over the last 70+ years, I seriously doubt the USF&WS will admit, even after looking at the huge amount of collected evidence that “native cougars are alive and well in many areas of the eastern U.S.”!
We have dozens of pieces of evidence showing a ghost cat’s presence in the mid-atlantic states collected since 1965. They involve confirmed tracks, photos & videos of actual cougars & their tracks in snow, mud along with casts of tracks. We also have eyewitness accounts by multiple numbers of trained observers with wildlife, forestry, law enforcement & science backgrounds which have been ignored by the same agency officials since 1965.
Why are these officials going to change their colors with this study?
Why is the USF&WS using the methodolgy of a private wildlife group in this study, who regularly debunks good documented reports from citizens?
Captive escapee or persisting local population–what’s the difference? Pumas are pumas. If they are introduced artificially, you still have resident pumas. So why all the fuss? I think the point is moot.
If they are native Eastern pumas, they are CITES-listed and must be protected. If they are introduced animals of non-endangered subspecies, they have no legal protection in most areas.
I might want to be more diplomatic with the FWS.
But there is only one enlightened way to handle this.
The eastern cougar is endangered. And protected.
Whether there, or not.
Until they’re back.
I agree with DWA’s assessment of the situation.
Basically, my point was, most people could not tell an introduced puma on sight–it takes a lab test or something of that nature. If pumas are reported, pumas are reported. I cannot see how making flat statements about places of origins of pumas being sighted can be said to be authoritative without the lab reports, therefore, why bother with drawing that distinction? And if the authorities ARE drawing that distinction, I believe that they are not only technically at fault but legally as well (note that I do not claim to be a lawyer, either)
I agree with DWA. It stays on the record and stays protected until the last wild place for it to live is paved over. Better to err on the side of caution.
Of course, my suspicion is that pressure is being put on the Fish and Wildlife Service by those who want to develop the land. The more species that can be called “officially extinct” or off the endangered list, the less red-tape and hassle developers will have to contend with when they want to raze habitats.
Also, Maine is big logging state. I’m sure the loggers don’t want any of us wildlife lovers standing in their way either!
It’s ridiculous to believe that because something is taken off the ESL it isn’t protected.
The states along the Eastern seaboard have changed dramatically in the past 100 years.
Having a viable cougar or wolf population will be a disaster for resident wildlife and once those animals are gone, your pets and children will become dinner.
California is a prime example of wildlife policies gone wrong.
We can’t undo what has happened over the years and things can never go back to how they used to be.
Logging is an important industry in Maine and provides many families with incomes in areas where there is nothing but the logging industry.
Unlike California, I hope level heads prevail in the East.
Hey guys I want them protected too!
I am just saying that the reason that it matters whether the pumas are the native eastern subspecies is because legally, the eastern puma is critically endangered, and therefore is a 100% protected subspecies, and most pumas from other areas, with the exception of Florida pumas, are not.
I agree – it should not matter where the come from, once they have become established and are living wild. Pumas are the apex predator in the East (other than us that is), and we need them.
swnoel, I’m sorry, you are dead wrong. The problem in California is a people problem, not a puma problem. Pumas keep the deer population from killing off the diversity of the forest. When deer become so numerous that they eat everything in the understory, including the wildflowers, then it’s time to allow their predators to become re-established. Pumas woud help to control the coyotes and feral dogs that plague parts of the Appalachians too. Considering that there are literally thousands of pumas in the west, the number of attacks on people is miniscule. And one way to prevent attacks on pets is to simply keep them indoors at night.
Where pumas do become too numerous or too bold, as much as I personally dislike the idea, hunting seasons could be implemented to help control them. Better yet, people could harass them away from human habitations with dogs, for instance, in the same way that they harass problem bears with Karelian bear dogs in some regions.
As to pumas impacting the logging industry in Maine, I just don’t follow your logic there. Logging and pumas coexist in many other forest areas; why not in Maine?
swnoel: I agree with kittenz, because it’s true: the problem not just in CA, but everywhere our noxious species exists, is a people problem.
The east needs pumas, period. Because it just does. They won’t restore balance to the deer population. It’s way too late for that. But they’ll reduce it, and also lap up lots of stray dogs and cats – and coyotes – that ARE disaster for resident wildlife populations.
And I think it would be good for us to get a few of our own “harvested” from time to time. I could think of worse ways to go – all of them from stuff we do.
I recently moved from N.J. to Washington state, but there needs to be a predator to reduce an out-of-control whitetail population there. It had gotten ridiculous during the last ten years or so I lived there (central eastern Jersey). Deer were in places they had never been seen before, at least as far back as I can remember, and were becoming road kill all over the darned place. From what I’ve read on other crypto sites, cougars may already be back, though I would guess their numbers are small. Anyway, the black bear is certainly back in Jersey (and with a vengeance, I might add); why not the cougar?
Earlier this year a cougar was spotted outside a bar here in Northern Kentucky. There were several patrons of the bar standing outside watching it stalk around an animal shelter across the street which was closed for the night. This report saw very little attention until about a week later when a local reporter (This is the Cincinnati area and he is considered one of the local bigwig reporters) saw one from the interstate a couple miles from the bar report and got out of his car and watched it for a bit. He said on the news that there was no doubt what he was looking at. The story gained a little ground after that.
We tend to get four to eight reports a year about pumas around here.
miterman,
The cougar sighting that you mentioned was reported here on Cryptomundo in January at: Cougar Sightings in Kentucky.
Nice,
I actually live in Villa Hills (referenced in the story). One of those things comes near my beagle and its all over.
On another note, where the reporter saw that cat is actually a place where you get a perfect view of the Cincy skyline from the interstate. You don’t get a whole lot closer to civilization than that. A quite heavily populated area.
I would say they are alive and well around here.
For reference, the interstate intersection within the bright green highlighted area of the map in the thread that Craig pointed out is, at best, 5 miles from the the dot that indicates Cincinnati, as the crow flies.