Return of the Cougar?

The saga of the so-called "Milford mountain lion" -- the cougar that trekked east from South Dakota only to end up as roadkill in Connecticut - is not over. At least, not for my money. The admission by Connecticut's Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) that the cat was not an escaped pet but a truly wild individual is a major break in the wall of denials erected by authorities at the federal and state levels about the presence of cougars the eastern states. The standard line has been that the eastern subspecies of cougar has been extinct since the 1930s and that sightings of cougars in Connecticut and other eastern states are either mistakes or of escaped pets. It is no longer viable answer in all cases.

As it turns out, the eastern cougar couldn't have gone extinct because it seems not to have existed in the first place. Genetic research reported in 2009 and now
widely accepted suggests that cougars once common in the northeastern United States and nearby Canada were the same breed of cat as cougars still common in the West, not a separate subspecies. It is unlikely there are breeding populations of cougars in the east but evidence is mounting that a few cougars are following in the footsteps of the coyotes that now thrive in eastern states. Conservation  officials in states of the upper midwest used the "escaped pet" explanation for years but now admit wild cougars are turning up with increased frequency as they reclaim lost territory. That territory includes the realm of the non-existent eastern cougar.

The genetic studies that made the eastern cougar a non-entity scrambled the accepted view of cougar subspecies. Traditionally, scientists divided cougars into 32 different subspecies, each within a general geographic area. Such a large number is not too surprising, considering that cougars have the largest original range of any North American land mammal. It originally spanned from Alaska and Canada’s Yukon to the southern tip of South America. Cougars have disappeared from much of their range but in other places, such as many western states, they are common. Analysis of cougar DNA by by scientists of the National Cancer Institute’s Laboratory of Genetic Diversity, Frederick, Maryland indicates that, genetically, there are but six subspecies. Moreover, according to the research, just about all cougars north of Nicaragua constitute but one subspecies. The researchers admit, however, that cougars of Canada’s Vancouver Island, the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, and the Florida panther, a very rare form of cougar, have some especially unique features and probably are distinct.

The Milford mountain lion put an end to official claims that cougars reported in Connecticut -- and neighboring states -- are all escaped pets. Errant pets of South American origin, moreover, might well breed with North American cougars, so their genes might turn up in a wild individual.

I have been keeping up on cougar sightings since the 1960s when I was a curator at the New York Zoological Society (now Wildlife Conservation Society) and based at the Bronx Zoo. One winter day, the curatorial staff examined photographs of cat prints in the snow of northwestern New Jersey. Our mammal expert proclaimed it a cougar. I have seen similar prints in the snow over my bean patch right in Killingworth and picked up cougar scat on the woods road near my house. I am not unfamiliar with cougars; while a zoo curator I had a hand-reared cub in my home for a time. A couple of years ago, an experienced woodsman who lives in an enclave within Cockaponset State Forest in northern Killingworth told me he had heard what sounded like a cougar in the night. A few nights later, I heard the sound myself; it was no bobcat.

Over the years, several people whose outdoor expertise I value have reported seeing what appeared to be cougars in the Middlesex County area. Among them are people who live in the Buell Hill Road area of Killingworth. Indeed, the Buell Hill cougar is such a staple of conversation around town it may spark a saga of its own, hopefully one that does not end with a death on the highway.