Elusive Eastern cougars: Are they reality or myth?

SALISBURY — An Eastern cougar was hit and killed by a vehicle in Milford, Conn., on June 11, 2011.The incident sparked conjecture that the cougar might be re-establishing itself in the northeastern United States.Author Robert Tougias discussed the history, biology and prospects for the cougar at the Scoville Memorial Library Thursday, April 11.The Eastern cougar (aka mountain lion, puma, panther, catamount) did once live in the Northeast.But as human settlement pushed westward, and forests were cut down and converted to agricultural use, the cougar “was robbed of habitat and shot on sight.”The big cats have long been assumed extinct, but Tougias said there have been hundreds of sightings from Georgia to the south and as far north as New Brunswick and Quebec provinces in Canada.One problem with the sightings — they are usually reported to a state agency, which tells the caller the cat is extinct.“So how can this be?” asked Tougias.He gave some detailed information on the Eastern cougar, noting there are more than 60 names for the animal — more than for any other big cat of one color.Males typically weigh 150 pounds, females 80 pounds; males average 6 feet in length,including the tail.The cougar stands 2 feet high at the shoulder, and has a small head, black mustache, rounded ears, powerful shoulders and a long, lean body.The cougar kitten (or cub) is completely dependent on the mother for the first 18 months of its life. As they mature into adults, they lose their stripes and spots and take on the yellowish-brown color of the adult.But for anyone thinking about obtaining one (illegally) as a pet, Tougias said, “The cubs are still bigger than any house cat.”The adult males disperse in search of a mate. Adult females stay relatively close to their birthplace.If the males don’t find a mate they continue to wander. Scientists refer to these male cougars as “transients.”The Milford cougar is thought to be a transient, originally from South Dakota, where there is a population in the Black Hills.When the male does find a mate, he sets up a range that overlaps with that of the female.Tougias said that by age 5, cougars are expert hunters, and their favorite food is the white-tailed deer.“The cougar is designed to prey on deer,” he said. The big cats stalk and/or ambush the deer. The cougar leaps on the deer’s back and twists its neck, bringing it to the ground. If necessary, the cougar finishes the job with a bite to the throat.The cougar will eat some of the deer on the spot, and then cache the rest, covering the carcass with leaves and dirt.Tougias said an adult male needs at least one deer every 10 days to survive.Not much meat in a rabbitCougars will also prey on smaller animals — cottontail rabbits, snowshoe hares, wild turkeys.But alternative prey is less satisfactory, because the calories gained are far less in proportion to the energy expended in the hunt.“There’s not much meat in a baby rabbit,” said Tougias.Which ties into the survival scenario. If cougars did survive in the Northeast and Canada, they would have had to rely in some part on alternate prey because deer became increasingly scarce at one point in the region’s history.“A female with young needs one deer every three days, which is why biologists are inclined to believe the cougar was extirpated” in the Northeast. It would be very difficult for a nursing female to obtain the necessary nutrition by chasing rabbits.“I say it is possible, but unlikely.”At age 8, cougars start aging — their claws and teeth deteriorate, making it harder to secure prey. Death usually comes at age 10.As the Industrial Revolution changed the American economy, and traditional agriculture began its decline, cleared land began to revert back to forest, and deer started making a comeback.While the last known cougar killing in Connecticut was in 1835, and in 1858 in Massachusetts, the last recorded kill in Maine was much later, in 1938.Tougias said (cautiously) that with the return of deer habitat, there is no reason why some cougars could not have survived, somewhere, to the present. He referred to the small cougar population in South Dakota.In the 1990s tracks were found in Wyoming County, W. Va. There were sightings in Delaware, which Tougias suspects were escaped animals.Deer kills, covered up in classic cougar style, were found in New York’s Adirondack mountains; cougar fur was found outside Portland, Maine; in New Brunswick and Quebec researchers put out traps baited with cougar urine — the cougars rubbed against the apparatus, leaving fur.In northern Vermont, near Mount Elmore, there were sightings of cougars with kittens. Hopes and hoaxesBut sightings often aren’t enough, by themselves, to convince skeptics — especially those in officialdom.In Vermont, a man named Mark Walker, visiting his grandmother, walked out one early morning in April across the snow to fill a bird feeder. Hearing a sound behind him, he turned and saw a female cougar and three cubs “nonchalantly making their way to the woods. “Walker ran like hell to the house and called the state.”State biologists came out to the site, looked at the tracks, and found scat with cougar fur. “They got excited,” Tougias said. DNA samples were sent out, but the results were odd — the DNA was canine. It turned out a volunteer at the lab threw out the Vermont sample by mistake. “But Vermont backpedaled, judged it to be coyote.”Tougias said he doesn’t believe it was a deliberate cover up, “but for those of you who want to think that …”The Quabbin reservoir in Massachusetts is a hot spot for cougar research. In 1997 someone saw what they thought was a bobcat, but a beaver kill was found with a foot-long scat nearby. “This time they did it right,” said Tougias. Two DNA samples were sent to two different labs, and both came back as North American cougar.(To add to the confusion, reserachers have found South American cougar DNA in North America, and even combinations of the two. Tougias said if a sample has South American genes, it is probably from an escaped animal.)The Quabbin Reservoir has 81,000 acres of land, Tougias said, much of which is off-limits to the public, so it is an excellent site for scientists.Sightings are tricky, at best. Tougias showed slides of a couple of hoaxes. One photo showed a cougar in the woods, but the animal’s stance suggests it was stuffed.And a still from a video showed two cats, one with its tail raised in a position the cougar simply cannot achieve.“I think this is Fifi and Smoky out for a stroll,” Tougias said.Many sightings are mistaken identity — bobcat, bear, Labrador retriever. Tougias said this is entirely understandable.“Sightings are quick, maybe a second or two, often in shaded, wooded areas. And the idea is in people’s minds.”Tougias said he wonders if the legitimate sightings are of transients, pointing out that cougars have been killed on highways in the Midwest.Too big for pets“So are they around? As pets, maybe, though my cat weighs 10 pounds and is tearing the house apart. I wouldn’t want to change a cougar’s litter box.“But there would have to be thousands of captive cougars, and hundreds released. The numbers don’t add up.”Plus captive cougars have their teeth altered and are declawed, so survival in the wild is doubtful, he added.Tougias said there are two schools of thought on the cougar — “both impassioned and yearning for vindication.”Believers ask how can the cougar be judged extinct “when nobody has really gone out and looked?”He said some attempts at comprehensive studies have been made in the Appalachian Mountains and at the Quabbin Reservoir, but nothing large-scale, sustained and professionally conducted.The nonbelievers say if the cougars were around, there would be a lot of road kills, many more than those recorded in the Midwest and in Milford.How to record a sightingTougias said the public can help. If you see a track you think might be a cougar, he said, take a photo, and put something in the frame to establish scale (like a pen). Look for a big heel pad and two asymmetrical toes at the top of the track.Should the cougar be reintroduced, a large part of the battle would be overcoming fear, he said.“The wolf was feared, but through education became popular.” He said that cougars do not need wilderness. “If free of human pressure, and with deer, cougars can survive in the wild” (as opposed to the wilderness).Tougias summarized by saying he believes most cougar sightings are mistaken identity.The legitimate sightings are indeed cougars, either escaped captives or transients. “I don’t think there is a resident, pre-European, relic population.”Tougias pointed out that the peregrine falcon, the bald eagle and the wild turkey have been brought back.“So why not do that for the cougar?”“But to do that we’ll need to set aside open space.“Humans are not just industrious creatures, but spiritual creatures. So they need these spaces too.“We want to know there is still mystery out there — that the places where we hike, hunt and fish are healthy enough to support the cougar too.”