Extinction of the Eastern Cougar

I thought writing a column on the recent announcement by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) that the Eastern Cougar was extinct would be easy; the cougar was here and now it is not. Simple; 20 minutes and I would be done.Wrong! Aside from the usual confusion over the common name for the same animal (cougar, puma, catamount, mountain lion, etc.), what I did not count on was the disagreement among scientists on species and subspecies names. My initial assumption was that there were three subspecies of cougar in North America: the Eastern Cougar, the Western Cougar and the Florida panther. OK, so usually confusion over species caused by different common names can be alleviated by finding out the scientific name because scientists and taxonomists agree to only one.Going on my assumption of three subspecies in the U.S., I had already determined the Eastern Cougar was Puma concolor couguar from past articles I had written on the subject. And I found that the Florida panther, the only viable though endangered population of cougar east of the Mississippi, was Puma concolor coryi. But what of the Western Cougar? I could not find a specific scientific name for this subspecies anywhere. That is because, I found out later, in some scientific circles there are actually 12 of them (read on to learn more about that!). According to Christopher Spatz, president of the Cougar Rewilding Foundation, “The debate is raging over the taxonomy question. The USFWS uses taxonomy established in 1946 by S.P. Young and E.A. Goldman that lists at least 15 subspecies of cougar in North America. One of those was Felis concolor couguar — the Eastern Cougar. Since then, a change in the genus name from Felis to Puma has been widely accepted and the Eastern Cougar has been referred to as Puma concolor couguar.”However, in 2000, a study by Melanie Culver and others concluded that all the cougars north of Central America are indeed one genetic subspecies, Puma concolor couguar. They apparently recolonized the continent after they were wiped out near the end of the last Ice Age. According to Winston Vickers, a cougar specialist in California referred to me by Pete DeSimone who works for Audubon there, “the Culver analysis seems to be the most widely accepted view at the moment, but future genetic work may parse this further.”If this is true, then there would be no separate cougar in the east to declare extinct. The correct designation would be that the one subspecies in North America would be extirpated in the easternmost part of its range, except for the population in Florida; and it would be doing fine in the westernmost part of its range.I contacted Mark McCollough, Ph.D., who is an endangered species specialist at USFWS. He saidthe bottom line is that there are 15 subspecies of cougar in North America as identified by Young and Goldman in 1945. The Eastern Cougar (Puma concolor couguar) and Florida panther (Puma concolor coryi) are two of the subspecies. They are listed in the Endangered Species Act as subspecies (not species). He said that not all cougar biologists agree with the Culver study, which maintains that there is only one cougar in North America. And until a full taxonomic review is completed, the USFWS is still accepting the 15 subspecies and delisting the Eastern Cougar subspecies. He sent me a copy of the review the USFWS conducted on the Eastern Cougar that was the basis for declaring the animal extinct. It includes a lot of information about the subspecies issue. And so the debate on mountain lions or cougars or pumas continues, not only here locally, but among scientists, at least about its name.It is still generally accepted that wild populations of cougars do not exist in our area. Any individuals that may have been seen were probably escaped pets. That doesn’t mean that we don’t have wildcats in our area. The bobcat is alive and well. If you are lucky, you will see one. They are shy but beautiful — and perhaps bigger than you think.For more information about the USFWS decision to declare the Eastern Cougar extinct, visit their website at fws.gov/northeast/ecougar/. Scott Heth is the director of Audubon Sharon and can be reached at sheth@audubon.org, (subject line: Nature Notes).