Mountain Lions in New England? An Acclaimed Naturalist Discusses their Return

Sue Morse is a highly respected naturalist and accomplished animal tracker.  She has monitored North American wildlife for decades in places as varied as the high Arctic, the Mountain West and here in New England.   In all that time she has yet to see a mountain lion.   “I’ve heard one, a female in heat,” says Morse, “but she didn’t reveal herself to me.”  The scream of the panther still reverberates in New England folklore, and Morse is among a growing number of naturalists and wildlife biologists who believe that it is only a matter of time before they are heard and seen here once more.

Morse will present “The Mountain Lion Returns to the East” at Housatonic Valley Regional High School at 7pm on Friday, February 22, 2019.  The event is free to the public and made possible through the sponsorship of numerous local and regional conservation groups and land trusts.   Morse is the founder and Science Director of the Vermont-based nonprofit Keeping Track, which offers scientific training to those who are interested in better understanding wildlife populations and habitats in their communities, and to inform land use and conservation planning.  

Keeping Track recognizes the need to conserve core and connective habitats, such the forested uplands of our region and the linkages between them that allow wildlife to move freely across the landscape from the Hudson Valley to the Berkshires and beyond.  “With all respect to my colleagues working to protect the northern forest,” says Morse, “we will get more bang for the buck if we conserve the core forests of central and southern New England because of their diversity, and as refugia for species adapting to climate change, if we can figure out how to deal with the invasives.” As top predators, “mountain lions will be a part of that,” she adds, noting that that deer feces contain the seeds of dozens of different species, more than half of which are considered invasive.

It has been a long time since mountain lions were well-established residents of the Northeast and helping to limit deer populations.  The Public Records of Connecticut for 1694 include a bounty of twenty shillings for “whosoeuer shall kill a pant[h]er in this Colony and make it so appeare”, which was increased to forty shillings in 1713 for killing “any grown wolf or wolves, cattamount or panther.”  The last confirmed eastern mountain lion or catamount was trapped and killed in Maine in the early 20^th century.  Yet in 2011, a young western mountain lion, subsequently shown to have travelled more than 1,500 miles from South Dakota to Connecticut, was struck and killed on the Wilbur Cross Parkway in the coastal town of Milford.

Puma concolor has an astonishing native range, found in populations extending from the southern Andes in Argentina to northern British Columbia in Canada.  According to Morse, those mountain lions with viable habitat linkages northward from Nicaragua and across North America could rightly be considered related populations rather than separate subspecies.   The US Fish and Wildlife Service have reached a different conclusion, however, declaring the eastern mountain lion subspecies extinct in 2011.  It was delisted from the Endangered Species Act in February 2018, and today only the Florida panther subspecies retains its federally protected rare species status.

Morse respects her colleagues at the USFWS but was disappointed by the decision.  Although various state protections remain, she is concerned that a consistent policy, informed by science, is essential for the mountain lion as it continues to expand its range eastward and occupy available habitat.  “Nothing has been done to restore apex predator corridors as part of a comprehensive wildlife management policy”, says Morse.  Without the protection of the Endangered Species Act, there is no federal mandate for states to coordinate and manage habitat to facilitate the needs of mountain lions or the vital ecological role they provide.

Although any estimate of the number of mountain lions that western New England could sustain would be highly speculative, our forested mountains offer plenty of suitable habitat.  White-tailed deer, the mountain lion’s primary source of food – have achieved population numbers at or near their estimated pre-colonial level.  They also hunt smaller mammals and have been known to scavange. Mountain lions are capable of swimming rivers and are already moving into the Midwest.  They could probably cross the Hudson River north of Albany, or make use of a forested corridor between the Adirondacks and the Green Mountains that connects to the Taconics. 

The young lion that was struck and killed in Connecticut managed to cover that distance.  Others will follow, but their population is unlikely to explode the way that eastern coyotes have after making a similar journey and occupying the habitat niche once available in our region to the now vanished timber wolf.  Poaching and automobile strikes are limiting factors, as is difficulty in finding mates. Perhaps the greatest challenge for returning mountain lions in the Northeast, though, will be our own ability to accommodate their presence among us.  

Morse believes that we ought to be able to coexist with large carnivores, but that it will require us to rethink our place in nature.  Although since 1890 there have been roughly 25 human fatalities from mountain lion attacks in North America, there are things that people in mountain lion country need to do differently to avoid appearing as prey.  Mountain lions are ambush predators, alert to rapid movement.  Backcountry running and mountain biking have been factors in mountain lion attacks on people, most recently in Colorado where a trail runner was seriously mauled but actually fought back and killed the lion. It is worth remembering that carnivores that attack people are routinely tracked by wildlife authorities and are themselves destroyed. 

Morse will discuss mountain lion biology and ecology during her talk on February 22, as well as the latest evidence and confirmations of their presence east of the Mississippi river and even closer to home.  The Salisbury Association is sponsoring “The Mountain Lion Returns to the East,” together with Audubon Sharon, the Berkshire-Taconic Regional Conservation Partnership, Dutchess Land Conservancy, Goshen Land Trust, the Housatonic Valley Association (HVA), the Litchfield Hills Greenprint Collaborative, Norfolk Land Trust, Sharon Land Trust, and Weantinoge Heritage Land Trust. The author, Tim Abbott, is an employee of the Housatonic Valley Association and will introduce Sue Morse during her presentation.

Tim Abbott is program director of Housatonic Valley Association’s Litchfield Hills Greenprint.