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US Officials Declare Eastern Cougar Extinct

Drewbot said:
Any cougar found in the East is an escaped pet, except for the outlier samples of western male cougars which have trekked into the area.

I even posted a study which showed DNA samples, and that most of them were S. American origin. What are you trying to show here?
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nope, you assume.
 
The Shrike said:
Well, the individual killed in CT was living in "the East" (as in well east of the current distribution of cougars in the U.S., save Florida) from at least December 2009 to June 2011. That's at least a year and a half during which the animal was traveling, hunting, pooping, leaving prints, etc. That individual was clearly "living in the East" during this time, and could have been observed multiple times by multiple individuals anywhere from South Dakota to Connecticut.

Now that he's dead, could there still be others in the East? Sure, why not? I'm sure Jenks has multiple individuals from his database whose whereabouts are currently listed under "unknown."
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Thats the point, by Drews BS logic that was the only one. The second pile of poo was a cougar so there are no other cougars in CT or the east. What crap...

Could there be more, of curse? It is stupid to think EVERY possible one is someone's pet kitty gone stray, doubtful and dismissive if not outright stupid.
 
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The Shrike said:
Well, the individual killed in CT was living in "the East" (as in well east of the current distribution of cougars in the U.S., save Florida) from at least December 2009 to June 2011. That's at least a year and a half during which the animal was traveling, hunting, pooping, leaving prints, etc. That individual was clearly "living in the East" during this time, and could have been observed multiple times by multiple individuals anywhere from South Dakota to Connecticut.

Now that he's dead, could there still be others in the East? Sure, why not? I'm sure Jenks has multiple individuals from his database whose whereabouts are currently listed under "unknown."
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This individual was conclusively photographed and scat was found (yielding DNA). Imagine that he wasn't killed. We would be able to confirm his presence and origin status just from the photo and scat. Now where is that kind of evidence for any other individuals? We don't have it.

It's not about "why not?" It's about "are there". Mikey didn't say they could be there... he said they are there.
 
Is there a cougar roaming somewhere well east of its current range in the Lower 48 outside of Florida? I don't know.

Could there be? Yes.

If there was, what would be its likely origin?
*South American stock, released or escaped from captivity - most likely.
*Western stock, dispersed from eastern edge of range - far less likely.
*Native eastern stock that never quite went extinct in the region - unlikely to the point of not possible.
 
Is it just a coincidence that the two Bigfoot believers in this thread are also the two "cougars in the East believers" in this thread?

Dear Mr. Government Wildlife Official, Scientists and Skeptics... you don't know what is out there in the woods.
 
The second poo and footprint was a dog, despite the witness' claim of cougar. The story was that this cougar had been seen in another location, or there were two cougars. It turns out not to be the case.
 
mikeyx said:
It is semantics and the lengths that Drew will go to to not be wrong, he was obsessed with the idea of escaped pets and mentioned the Western factor once to cya, but.. the argument was are they in the east, YES, yes they are.

Drew, wrong, done.
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It is not semantics. The discussion is whether the subspecies, Eastern Cougar, is indeed extant.

Finding a few wandering individuals of the OTHER subspecies, Western Couger, in the eastern states does NOT indicate that the Eastern Cougar is still extant.

Another example.

A juvenile Emperor Penguin has been found in New Zealand. The first sighting of one in 44 years.

This does NOT mean that Emperor Penguins are extant in New Zealand.
 
William Parcher said:
This individual was conclusively photographed and scat was found (yielding DNA). Imagine that he wasn't killed. We would be able to confirm his presence and origin status just from the photo and scat. Now where is that kind of evidence for any other individuals? We don't have it.

It's not about "why not?" It's about "are there". Mikey didn't say they could be there... he said they are there.
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I didnt say HOW they got here just that they are, the body proves it genius.
 
Drewbot said:
The second poo and footprint was a dog, despite the witness' claim of cougar. The story was that this cougar had been seen in another location, or there were two cougars. It turns out not to be the case.
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from which point you jumped to there are no others, blind, dismissing assumption and you know it
 
Drewbot said:
We know that there are escaped pets, there are DNA samples from those, that came back as being from S. America. We know there is the one that trekked from S. Dakota.

Those are the few.
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but you're claiming its ALL of them you are wrong
 
One good point about the "eastern" cougar is: it may have been erroneously classified as a separate subspecies in the first place. There are occasionally cougars found wandering around in the east, and perhaps that is how they came to be there to begin with. Of course with time and human populations/hunters invading their habitat there are likely none left except these drifters or occasionally escaped pets.

Can anyone state the specific things that distinguish the eastern cougar as a subspecies other than its range?
 
River said:
One good point about the "eastern" cougar is: it may have been erroneously classified as a separate subspecies in the first place. There are occasionally cougars found wandering around in the east, and perhaps that is how they came to be there to begin with. Of course with time and human populations/hunters invading their habitat there are likely none left except these drifters or occasionally escaped pets.

Can anyone state the specific things that distinguish the eastern cougar as a subspecies other than its range?
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All north american cougars disappeared at one point. Then wanderers from S. America reestablished cougars in N. America. All N. American cougars came from this S. American flow.
From Wiki said:
Culver et al. suggest that the original North American population of Puma concolor was extirpated during the Pleistocene extinctions some 10,000 years ago, when other large mammals such as Smilodon also disappeared. North America was then repopulated by a group of South American cougars.
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There is not enough DNA difference to distinguish the cougars. I believe that skull measurements were used to originally designate the difference.
Paragraph 1, page 6
http://www.easterncougar.org/pdfs/taverna-eastern-cougar-habitat.pdf
 
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Authorities in Connecticut had investigated over 100 cougar sightings that occured in winter when there was snow. This allowed them to observe the tracks and possibly confirm the sightings. Not a single one of them was attributed to a cougar. This is factual data on the reliability of eyewitnesses for cougars.

The breeding population of cougars in the "Badlands" (Dakotas) is relatively new. These animals originally dispersed from Wyoming in the 1970's and settled mainly in a smallish area of South Dakota. Distance dispersals (males) from this population began to be documented in the 1990's. Any claims of Eastern cougars being Western wanderers before this would have had to have been coming all the way from Wyoming.
 
EHocking said:
Well, we might have a situation where W.Cougars repopulate the east due to movement. But again, that would merely be an eastern population of W.Cougar.Perhaps I missed your point then, but when you responded to drewbot with

Drewbot was pointing out that it was not and Eastern Cougar, and I got the impression that you thought that this was merely semantics rather than the point that drewbot was discussing taxonomy.
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I was actually more interested in the implications of big assed cats running through the tony suburbs of the east!
 
Bigfooter said:
I was actually more interested in the implications of big assed cats running through the tony suburbs of the east!
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It would be about the same as the implications of black bears running through the suburbs of the east. Unless I missed something perhaps. Do Florida, California, SD, etc have problems with cougars attacking folks at will in grocery store parking lots?
 
xblade said:
It would be about the same as the implications of black bears running through the suburbs of the east. Unless I missed something perhaps. Do Florida, California, SD, etc have problems with cougars attacking folks at will in grocery store parking lots?
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Clearly my previous attempt at humor fell flat with some.

Both black bear and cougar attacks are extrememly rare obviously, but clearly they do happen and seem to be happening more frequently as populations expand.

While I can't attest to the validity of the entire list, here's what I found with just a quick Google:

http://www.cougarinfo.org/attacks3.htm

And AGAIN, I'm not arguing the existance of the Eastern Cougar. As someone who spends a great deal of time outdoors, I'm simply interested in the implications of increasing populations of big cats coming into contact with humans in areas where humans aren't expecting to find them.
 
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