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US Officials Declare Eastern Cougar Extinct

leonAzul said:
mikeyx, please accept that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is using the word "extinct" in this context to describe a category of breeding population, not a taxonomic species nor clade, in order to most effectively allocate conservation resources.

In the sense that your comments fail to grasp the significance of context, they do indeed represent a non sequitur.
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no, you guys accept that Parcher and others are dickering over semantics. This is but one of many injustices going on here.
 
MikeyX Parcher has clearly stated the position he subscribes to. It is a position from logic and common sense. Your position is that of anecdotal testimony and emotional outrage. It is clear you cannot comprehend the simple, straightforward arguments being presented.
 
Drewbot said:
MikeyX Parcher has clearly stated the position he subscribes to. It is a position from logic and common sense. Your position is that of anecdotal testimony and emotional outrage. It is clear you cannot comprehend the simple, straightforward arguments being presented.
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nope, just that your egos wont let you stop beating a semantical horse to death.
 
It's not semantical.

You believe there are cougars breeding in the East, Parcher does not. How is it semantical?
 
Drewbot said:
It's not semantical.

You believe there are cougars breeding in the East, Parcher does not. How is it semantical?
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No, I beleive they are here and the body proves it. You haven't proven the impossibility, you just presume to state my beliefs for me, which should be worth an infraction, and neither you or Parcher addressed sufficiently the subspecies vs. extinction argument. YOU were the one who said Eastern and Western were genetically indistinguishable.
 
The body proves that one traveled here. It's not the same.

It's like having a bird fly to where it isn't supposed to be found and then claiming that bird is normally found there.
 
If one would like to recognize an "eastern" (non-Peninsular Florida) subspecies of cougar as distinct from the "western" form, so be it. The available evidence suggests that all native cougars in the eastern U.S. north of peninsular Florida were hunted to extinction in the early 20th Century.

In recent decades, anecdotal accounts of cougars in the region say, east of the Great Plains and north of Florida have been almost universally erroneous. For the very small number of cases in which the sightings could be confirmed as a real animal, the source has been released South/Central American stock or dispersers from the western U.S. Even the cougars that have been confirmed in the eastern U.S. have not been confirmed to be part of the "eastern" subspecies.

Thus, the declaration of the "eastern" cougar's extinction is fully supported by the available data. Although it is always a tricky business to decide when the lack of new evidence for a species leads one to conclude the species is extinct, there is nothing to suggest that the "eastern" subspecies persists anywhere.

This declaration, however, does NOT mean that there are no cougars in the eastern U.S. We are seeing, especially over the last 5 years or so, cougars showing up and being confirmed in the East. Thusfar, there is no evidence of a breeding population, only wandering individuals dispersing far outside their normal range. Could there be one outside, I don't know, Charlotte, NC today? Sure, but there's no evidence for one there, and where cougars go they leave evidence.

One can take the information on long-range dispersal in cougars and presume that there is a small number of "cougars in the East." William Parcher's contention is that such a presumption is presumptuous - where cougars go they leave evidence. Unless we have that evidence, we should presume that cougars are NOT there. I tend to agree with him, but am willing to allow that there may be a couple of cougars in the East who might have sneaked in under the radar - their inevitable confirmation awaits.

I don't see what's so difficult about this?
 
LTC8K6 said:
The body proves that one traveled here. It's not the same.

It's like having a bird fly to where it isn't supposed to be found and then claiming that bird is normally found there.
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That doesnt address one poster's stated another's belief's without accuracy.

Edited to say; Don't tell me what I believe...... and the breeding thing is mute if the South AMerican progenitor accounts for the populations east and west. It's not extinct, it's just rare in the east. The rest is backpedaling over semantics.
 
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There's no such thing as a breeding population of cougars in the eastern U.S. anymore, outside of Peninsular Florida. There hasn't been for decades. That could change in the future, but as of today, there's simply no evidence that this is happening.

(And the word is "moot", btw.)
 
mikeyx said:
That doesnt address one poster's stated another's belief's without accuracy.

Edited to say; Don't tell me what I believe...... and the breeding thing is mute if the South AMerican progenitor accounts for the populations east and west. It's not extinct, it's just rare in the east. The rest is backpedaling over semantics.
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Cougars are extinct in the eastern US, with the exception of the Florida version.

There now, I didn't say "Eastern Cougar".
 
LTC8K6 said:
Cougars are extinct in the eastern US, with the exception of the Florida version.

There now, I didn't say "Eastern Cougar".
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Bull puckey, body found, they drop by if nothing else, and even if a western they are genetically the same many of you said so, done.

parcher, wrong.
 
There is no population of cougars in the east. (other than FL)

There was a cougar in the East, it is dead.
 
Old man said:
But concise and absolutely true.
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Nope just more proof that Parcher brand skepticism

a) cant see past the tip of his own nose
b) this whole began as a veiled shot at footers, his favorite pastime.

This forum says education, not insults.
 
mikeyx said:
Nope just more proof that Parcher brand skepticism

a) cant see past the tip of his own nose
b) this whole began as a veiled shot at footers, his favorite pastime.

This forum says education, not insults.
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Yes, it does, and that's what people are trying to do.

Unfortunately, you can't tell the difference between the two.
 
mikeyx said:
b) this whole began as a veiled shot at footers, his favorite pastime.
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There's no need to veil shots against 'footers. They should be called out for their irrational beliefs just like any other group facing scrutiny in this forum.

Out-of-range cougars are very much relevant to discussions of bigfoot, because when you really examine the data, you find that the vast majority of reported sightings are based on misidentifications and other non-cougar explanations. The story of the CT cougar is especially relevant because it illustrates that when a real cougar does occur someplace unexpected, it leaves undeniable physical evidence behind, and in this case this happened multiple times along the animal's dispersal route.

Think about that. Just one, individual cougar was trackable as it dispersed away from its normal range. Now consider the centuries over which not a single piece of any of the entire populations of bigfoots that should have lived and died has ever been recovered and confirmed.
 
mikeyx said:
Nope just more proof that Parcher brand skepticism

a) cant see past the tip of his own nose
b) this whole began as a veiled shot at footers, his favorite pastime.

This forum says education, not insults.
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MikeyX, you are obsessed with how Parcher portrays footers, and ignoring the simple facts. When there is a cougar in the heavily populated, heavily driven eastern and Northeastern states, the situation gets resolved quickly. You can't deny that. Either they will find evidence of the existing cougar, or the cougar will end up dead in short order.

Do you think that there is a population of cougars evading human discovery? If this is so, then it is a distinct parallel between BIGFOOTERS, and YOURSELF.
Sorry for the following TEXTBURGBoth bigfooters, and yourself, would have to accept that a population of top predators, each being the largest of their respective order or family, on the continent, the Cougar of the Felidae family, and the Bigfoot of the Primate order, is intentionally avoiding discovery by humans, in one of the most explored, and utilized areaa of the world. The two beasts are not only avoiding discovery, but are not yielding any confirmatory evidence of their existence. The comparison is valid and true. You would rather try to label Parcher's comparison as invalid because of the nature of the comparison itself, than try to defend against Parcher's valid comparison with facts.

You are saying something like this: "PARCHER, your argument has no merit, because you are making fun of Bigfooters in the same breath as you are declaring no cougar population exists in the Eastern United States, therefore you are wrong, and I don't have to provide evidence of a breeding population."

I forget what this tactic is called, but I do think it is a known argument fallacy.
 
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Drewbot said:
MikeyX, you are obsessed with how Parcher portrays footers, and ignoring the simple facts. When there is a cougar in the heavily populated, heavily driven eastern and Northeastern states, the situation gets resolved quickly. You can't deny that. Either they will find evidence of the existing cougar, or the cougar will end up dead in short order.

Do you think that there is a population of cougars evading human discovery? If this is so, then it is a distinct parallel between BIGFOOTERS, and YOURSELF.
Sorry for the following TEXTBURGBoth bigfooters, and yourself, would have to accept that a population of top predators, each being the largest of their respective order or family, on the continent, the Cougar of the Felidae family, and the Bigfoot of the Primate order, is intentionally avoiding discovery by humans, in one of the most explored, and utilized areaa of the world. The two beasts are not only avoiding discovery, but are not yielding any confirmatory evidence of their existence. The comparison is valid and true. You would rather try to label Parcher's comparison as invalid because of the nature of the comparison itself, than try to defend against Parcher's valid comparison with facts.

You are saying something like this: "PARCHER, your argument has no merit, because you are making fun of Bigfooters in the same breath as you are declaring no cougar population exists in the Eastern United States, therefore you are wrong, and I don't have to provide evidence of a breeding population."

I forget what this tactic is called, but I do think it is a known argument fallacy.
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No I am making the point that parcher couldn't make his point about cougars without getting in a dig at footers. You can stop trying to be my psychotherapist anytime btw.
 
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