US Officials Declare Eastern Cougar Extinct

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NASHVILLE, TN (WKRN) – The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency is investigating a photo taken by a trail camera that appears to show a cougar on private land in Obion County about 190 miles away from Nashville.

Officials with the agency are having the photo analyzed by photography and graphics experts. At this time, the TWRA said it has been unable to recover any tracks, hair or other physical evidence.

The image was allegedly taken after 8 p.m. on Sept. 20. Authorities report that the image was incorrectly labeled Sept. 19.

Cougars are a protected species which cannot be hunted or killed until hunting or trapping season is established by the Tennessee Fish and Wildlife Commission, the governing body of the TWRA.

States with breeding populations of western mountain lions are Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Texas.

There have been documented sightings of cougars in Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Connecticut, and Kansas.

TWRA said a cougar sighting could easily be attributed to a transient young male or an illegal release of a captive animal.
 
comncents said:
[/url][qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_667585614133caa7cc.png[/qimg]

NASHVILLE, TN (WKRN) – The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency is investigating a photo taken by a trail camera that appears to show a cougar on private land in Obion County about 190 miles away from Nashville.

Officials with the agency are having the photo analyzed by photography and graphics experts. At this time, the TWRA said it has been unable to recover any tracks, hair or other physical evidence.

The image was allegedly taken after 8 p.m. on Sept. 20. Authorities report that the image was incorrectly labeled Sept. 19.

Cougars are a protected species which cannot be hunted or killed until hunting or trapping season is established by the Tennessee Fish and Wildlife Commission, the governing body of the TWRA.

States with breeding populations of western mountain lions are Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Texas.

There have been documented sightings of cougars in Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Connecticut, and Kansas.

TWRA said a cougar sighting could easily be attributed to a transient young male or an illegal release of a captive animal.
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That's the sort of reaction we would expect to a report and picture of a possible cougar.
 
My favorite part; destroys classic 'footer trope that a photo can never be legitimate bigfoot evidence (unless taken by Roger Patterson) 'cause #photoshop:

comncents said:
. . .having the photo analyzed by photography and graphics experts.
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Shockingly, we biologists are aware that photos need to be independently authenticated.
 
tsig said:
Amazing how the details improve as the tale is told and retold.:D
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Well, at least there's the courtesy, diplomacy and kindness to emulate - shaming/guilt tripping skeptics for being skeptical on a skeptic site.

Which of us skeptics would walk into a church, loudly screeching about how God doesn't exist and upbraiding people who respond?

It's odd someone would set up a game cam with that brush obscuring the view.
 
AlaskaBushPilot said:
Well, at least there's the courtesy, diplomacy and kindness to emulate - shaming/guilt tripping skeptics for being skeptical on a skeptic site.

Which of us skeptics would walk into a church, loudly screeching about how God doesn't exist and upbraiding people who respond?

It's odd someone would set up a game cam with that brush obscuring the view.
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That is a cropped version of the photo, you can see the original here.

https://www.facebook.com/twraheadqu....189889.81617829544/10153332705234545/?type=3
 
AlaskaBushPilot said:
...

It's odd someone would set up a game cam with that brush obscuring the view.
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So you can't see the elements that reveal it to be a taxidermy specimen of some kind, maybe?
Of course, western Tennessee is within the realm of possibility for a visit from a transient Western cat, according to the report there have been documented sightings in Missouri and Kentucky.
 
Hard to say. Taxidermy specimens are posed to reflect natural stances. Photo analysis is something I know little about.

It's a whole lot better than the photo our gamer is pretending about, in addition to pretending participation in a documented sighting.

Reporting it years later on a skeptic sight is not the kind of documentation they are talking about. When we compare these fabulist stories to documented sightings, one of the first things they do is identify who made the sighting, when, and where. All of these elements are missing from the fabulist's story and all of the reports in these pretend databases of bigfoot sightings.

Yeah, thanks DRS_Res - the original photo makes a lot more sense.

It just isn't all that extraordinary to have real animals seen outside their known ranges. In fact, where one subspecies existed it would be natural for another subspecies to replace it once conservation laws are in place protecting them. Often these are things to celebrate. Things fish and game is expressly trying to accomplish in wolf transplant programs and the like.
 
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AlaskaBushPilot said:
It just isn't all that extraordinary to have real animals seen outside their known ranges. In fact, where one subspecies existed it would be natural for another subspecies to replace it once conservation laws are in place protecting them. Often these are things to celebrate. Things fish and game is expressly trying to accomplish in wolf transplant programs and the like.
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For cougars to repopulate east of the Mississippi naturally, it will take a very long time. I don't think it will occur in our lifetime. This is because young males will disperse far from where they are born but the females will not. We see occasional males east of the Mississippi but not females. The only way to establish any population in the East would be to transplant females and males. Otherwise it could take hundreds of years for it to occur as a natural range expansion.
 
William Parcher said:
. . . it could take hundreds of years for it to occur as a natural range expansion.
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I tend to agree, but I could just as easily envision something on the order of 2 or 3 decades from some kind of punctuated colonization associated with events and circumstances we can't predict.

Presumably, selection favors those males that disperse north and west from the Black Hills, and those eastern and southern-dispersing males are coming up short. Conditions to the south and east of the southern Rockies are more favorable to an actual breeding range expansion, however, and two fronts of eastern dispersal should increase the chance some starry-eyed young pumas will hook up in the not-too distant future, maybe somewhere in the Texas Panhandle.

I do agree that "east of the Mississippi" is far more difficult to envision than a more general eastern expansion that reclaims former range in the Plains, Ozarks, etc.
 
The Shrike said:
I do agree that "east of the Mississippi" is far more difficult to envision than a more general eastern expansion that reclaims former range in the Plains, Ozarks, etc.
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Then again, while certainly more prolific, the coyote made pretty quick work of colonizing east of the Mississippi.
 
Seems to me that the most important factor is political - what game authorities in conjunction with ancillary organizations are able to accomplish, if anything.

I would imagine with a combination of habitat acquisition, like say the state of South Carolina, and aggressive transplanting programs we could have that population thriving in no time. Might cost a few trillion - not sure how much South Carolina is going to cost the cougar preservation program. But if we can save just one cougar, you know, all our efforts will have been worth it.
 
The Shrike said:
I tend to agree, but I could just as easily envision something on the order of 2 or 3 decades from some kind of punctuated colonization associated with events and circumstances we can't predict.
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You've got a few places where the deer population has made such a comeback that it is a pest. You have mercenary harvest programs and even fish and game officials out there killing game. These kinds of spots would be great for colonization.

But you don't have a lot of housewives with children pushing their husbands to get their back yards populated with cougars. Even those tree huggers in California - they're bigger on saving whales in the ocean and the wolves in Alaska, lol.
 
Pterodactyl said:
Then again, while certainly more prolific, the coyote made pretty quick work of colonizing east of the Mississippi.
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I think coyotes made it out to New England in the 1930s/40s. I only started hearing reports of them locally in the late 1980s/early 90s. Of course the early first hand sighting reports I heard were friends who swore they were seeing actual wolves not eastern coyotes.
 
Pterodactyl said:
Then again, while certainly more prolific, the coyote made pretty quick work of colonizing east of the Mississippi.
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This would, most likely, have more to do with the extirpation of the Wolf, and the cutting of mature forests, (Coyotes like fields and new growth forests) by European Settlers, than any other factor.
 
The Shrike said:
I tend to agree, but I could just as easily envision something on the order of 2 or 3 decades from some kind of punctuated colonization associated with events and circumstances we can't predict.
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Then again the colonization may never occur to any great extent for at least two reasons. The dispersion of females is very limited, and the human population in the East is much greater now than when cougars previously existed there. The mortality will be higher with roadkills and shootings, etc. I said maybe hundreds of years, but the human population density will increase over that time and could work to prevent natural expansion to the East Coast.
 
William Parcher said:
Then again the colonization may never occur to any great extent for at least two reasons. The dispersion of females is very limited, and the human population in the East is much greater now than when cougars previously existed there. The mortality will be higher with roadkills and shootings, etc. I said maybe hundreds of years, but the human population density will increase over that time and could work to prevent natural expansion to the East Coast.
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I dunno. These ramblin' Florida panthers seem to develop car and gun avoiding skills once they get north of Tampa. Only that one confirmed kill around Hotlanta.
 
Resume said:
I dunno. These ramblin' Florida panthers seem to develop car and gun avoiding skills once they get north of Tampa. Only that one confirmed kill around Hotlanta.
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Is this assuming that there are more Florida panthers in Georgia which are escaping death?
 
William Parcher said:
Is this assuming that there are more Florida panthers in Georgia which are escaping death?
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Well the wildlife official (guy that answered the phone) at the SC DNR that Jodie's friend's dad's cousin talked to thinks so.

I figure the panthers hone their skills, first dashing between trucks flying across Alligator Alley, then up 75 towards Tampa, and by the time they get to Phoenix Valdosta, they're all ninja-like and ****.
 
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