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US Officials Declare Eastern Cougar Extinct

The bottom line is that we now have proof that big cats exist in the Eastern United States outside of Florida.

Bigfooter said:
I'm not proposing any others

Good, because there is no evidence of any others besides this one dead far wanderer. But specifically, we don't have any proof that they exist in the east. Understand the difference between "this one" and "they".

I'm simply saying that further study is warranted

That would happen anytime anyone provides any actual evidence for cougars in the east. Wildlife officials take real evidence seriously. There just isn't any.
 
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Shouldn't we be asking why it moved so far beyond its accepted range? And if it did, are others doing that as well.

If there are big cats moving east, this is a public safety issue that needs to be at least discussed does it not?

You will find these ideas expressed in the abstract of the 2010 paper I posted in #167.
 
Post 145, this thread, clear as day.





Care to revise that first part?

Nope, your emphasis if not obsession on this topic here and on the BFF has been South American pets, you are covering your backside.
 
You guys seem to be missing my point. This is what I mean by folks getting caught up in semantics.

Does it really matter if it was an Eastern or Western Cougar?
No you are missing the point. The discussion is not whether W.cougar wander about, but whether E.cougar are extinct.
There WAS a cougar and it had been on a 1,500 mile meander across half the country for several years now. Now it may have been simply an anomaly and will never happen again, but can we be certain of that? And, fine, let's say it doesn't happen again, what about Western Cougars moving, say, only 500 or 750 miles east.
Just because I live in England does not make me English. If I travel to Africa, am I African?

By wandering east, a Western Cougar does not change it's (sub)species taxonomy.
 
What is that called?, when you say something, and then someone says you didn't say that thing, and then you show them where you said it, and they still say you didn't say it?

For reference:
Drewbot said:
I told Themanta (AKA MikeyX) that it was either of S. American or western origin.

Mikeyx said:
nope............ you obsessively clung to th escape south american crap, south dakota aint in south america and you were a) wrong and b) full of it

Post 145 This thread said:
Drewbot said:
Right, some of them are male wanderers from the Florida population or the Western population.

Mikeyx said:
Nope, your emphasis if not obsession on this topic here and on the BFF has been South American pets, you are covering your backside.
 
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What is that called?, when you say something, and then someone says you didn't say that thing, and then you show them where you said it, and they still say you didn't say it?

For reference:

You mentioned western not nearly as much as you insisted this was an escaped pet, it wasn't, you're dodging that fact you were simply wrong. Deal with it.
 
On a broad level, I'd simply like to know if it went north or south of the Great Lakes.

It is being proposed that it cut through the Great Lakes.

South Dakota > Minnesota > Wisconsin > Michigan (Upper Peninsula) > Ontario > New York > Connecticut.


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Vilas County (Wisconsin) deputy shoots woman; thought she was a cougar


An off-duty Vilas County Sheriff's deputy shot a woman Monday after mistaking her for a cougar, according to the Sheriff's Department.

Ty Peterson shot a 20-year-old female family member shortly after 9 p.m. Monday at his home in the town of Arbor Vitae, according to a Sheriff's Department news release. She was taken to a hospital with a non-life-threatening injury, police said.

An initial investigation showed that the woman was playing a prank on Peterson, according to the news release. Peterson thought he was being attacked by a cougar, which was seen in the deputy's yard earlier in the day, and shot the victim as a result of the prank, police said.

The Oneida County Sheriff's Department is assisting in the investigation.
 
More details on the Connecticut cougar.


The necropsy, performed at DEEP's Sessions Woods Wildlife Center, Burlington, Conn., showed the young, lean, 140-pound male mountain lion was not neutered or declawed – characteristics that seemed to indicate it was not a captive animal that had escaped or been released.

The examination of the animal also showed it had no implanted micro chips, which are commonly used in domestic animals. Porcupine quills were also found in the animal's subcutaneous tissue indicating it had spent some time in the wild. Examination of the stomach contents, tissues and parasites is continuing. It was estimated to be between two and five years old but a more precise age is being determined by microscopic analysis of an extracted tooth.
 
Also of note; the second scat sample, shows that there was no second cougar in the Greenwich area.

http://greenwich.patch.com/articles/dep-latest-scat-sample-wasnt-from-mountain-lion
It turned out to be canine poo.

No it just shows that the second sample wasnt cougar poo. Such a fact does not remove the possibility that a second cougar didnt poo anywhere else in the state, and this is where your logic typically sucks, you apply it as an absolute, when it isn't.
 
No you are missing the point. The discussion is not whether W.cougar wander about, but whether E.cougar are extinct.
There WAS a cougar and it had been on a 1,500 mile meander across half the country for several years now. Now it may have been simply an anomaly and will never happen again, but can we be certain of that? And, fine, let's say it doesn't happen again, what about Western Cougars moving, say, only 500 or 750 miles east.
Just because I live in England does not make me English. If I travel to Africa, am I African?

By wandering east, a Western Cougar does not change it's (sub)species taxonomy.

Fine then. I'll shut up about it. I agree that Eastern Cougars are extinct. I always have. My posts were an attempt to engage in a discussion about the implications of migrating cougars and their impact on areas with large human populations.

Perhaps I should start a new thread about that.
 
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In that part of the world, I'm really wondering how it crossed the Hudson. . .

Well depending up on where he crossed, the Hudson is barely a trickle in some parts of the State and if he went really far North, he could have bypassed it all together.
 
It is being proposed that it cut through the Great Lakes.

Cool. Looks to me like the most likely route would still be north around Huron. I'm going to - based on wild speculation - propose that it gravitated toward more populated areas in its travels to take advantage of the superabundant deer and followed this route:

Sudbury to Ottawa, traveled south and crossed St. Lawrence at the Thousand Islands, followed I-81 corridor and skirted east of the Tug Hill Plateau, traveled southeast to the Mohawk Valley, followed the I-90 corridor to Troy or something, picked up I-90 again east of the Hudson, and followed that corridor 'til it hit the Connecticut River Valley.
 
Cool. Looks to me like the most likely route would still be north around Huron. I'm going to - based on wild speculation - propose that it gravitated toward more populated areas in its travels to take advantage of the superabundant deer and followed this route:

Sudbury to Ottawa, traveled south and crossed St. Lawrence at the Thousand Islands, followed I-81 corridor and skirted east of the Tug Hill Plateau, traveled southeast to the Mohawk Valley, followed the I-90 corridor to Troy or something, picked up I-90 again east of the Hudson, and followed that corridor 'til it hit the Connecticut River Valley.

The amount of assumption in this thread is amazing
 

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