Is there really a significant difference between an "eastern" cougar and a "western" one?
. . . When I lived in Northern VT people claimed that they saw them all the time. Called them Catamounts for some reason.
First, "cat of the mountains" becomes "cat o' mount" becomes "catamount."
Next, systematists have always delineated subspecies based on minor morphological differences associated with different portions of the larger species' range. It is very often the case (perhaps even overwhelmingly so) that those differences are only clear to specialists examining the creature in the hand, but they
are there, and they do indicate a level of genetic diversity in the population of the entire species. As such, subspecies have taken on an important role in conservation biology, which seeks not only to conserve species, but to promote/protect/maintain genetic diversity within species.
If you look at the species protected as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act, you'll see many examples of a subspecies listed even though the larger species is not. Florida Panther is a classic example, but even Bald Eagles fall into this category: to my knowledge, the species was never listed in Alaska where it remained common even while populations plummeted in the Lower 48.
The "Eastern" subspecies of Mountain Lion was mercilessly persecuted by settlers in the U.S., and hunted out of an enormous section of eastern North America. No specimen of this subspecies has been confirmed for decades, and the USWFS recently decided to declare it officially "extinct." That's a really thorny decision because it's impossible to prove a negative, i.e., that individuals aren't out there.
The same issue affected Ivory-billed Woodpecker, for which many wanted to see it declared extinct in 1980s, but this was right about the time one or more Ivorybills was reported in Cuba. I forget the exact tortuous path of negotiations, but as we now know the USFWS expended considerable money in search of Ivorybills in Arkansas a few years ago and still there is no confirmation that they still exist. The problem is that when a species is removed from the List, its budget goes away and can be used for some other species - many are right now "warranted [for listing] but precluded [because there is not enough money to develop a management plan]." But if a species (or subspecies) is declared extinct and some activists don't agree with the decision, they may file lawsuits that the USFWS is not doing its job to enforce the ESA and, yadda-yadda-yadda, it's a big mess. So the USFWS is generally very cautious in its decisions to declare a species extinct.
The fact that the decision came down recently to declare "Eastern" cougars extinct means that there is great confidence among experts that there are no individuals of the Eastern subspecies of cougar in existence. This does not mean that there are no cougars in the East, only that any that show up are members of other subspecies of cougar. For decades, the only confirmed cougars in the East have been released captives, and these mostly have been South American stock (the species ranges nearly to Tierra del Fuego). In recent years, there have been a handful of high-profile examples of cougars from the Western subspecies showing up in eastern states, most famously the one killed in CT over the summer.
Where cougars and "black panthers" become bigfooty is that in all those decades that experts could not find any evidence of cougars (of any kind) in the East, people kept reporting them. My mammalogy professor was a Virginian who told me back in the 1980s that he had personally investigated thousands of claims in his career (he was on some kind of investigative committee), and that not a single one provided credible evidence of the animals people claimed to see. Meanwhile, he had inspected hundreds of pawprints from Labrador retrievers and photographs of bobcats and housecats that the witnesses swore up and down were cougars.
The significance of the dead cougar in CT this summer is as follows:
*It came from a marked population in South Dakota, so we know exactly who that cougar was.
*It dispersed farther than any cougar had been confirmed to do in the past.
*It was a young male, as are almost all of these cougars that seem to be showing up in eastern states of late.
*It was confirmed multiple times along its route through diagnostic photography and other means in MN, WI, MI, NY, and ultimately CT.
*The fact that ONE
individual was detected
multiple times illustrates how difficult it is in 2011 for a
population of any large mammal to exist "under the radar" in North America.
*Despite some high profile examples of individual cougars being detected and confirmed in portions formerly occupied by the Eastern subspecies, there is no evidence to suggest there is a breeding population of any kind of cougar anywhere in the East (other than Florida), and no evidence to suggest that any individuals of the Eastern subspecies persist today.
I hope that clears things up. It's not a question of semantics, it's just a subtle issue that requires a bit of background to provide perspective.
