Midwestern Mountain Lions---The Return of a Legend

Cougars have increasingly been in the news over the past few years as these elusive long-tailed cats are seemingly showing up everywhere.  Well, if not everywhere then in many areas east of the Rocky Mountains and other western North American strongholds where the species is considered a common, albeit infrequently observed native felid.  In fact there have been several road- or railroad-killed cougars documented in Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Oklahoma.  Several cats have also been captured on film via "camera traps"---infrared- or motion-sensitive cameras used by hunters, researchers, and general nature enthusiasts to document local wildlife---in Arkansas, Minnesota, and Nebraska.  Across the board, these are states and regions where pumas have been absent for upwards of 100 years or more!  

Almost invariably, these photogenic felines and other wayward pumas, none of which have shown any evidence of prior captivity, prove to be young males.  It is thus easy to explain these unusual occurrences as a function of dispersal and the deeply rooted drive of such young animals to wander from their natal range and seek out a territory, and potential conspecific mates, of their own.  The advent of radio telemetry technology over recent decades is allowing predator researchers for the first time to clearly comprehend the mind-boggling distances some of these individuals, having separated from their mothers and siblings, can roam.  

For instance, western biologists are presently tracking a young male lynx that was released in Colorado as part of a formal restoration effort and has now traveled over 800 miles northward, through Yellowstone National Park, and on into Montana.  By all indications, this cat is headed for Canada, where he was originally live-trapped for the Colorado project.  Moving in the opposite direction, a gray wolf from the Yellowstone Ecosystem was discovered in Colorado about a year or two ago.  At about the same time a radio-tagged Wisconsin wolf, not surprisingly a male, ended up dead in Indiana.  A few wolverines monitored in the northern Rockies have also demonstrated some incredible long-distance forays.  Similarly, a young male cougar, tagged as part of an ongoing study in the Black Hills of South Dakota, traveled over 600 miles southward before meeting his demise in a collision with a diesel locomotive this past year.  This episode represents the single greatest dispersal distance ever recorded for the species. 

Confounding the dispersal theory used to explain puma presence in areas where the species has not been seen for years, however, is the hot-off-the-press documentation of a female puma in Manitoba.  This cat's death comes literally on the heels of the shooting of a male puma there earlier in the fall.  These are the first definitively documented pumas in Manitoba in almost 30 years.  Although not officially or unanimously recognized by the scientific community, the existence of a small resident puma population has been suspected in this midwestern Canadian province for several decades.  This is based on a long history of reliable sightings as well as the documentation of a third puma-again a young male---shot and killed near the farming community of Stead in 1975.  

Female cougars, as is true for many predators, rarely make the long dispersals that males do.  Of course, with wildlife, especially the highly adaptable cougar, it seems nearly anything is possible.  It only takes two to plant a population's seed, so if this female shows evidence of breeding or birthing-coupled with no outward signs of prior captivity---then it will be a tantalizing to speculate on the implications.  For instance, was this female originally a disperser from say, the Black Hills or Alberta?  Or was she born in the Manitoban wilds?  What ever happened to her kittens?  Did she mate with the male who was also killed recently, or is there another male roaming the Manitoban woodlands too?  Are there other cougars around?  How many and how have they managed to avoid formal detection?

It is noteworthy that now as far east in Canada as Quebec and New Brunswick, DNA from samples collected from strategically placed hair snares has recently been confirmed as puma.  Similar confirmations are apparently pending from Ontario as well.  If these cases are indeed bonafide, and there is no reason to suspect otherwise, then it will necessarily beg the question, where are these cats coming from and why haven't they been officially confirmed, alive or dead, before?  Do these widespread cougar confirmations merely represent the sporadic presence of dispersers or transients---western cats that have wandered eastward and keep wandering and wandering---or are there in fact actually undiscovered, unconfirmed puma populations in these vast and relatively untrammeled Provinces?  In all likelihood, the truth probably lies somewhere between these two possibilities.  In any case, whether a function of recolonization or reemergence of a cryptic, long-hidden population, those interested in the natural world and our native cats are witnessing an exciting phenomenon as the cougar inexorably makes its presence known east of its traditional Rocky Mountain redoubts.

   Jay Tischendorf DVM
   Director of the American Ecological Research Institute (--AERIE)
   Post Office Box 1826
   Great Falls, Montana 59403 USA
   406 453-7233