Due to recent reports of cougars or mountain lions in Pennsylvania, as well as New York, Maryland and New Jersey, we have decided to run this earlier clip
The eastern mountain lion debate - already heated in some quarters in Pennsylvania and elsewhere - will be heating up a few thousand degrees as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service begins a review of scientific and commercial information to determine the status of the endangered eastern cougar.
While hundreds of reports of mountain lions throughout the East surface every years, this will be the first review the service has done since publishing a recovery plan in 1982. That plan was as follow-up to the service placing the eastern cougar on the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife in 1973.
The Endangered Species Act requires a review every five years of all protected species. However, according to the service, limited resources and higher priorities have postponed the review for the eastern cougar until now.
"We will compile and evaluate scientific evidence to help us understand the status of the eastern cougar and to determine what future actions the service should take," said Martin Miller, chief of endangered species for the service’s northeast region.
Some in Pennsylvania, and elsewhere, frustrated with state and federal agency insistence that any cats they might be seeing out there are escaped or released exotic pets, or the result of outright misidentification by those making the sightings, would suggest the service allow for a limited taking of a few cats for study.
^Lion report near Washington, D.C. in 1998
As part of the review, the service is seeking information on the status of the eastern cougar in the 21 states - from Maine to South Carolina and westward from Michigan to Tennessee - where the Endangered Species Act protects it.
Lacking definitive evidence of the species’ existence, the service has presumed the eastern cougar to be extinct, and noted that it is improbable that a small cougar population persisted in the eastern states for more than a century.
According to the service, most of the confirmed cougar records since 1950 (animals killed, good quality photos/videos, genetic evidence) are known to be escapes of captive origin. There may be thousands of captive cougars in the eastern United States.
"An important part of the Service’s review will be to compile the best available scientific evidence and objectively assess whether the eastern cougar is truly extinct," said Mark McCollough, endangered species biologist in the service’s northeast region.
Mountain Lions Pennsylvania
Mountain Lions Maryland
Mountain Lions Virginia
Mountain Lions New Jersey
Mountain Lions New York
