Eastern Puma Extinct After Years of Cougar Confusion

It's official: the once-imperiled "eastern puma" has been removed from the list of North American wildlife protected under the Endangered Species Act. Traditionally, this would imply a recent loss or success for conservationists, but not so with this top cat. In fact, officials have revealed that the cougar in question may have been extinct for decades.

As far as we know, the eastern puma was a mid-size subspecies of cougar (or mountain lion) with wide shoulders and small skull. Originally there were 11 subspecies of cougars native to North America, but only two of them - the Eastern cougar and Florida cougar - were found east of the Mississippi River. The range of the eastern variety in particular was thought to stretch as far north as southeastern Ontario, and southern Quebec, as far south as the Carolinas, and as far west as Kentucky, Illinois, and Michigan.

The Disappearing Ghost Cat

This wide range alone may explain how the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) overlooked the disappearance of an entire species of large predatory cats to begin with. Experts had determined that the coat of the eastern puma could even vary by season and location, making it all but a ghost in a forest, despite its size.

However, the "ghost cat," as it was aptly called by trappers, quickly lost its range after European immigrants began to actively hunt them and their primary prey, the white tailed deer, in the late 1800s. According to the FWS, "the last records of eastern cougars are from Maine (1938) and New Brunswick (1932)." (Scroll to read on...)

"Through public and civic tolerance and through reintroduction at the state level, pumas could be returned to the East to play their ancient role in controlling deer herds," he added. "This is a somber moment to think about what the land under our feet used to be like, and what roamed here. It should also be a clarion call to recover pumas and all of our apex predators to sustainable levels to help rebalance a world that is out of kilter."

However, according to the FWS, this is an unlikely future.

"The Service does not have the authority under the ESA to replace the extinct eastern cougar subspecies by introducing another cougar subspecies," a representative explained.

The service added that while the Florida panther once ranged throughout the Southeast, sharing a great deal of the ghost cat's territory, there are no plans to recover the species outside the bounds of Florida state. As thing stand, there are only up to 160 of the animals left, occupying less than five percent of their habitat.

The once assurance that remains is that they will not slip away as quietly as the ghost cat did. It will be a fight, according to the FWS, but one that they and state officials intend to win.

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