Wild Wednesday: Eastern Cougar

The Eastern cougar, a subspecies of the mountain lion, was officially declared extinct last Wednesday, March 2, by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, ending 38 years on the Endangered Species List (ESA).

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has concluded there are no longer any wild populations of mountain lions in the eastern United States. Researchers believe the subspecies has probably been extinct since the 1930s.

Although sightings have been consistently reported up to the present-day, no sightings have been confirmed of the cougar since the 30s.

"We recognize that many people have seen cougars in the wild within the historical range of the eastern cougar. However, we believe those cougars are not the eastern cougar subspecies. We found no information to support the existence of the eastern cougar," explained the Service’s Northeast Region Chief of Endangered Species Martin Miller.
Cougars sighted in the area may be western mountain lions expanding their range or escaped pets.

Remaining cougar subspecies in the U.S. include the North American cougar, inhabiting the western US, and the Florida panther, which is considered Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List, and survives in a few protected areas in Florida.

The Eastern cougar is not the first megafauna subspecies to vanish in the US. Both the Eastern elk and Merriam's elk were killed off in the late nineteenth century; the California golden bear vanished in the 1920s while the Mexican grizzly bear became extinct in the 1960s; and a number of contested subspecies of wolf have also vanished in the US including the Florida black wolf, the cascade mountain wolf, and the southern Rocky Mountains wolf.

Bruce Wright, New Brunswick wildlife biologist and author, with what is believed to be the last eastern puma, or cougar. The puma was trapped by Rosarie Morin of St. Zacharie, Quebec, in Somerset County, Maine in 1938. Mounted specimen resides in the New Brunswick Museum in St. John, New Brunswick.

About 1880, the last known mountain lion was killed near the border of Pennsylvania's Centre and Clinton counties north of the Penn State campus. The lion's hunters gave it to Penn State, and the stuffed and mounted lion was displayed in Old Main and Recreation Hall. Eventually, that lion was displayed at the World's Fair in Chicago and in the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh, where it remained 40 years until the university reclaimed it about 20 years ago. The mountain lion now is displayed at Pattee Library.