The eastern cougar (Puma concolor cougar) is now officially declared extinct!
The eastern cougar (Puma concolor cougar) once prowled the mountain regions from Michigan to South Carolina, but it has now been officially declared to be extinct. This distinct subspecies of cougar (P. concolor) used to be pretty common in these areas, but suffered great population losses during the 19th century due to systematic hunting and trapping. By 1900 the eastern cougar was extremely uncommon.
Close-up of a cougar (note: a regular cougar, not an eastern cougar). Image by Bas Lammers, posted with the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
The last known eastern cougar to have lived was shot in Maine in 1938, meaning that it has been 80 years since it was last confirmed to be extant. However, as I have said before, getting a species to be officially declared as extinct can take a long time, because animals can be really good at hiding – especially if there are only a few left in the wild.
The status of the eastern cougar
In 1973 the eater cougar got added to the list of endangered species under the Endangered Species Act in the United States, but at this point it had not been seen for 30 years. It was obviously presumed extinct at this time, but the ones who had to choose if it should be on the list or not did not have enough data to claim that it was in fact extinct.
An eastern cougar. Image is Public Domain.
It stayed on the endangered species list for a long time, until the US Fish and Wildlife Service ordered a review in 2011. They wanted to know if it was indeed extinct, or if there was still a few ones hidden in the mountains. The federal wildlife biologists surveyed, and by 2015 they had finished the report that suggested it to be extinct.
Fast forward to this Monday (January 22 2018) and the eastern cougar was officially removed from the Endangered list due to it being extinct.
There have been some sightings of alleged eastern cougars
There have been reports of sightings of eastern cougar every once in a while since the last official appearance 80 years ago, but the US Fish and Wildlife Service does not believe any of these to be a true sighting of an eastern cougar. They believe the people have either seen cougars that have escaped from private collections or the western cougar who have been expanding its territory further east in the last years.
Could the extinction be a good thing?
I am of course not a fan of any species or subspecies going extinct, but the eastern cougar probably went extinct about 80 years ago, so there’s little we could have done about it in recent times anyway. What I do find very cool is that this could potentially be very good for the wildlife in the areas the traditionally had eastern cougars!
Image by Flickr user AskJoanne, posted with the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
How does this make any sense? Now that the eastern cougar is officially extinct, the states that originally had these eastern cougars could be allowed to make reintroduction programs using the regular, western cougar. Until now this would not be allowed on the basis that the common cougar was an invasive species and could potentially outcompete the eastern cougar.
So this means that these states could potentially be getting cougars again after not having had them for such a long time. This might not be what people are actually hoping for, but predators have a beneficial effects for us humans, and having a large predator will certainly make the food-web a lot more natural again.
What about the rest of the cougars?
The cougars themselves are not considered to be threatened, and are as a matter of fact classified as Least Concern by the IUCN. As mentioned earlier in the post, they are gradually expanding their range from the western part of the country to the eastern, and could very well populate more areas in the future if the government allows for it.
The cougars used to be the most widely distributed land mammal on the entire western hemisphere, but this has changed a lot after settlers in North-America began to hunt and trap them during the 19th century.
Thanks for reading
Thanks for reading about the official extinction of the eastern cougar. The announcement of the extinction can be read at reuters.com, and I’m sure a lot of newspapers have picked it up as well if you want to check it out in more detail.
Anyway, I find it really interesting that it has taken 80 years since the last confirmed appearance before it is officially extinct, which goes to show how sure the biologists need to be before declaring extinctions. There are lots of presumed extinct species that are still considered alive, but that have not been seen for the longest time, but let's hope some of these end up being found again!
Thank you :D
Great article. I live in North Carolina and have a BS in Ecology and Environmental Biology. In my classes we were told there were no cougars left in the state. It was impossible for them to sustain a population. The last ones were extirpated in the early 1900's. Never the less, there are still people that claim to have seen a cougar. Old timers that swear they spotted one. I always wondered what these people were actually seeing.
Thank you, @kiristin! It's nice to see another ecologist around here :)
It's very interesting to be able to read about first-hand knowledge here in my comment section, so thank you so much for sharing!
I'm personally very pessimistic about people who claim to see animals that are not expected to be found in an area. Most of the times they have just seen some blurry movement and assumed that is was a cougar or another interesting animal. I've seen some reports of false claims of wolves here in Norway, and you would not believe how many people that report seeing wolves, and later have the sightings verified to be either foxes, dogs, lynxes or at times even smaller mammals. It's pretty common to let the imagination run wild when you see something in the wild like this.
Of course, every once in a while sightings like these end up being true, so we can't really just discredit all of these automatically either. It would be cool to know for sure, but we can at least say for certain that they have not seen an eastern cougar ;) hehe
Best regards from @valth
Thank you for the intelligent discourse. You're reply is perfect and I couldn't agree more. I dislike arguing with those that claim they are still around as I am quite pessimistic about it myself. Like you said,
"It's pretty common to let the imagination run wild when you see something in the wild like this."
Most people see what they want to see and who doesn't want to see an animal claimed to not exist? I think it would be awesome but taking facts into consideration is important. Don't get me started on the Bigfoot sightings LOL. Cute Pug picture by the way! Apologies for my upvote not being worth anything. I just began my Steemit journey and am learning the ropes.
@kristin its very good to hear from you, an ecologist himself.
And I don't think upvoting powers matters as long as you have got something genuine to share with us.
Yep, @xabi is right. Sharing genuine comments is very valuable (but sadly a lot of other bloggers here don't think so). However, I'm very interested in learning what other people think of the topics I write about, because this will expand my knowledge of the topic, as well as giving me new opinions that I might not otherwise have considered myself.
@xabi Kind of you to say. The Steemit community seems to be a positive and accepting platform. I am glad to have the opportunity to participate and join in discussions to further my understanding and those I communicate with on this forum.
Yeah, exactly! It makes for a much better story to tell if you claim to see an extinct, a rare or even a made-up animal than just another fox :) But it can of course lead to some conflict if you tell them this in person.
Thanks! Don't worry about the upvote; everyone starts somewhere. It takes a long time to build up Steem Power to give good upvotes. And contributions in the form of good, genuine comments are much more valuable to me than a few dollars worth of upvotes to be honest ;)
By the way, if you ever have any questions about Steem or Steemit, don't hesitate to ask them in one of my posts. Just make sure to that you are writing a top-level comment, so I get notified about it. Some parts of Steemit can be pretty difficult to understand for a new users, so don't be afraid to ask questions.
I much appreciate your kind words. I am quite eager and excited about Steemit but still have much to learn. The users I have interacted with have all been welcoming and helpful. It is a welcome change from other social pages I have taken part. Thank you for the offering of advice. I am sure I will have questions is the days to come.
Yeah, most of the community here is really trying its best to be nice and helpful, but there are of course some rotten apples here as well.
Oh no! That's unfortunate to hear, though I must confess, despite growing up in the east US, I was unaware there was such a thing as the eastern cougar. Well, technically there wasn't I guess, since 1938 was the last sighting and I'm not that old haha.
I've also heard there used to be an eastern woods buffalo in the east US, but that its actually a myth. Do you know anything about that?
It's not that strange that you have not heard of it since it has been gone for such a long time. Even the people who are 80+ years probably don't really have any knowledge of them, since they have been very rare for the last 100 years.
No, sorry, I don't know anything about it. My knowledge of the wildlife in North-America is actually pretty limited to certain small topics that I have found very interesting ;)
Best regards from @valth
Current research and investigation suggest that the entire North American cougar population is but one subspecies. Therefore, the "Eastern Cougar" were just North American Cougars living along the East coast.
Thanks for your comment, @kouba01!
There have been a lot of debate about the taxonomy of the cougars, and there are arguments for both your view of the matter, as well as scientists who prefer to think of them as two separate subspecies.
Best regards from @valth
Indeed a sad news that eastern cougars are history now. Sorry eastern cougar we didnot save you for our next generation.if we had more awareness century before we may save eastern cougars and other extinct species. It's time to develop more awareness to people about the importance of wild life
I agree, @kamchore. We still have a long way to go with raising awareness before we reach a good point in my opinion, so keep on telling people about the species that are in danger now, before it is too late for them as well!
Yes, what ever is done is done. We can't bring back what has been passed. All we can do is to control further damage. For this purpose raising awaremess is the basic tool. You are doing a great job by raising awareness about wild life and environmental issues. Steemit is a great platform for this purpose
Glad to read that people take interest in your post. Entrance of ecologist, chemical engineer made it more amazing. Keep sharing
Yeah, we must keep raising awareness until someone is actually able to do something about it. And everyone needs to to their best in order to not make anymore damage as well.
I also think Steemit can be a great tool to spread awareness of some of the issues we have created, and the consequences of them :)
yes, awareness always give good results. Steemit is a global platform to share your thoughts. All the best cheers:)
80 years is a long time but the restrictions that biologists face are also real.
Its sad to see a whole specie getting extinct. I bet there are far more different species that have gone forever and we don't even know about it.
Yeah, that's true, @xabi. There are probably lots of species that have disappeared forever without us ever noticing it in the first place.
And keep in mind that the eastern cougar is a subspecies, so it's not a full species that is extinct. The cougar is still alive, and doing very well ;)
I never knew Eastern Cougar was a thing...
Trying to think about how many species are there which we don't even know about.
Some scientists believe that we have found less than 10 % of all the species that are out there, so there could be millions that have yet to be discovered ;)
There's so much left undiscovered man. The universe is so vast. It never fails to amaze me.
Absolutely! Just imagine if we ever find life on another planet; then we have double the amount of work to do in order to find all species. And who knows how many planets there are with some type of life out there?
So sad... extinction is what i feel more guilty about... we can correct pollution, regrow forests but no coming back from extinction :(
the only extinction that would really help the whole planet ecosystem would be the human extinction...
Yep, that's a good point! But these things are of course linked; we would not really have to worry too much about extinction if we didn't pollute and cut down the forest they live in.
Getting a species back from being critically endangered is possible, but extremely difficult. And getting them back from extinction is impossible. I know that some people (for some strange reason) believe that it's not that difficult to get them back as long as we have their DNA, but it is definitely a hundred times easier to protect them while they are still alive. Not to mention that no one has ever successfully brought an extinct species back for more than a few minutes at most.
Thanks for the interesting read! They look like a cross between a big Caracals (aka Rooikat) and a small lion you get here in South Africa. ;)
You're welcome! Yeah, I guess you are right about them looking like a mix of those two species.
This is the wonderful and informative article about an eastern cougar. Few months ago, I read somewhere that the eastern cougar is become uncommon by 1900. Finally, I came to know more about this species. Thanks for letting us know! :)
Thank you! I'm glad you learned something new about the eastern cougar in this post ;)