The United States Fish and Wildlife Service has officially declared extinct the North American Eastern Cougar ( Puma concolor couguar ), one of the subspecies of mountain lion, after removing it from the Federal List of Threatened and Endangered Wildlife and correcting thus a persistent anomaly that included this species even though it has probably been extinct, according to the researchers’ data, for at least 70 years.
In 1973, the North American cougar was listed as an endangered species. In 2015, the Federal Register published a request to exclude the animal from the list, and finally on January 23, 2018 the statement was issued where it was officially declared extinct.
This peculiar feline used to roam the forests, mountains and grasslands of every US state east of the Mississippi, but has not been seen again in the last eight decades (the Florida panther, Puma concolor coryi, another subspecies of puma, is a different population and is in danger of extinction).
Although the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service opened an investigation into the status of the mountain lion in 2011, it was not until 2015 that federal wildlife biologists finally concluded that there was no evidence that a viable population of the mountain lion remained. these felines.
Experts believe that the last population of eastern cougars disappeared at the hands of hunters in the state of Maine back in 1938.
In the 80 years since the last confirmed sighting of an eastern cougar, there have been a few who claim to have seen them. But the FWS notes that these specimens likely came from zoos and private collections. This is based on the fact that there is no scientific or physical evidence to support the supposedly surviving populations.
The official declaration of the extinction of the cougar could, paradoxically, be a good thing. It means that states must now be allowed to reintroduce animals from the western population.
“We need large carnivores like cougars to keep the food web healthy, so we hope the eastern and midwestern states will reintroduce them,” says Michael Robinson, conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement. “Cougars could curb deer overpopulation and tick-borne diseases that threaten human health.”
The benefits of the cougar in the ecological system
According to a recent document detailing these benefits, cougars are good for human health in more ways than one. Not only do they reduce the excess number of animals by killing deer, but they also save lives by reducing deer-car collisions. In fact, if cougars were reintroduced into the United States, car-deer collisions would be reduced by 22%, saving many lives and preventing more than 21,000 accidents.
Reference: Press release. Long Extinct Eastern Cougar to be Removed from Endangered Species List Correcting Lingering Anomaly. Meagan Racey. US Fish and Wildlife Service 2018
