In the latter category is the male mountain lion that made its way from its birthplace in South Dakota all the way to Connecticut, where it was killed on a highway in June 2011. The few actual records of mountain lions are either of animals released or escaped from captivity, or else animals dispersing from the West. Unfortunately, over 90 percent of alleged sightings proved to be of other types of animals, including bobcats, deer, bears, and even domestic cats and dogs. Then came an increase of press coverage, writers’ assertions, and “sighting reports were accepted without verification.” These led to the placement, in 1973, of the eastern cougar on the endangered species list, “despite a lack of empirical evidence showing that populations existed at that time.” ( 4) There were very few reports of eastern mountain lions from the late 19 th century to the 1950s. Suspicious Sightings and Official (Un)Recognition The last mountain lion in Massachusetts was killed around 1858, and the last records in all of the Northeast are from New Brunswick in 1932 and Maine in 1938. Fish and Wildlife Service notes that “a t one time, they lived in every Eastern state in a variety of habitats including coastal marshes, mountains and forests.” ( 3 )īut like most large animals of Eastern North America, a combination of hunting and habitat destruction soon drove them out of their former range. That they were in fact present is without question, for the U.S. I will not say that I ever saw any my selfe, but some affirme that they have scene a Lyon at Cape Anne, which is not above six leagus from Boston : some likewise being lost in woods, have heard such terrible roarings, as have made them much agast which must either be Devills or Lyons there being no other creatures which use to roare saving Beares, which have not such a terrible kinde of roaring : besides, Plimo u th men have traded for Lyons skinnes in former times.

Even William Wood, in his 1634 New Englands Prospect, had only this to say of mountain lions in eastern Massachusetts: Populations and subspecies of mountain lions once ranged across the length and breadth of both American continents, and th e creature was indeed “ the most wide-ranging species of mammal in the western hemisphere.” (1) They were thus app r opriately known by a variety of names, including cougars, catamounts, pumas, and (especially in Florida) panthers.īut f rom the moment Europeans set foot on North America, the presence of mountain lions in Massachusetts has rarely risen above the level of rumor. 'Walking puma' by Tambako the Jaguar, CC BY-ND 2.0. Cougars in Audubon's The quadrupeds of North America.

Heart of a lion by william stolzenburg