Mountain Lions Roaring Back in the United States

After a century of being relegated to living in wilderness areas of the Western United States, the mountain lion is making a big comeback across the United States.

It's hard to keep a good cat down.

The mountain lion (Puma concolor) is the largest, and arguably the most magnificent, of the wild cats in the United States.

Males can grow to eight feet in length (half may be the long tail) and weigh well over one hundred pounds.

Their coat is typically a uniform color of brown, tan or burnt orange.

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Mountain lions, or cougars or pumas as they are also called, once roamed the entire continental United States. Their East Coast and Midwest populations were decimated in the nineteenth century to make room for western human expansion.

The eastern population was listed as an endangered species in 1973, and despite many anecdotal stories of citings in eastern states such as Pennsylvania, many experts consider the eastern population to be extinct, except for the small population of Florida Panthers.

In January 2007, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service adopted a Mark Twain approach to the eastern mountain lion, by assuming they might have been prematurely declared extinct. They announced a status review which promises to bring clarity to the status of the big cat in the east. If you've got a lion story, the USFWS wants to hear it.

Lion fans need not fear a USFWS review that confirms the absence of a breeding population of eastern mountain lions. Consider the research of the Cougar Network. They state that, "Western cougar populations have been increasing since the 1960s, largely due to increased legal protection for the cats and to the growth and expansion of prey populations." The network is also documenting current mountain lion expansion into the Midwest.

With a little determination, mountain lions will eventually find their way back east. Go Lions.

© 2007. Patricia A. Michaels