Add two more confirmed sightings, confirmed by myself, but still quite accurate, here in ne Ohio in the past five years. Don't give a shit what the guvment says.
The wildlife folks dismissed sightings by farmers in Kansas for years--mistook it for a bobcat, they said. Like people who live off the land wouldn't know the difference.
(Then one showed up on the University of Kansas campus. http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2004/jan/28/cougar_sightings_cause/) But wildlife types were still saying it could have been a pet that escaped.
The old timers simply say that where you have deer you'll have cougars.
We just recently had a sighting near Williamsport, PA.
This has been going on for many, many years. Most wildlife officials are too stupid to think for themselves, so they look at the USFWS map and say "no", can't be a cougar here.
The species is rebounding.