Posted on 03/02/2011 6:40:18 PM PST by americanophile
ALLENTOWN, Pa. – The "ghost cat" is just that.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday declared the eastern cougar to be extinct, confirming a widely held belief among wildlife biologists that native populations of the big cat were wiped out by man a century ago.
After a lengthy review, federal officials concluded there are no breeding populations of cougars — also known as pumas, panthers, mountain lions and catamounts — in the eastern United States. Researchers believe the eastern cougar subspecies has probably been extinct since the 1930s.
Wednesday's declaration paves the way for the eastern cougar to be removed from the endangered species list, where it was placed in 1973. The agency's decision to declare the eastern cougar extinct does not affect the status of the Florida panther, another endangered wildcat.
Some hunters and outdoors enthusiasts have long insisted there's a small breeding population of eastern cougars, saying the secretive cats have simply eluded detection — hence the "ghost cat" moniker. The wildlife service said Wednesday it confirmed 108 sightings between 1900 and 2010, but that these animals either escaped or were released from captivity, or migrated from western states to the Midwest.
"The Fish and Wildlife Service fully believes that some people have seen cougars, and that was an important part of the review that we did," said Mark McCollough, an endangered species biologist who led the agency's eastern cougar study. "We went on to evaluate where these animals would be coming from."
A breeding population of eastern cougars would almost certainly have left evidence of its existence, he said. Cats would have been hit by cars or caught in traps, left tracks in the snow or turned up on any of the hundreds of thousands of trail cameras that dot Eastern forests.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
|
Too bad they're on permanent low beam.
That’s just plain out and out nasty.
There is no Florida subspecies. They are all North American cougars.
They’re liars and everyone knows it. Plenty of people have seen mountain lions in Pennsylvania and other states. But the authorities deny it because they don’t want to spend money on protecting an endangered species and because they don’t want to get farmers panicked.
I know there are! Been there done that. There are cougar in Kentucky, Missouri, and they are seen in the flat-lands of Kansas and Western Colorado. They've killed domestic cattle in all of the states mentioned here.
Strange the last set of tracks I saw was about 1988.
You know I sold her and her engineer husband a house once.
Bullshit, I have two that visit my property regularly. I am in NC.When they scream at night it will make the hairs stand up on your neck!!!!!!!
Then people showed up who could kill them at will.
We call them Neanderthals ~ smart, stocky, strong ~ knew how to use fire and make stone points.
These pre-agriculture people deprived the large predators of game and reduced their numbers handily.
Later on Cro-Magnon people, like us, came in with yet more advanced technology and began a serious program of eradication.
Now while there were undoubtedly folks who thought of the prestige of killing large predators, there were many more who thought of how many more deer there'd be if they could get rid of the large predators.
Agricultural people had even less use for the large predators.
http://www.cuddeback.com/indexb.html
There are numerous brands and models sold by Cabela's, Bass Pro, Gander Mountain, Walmart and others.
They take a neighborhood that has some fairly common animal in it. This "Fibong," say, exists in two genetically identical populations on either side of the Fuqawi river.
Well, they classify the two groups as "West Fuqawi Fibongs" and "East Fuqawi Fibongs." That way, the biologists and other bureaucrats can double their workloads with regard to this particular species.
Then, developers or farmers or whatever begin to encroach on the east side of the river. All of a sudden, now the "East Fuqawi Fibong" becomes an endangered species, allowing the pecksniffs to come down hard on the citizens and the businesses on the east side of the river.
Meanwhile, the "West River Fibong" is doing just fine.
Oops—fixing the terminology—
Meanwhile, the “West Fuqawi Fibong” is doing just fine.
Are these privately owned? Or state owned?
They will pop back up.
I think Kurt Gödel would call that a “meta-joke.”
Four legged animals aren't the only ones that shows up on Trail cams
What next? How about bears and wolves, I sure wouldn’t want them in my backyard.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.