The Unmountain Lion

For 25 years, Connecticut residents have reported seeing mountain lions. Out of hundreds of sightings, only one time could they prove it actually was one.

That happened in the middle of the night on June 11, when a car hit and killed a large, healthy-looking mountain lion that was trying to run across the Wilbur Cross Parkway near Exit 55 in Milford.

The eastern cougar that once roamed the state has been declared extinct by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The closest known groupings of related species of cougars are in Missouri, South Dakota, and southern Florida. So what is it that people in Connecticut are seeing?

“We recognize that many people have seen cougars in the wild within the historical range of the eastern cougar,” said the Service’s Northeast Region Chief of Endangered Species Martin Miller in a press release issued in March that officially announced the eastern cougar to be extinct. “However, we believe those cougars are not the eastern cougar subspecies. We found no information to support the existence of the eastern cougar.”

Obviously, people are seeing something but it's hard to determine what that is. Large wild animals don't typically stand still for a photo op. and no one has located any really good tracks or scat.

Like sightings of Bigfoot, it's a mystery that has yet to be solved. Reports of sightings are consistent, at least, and slightly more frequent and believable than those of Sasquatch. Just over a week ago, Waterford’s animal control officer, Robert Yuchniuk, received a report of a mountain lion spotted by “a credible person.”

A Connecticut website, http://ctmountainlion.org/, posts more claims of sightings. In recent weeks people reported they saw the big cats passing through Scotland, Salem, Willimantic, Cromwell, Glastonbury, and other towns.

 “I won’t tell you they did not see one,” said Rick Jacobson, director of the wildlife division of the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP). “I’ll tell you that the probability is small but that it’s possible that they saw one.”

Jacobson said that when he talks to people about what they saw, asking about coloration, size, and weight, “frequently over the course of the conversations, the callers come to their own conclusions that what they saw was probably something else.”

Jacobson said there is no way to know if all the other claims of sightings are true. Besides the cougar killed in June on the Wilbur Cross Highway, no evidence has emerged to prove what species the other animals sighted were.

DEEP officials believe that the dead mountain lion was the same one spotted earlier that week in Greenwich. Officials said it probably escaped from captivity, or was perhaps released from someone in the exotic pet trade who bought the animal. New York officials told Connecticut that all legally-held mountain lions there were accounted for, according to Jacobson. Personal possession of wild cats in Connecticut is against the law but it’s legal in New York. Of course, the cougar could have been bought illegally.

 “Try Googling mountain lions for sale,” Jacobson said. “You get a lot of hits.”

A primer: Was it a mountain lion or a bobcat?

It seems cruel for exotic animal breeders to raise such a large, mobile, solitary creature as a mountain lion in Connecticut’s road-ridden landscape. Even so, letting one free can’t be foremost on their minds.

Let’s assume, then, for the purposes of this primer, that mountain lions are living here in the backwoods and fields. If they are--and knowing that they are most active at dusk or dawn--it would help if people could hone their skills when it comes to identifying a large mammal in poor light.

History:

These animals are considered to be extinct in Connecticut so, at best, they would be extremely rare. Northeastern mountain lions, also called cougars, panthers, catamounts, and a few dozen other nicknames, left with the last glaciers. They returned as migrants from southern climes. Most of the mountain lions that exist in North America are of a similar genetic pool unless imported. (Officials are testing the stomach contents of the dead Connecticut cougar to try to figure out if the food is from animals that did not come from North America. That's one way to determine whether the animal was imported illegally from another country.)

The most likely animal you could mistake for a mountain lion, I'd suggest, might be a coyote (which is a similar color and size) or a fast-moving bobcat at dusk.

Size and weight:

Mountain lions are big: 80 to 180 pounds, 2 to 3 feet high at the shoulders, and 6 to 8 feet long from nose to tail tip. Coyotes are closer in size to mountain lions than bobcats, but they're not as large as the big cat. Bobcats are much smaller, weighing up to 40 pounds, and are about 3 feet long--but their heads are very catlike.

Color:

The mountain lion is uniformly tan except for a black tip on its long tail and some black on its ears. Coyotes are very similar in color, although their coat is much shaggier. Bobcats are reddish brown, sometimes have faint spots, have tails with rings and—yes—black tips. Mountain lion kittens could be mistaken for bobcats: they have camouflaging spots and rings around their tails.

At dusk doesn’t everything look brown?

Speed:

Mountain lions can run 50 miles per hour and will travel far in one day. They are always moving, and solitary. For hunting purposes, coyotes tend to move about in packs but they're pretty fast, with a top speed of about 40 miles per hour. Bobcats aren’t as fast but will travel several miles in a day looking for food.

Food:

Mountain lions eat mammals and will take out a weak deer and cover up the carcass to provide a meal for days. Coyotes are omnivores and will eat what they can get, including deer. Bobcats go for smaller animals, such as woodchucks and squirrels, but have been known to eat deer.           

More information

For Connecticut DEP fact sheets on mammals (which does not include mountain lions, by the way,) click here.

For information on mountain lions click here.