Where, oh where, has the Eastern Mountain Lion gone?

This is interesting:

Eastern Mountain Lions May Be Extinct, but Locals Still See Them

Officials ponder changing cat’s status, causing roar of protest; sighting a ‘U.F.O.’

My first reaction was one of confusion: why wouldn’t mountain lions move east? The coyotes did, after all. The Northeast would be fertile territory, thanks to all the goram forest rats – excuse me: ‘deer’ – running around. All they’d have to do is walk.

Which makes it weird that the government isn’t finding any.  Either there aren’t any mountain lions east of the Mississippi any more, or else the feds would find it convenient to declare them extinct and not have to try to track them anymore. Assuming the latter… I could live with that, actually. A government conspiracy to not have to stick its nose into things would be so amazingly sui generis that I’m legitimately reluctant to poke at it. I mean, what’s my victory condition, here*?

Via

Moe Lane

*My wife says “Rule of law.” She has this habit of reminding me of stuff like that. Still, I don’t think that benign neglect would actually harm any hypothetical Eastern Mountain Lions out there…

10 thoughts on “Where, oh where, has the Eastern Mountain Lion gone?”

  1. Deer = moderately tasty meat. And I have to wonder about the possibilities of moving some of our mountain lions over to your neck of the woods. Weren’t some environmental activists reportedly moving endangered plant species, to make land use problems for people and groups they hated?

  2. If a government employee can’t see it from the driver’s seat of his government vehicle, as far as the government is concerned, it doesn’t exist.*
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    *Certain overzealous revenue agents and game wardens excepted.
    .
    We had wolves in Idaho before Clinton forced their “reintroduction”. But because they didn’t officially exist, they weren’t much of a problem. People managed them on an ad hoc basis, the wolves kept their fear of man, and it all worked out.
    Now, they exist, and are aggressively protected by the authorities. They’re running amok. Elk and deer harvests are 1/10th of what they used to be, while ranchers and shepherded are victimized.
    And of course, anyone looking to protect their livelihood our way of life by joining the “shoot, shovel, and shut up club” is going to get a ticket to the federal pen, as the wolves are monitored and the killing of a wolf is prosecuted more aggressively than anything so minor as the murder of a citizen.
    .
    We’re thick with cougars here, and I’ve spent a good chunk of my life out on the range.
    I’ve seen one.
    I would be shocked if the sightings by all the BLM agents within 40 miles of me combined was that high.
    If you’re going to track one down, you’re going to need a pack of dogs trained for the purpose, and time. Each one has a range of about 20 square miles. And it’s not like out here, where limited water sources give you good starting spots.

    1. They’re here, and I rather doubt that they are in any danger of extinction. Settled as the east is, there are still plenty of pockets of deep, dark woods, and cougars are adaptable and sneaky as a …cat, if you believe that. 😉

      1. Yep, just wait until they specialize a bit for the environment .. the smaller ones with darker coloring will be selected by the nature of the surroundings…
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        Mew
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        p.s. There’s a coyote pack with O’Hare Airport as the center of their range .. nature adapts to us pretty well, I’d say.

        1. Parts of nature adapts to us pretty well. Those parts thrive. The parts that don’t adapt, either have lost population numbers, or are extinct, or live in extremely remote areas.

          1. In a million or ten years (if not sooner) nature will adapt to the absence of himanitu with alacrity. We’re at MOST a blip on natures radar…

          2. Himanitu? Bahahahahaha, you really need an edit feature… except that I never would have noticed if I hadn’t come back to read the other comments! Alcohol may have been involved… :/

          3. Parts of nature adapt to every disruption pretty well .. other parts don’t.
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            When you see humans as “just another disruptive force”, not noticeably different from, say, Krakatoa, the Tunguska event, the last big shift of the Cascadia subduction fault .. things get clearer.
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            At least, this cat thinks they’re clearer.
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            Mew

        2. About thirty years ago I took the train from Dearborn, MI to Chicago to see a buddy over the Christmas break from MSU. Pulling into the Chicago downtown station I was impressed by the number of pheasants walking around the trainyard and *active* tracks.

          Nature adapts real well – see said ‘forest rats’ as an example.

  3. A fed agency wants to relinquish one of its bases of power and control so that its work becomes easier?

    No way.

    Pretend it’s Obama pulling this. There are wheels within wheels within wheels hidden here somewhere.

    Somehow, declaring them extinct is going to empower someone high up in the fedgov. Count on it.

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