There was a time when mountain lions ranged all across the North American continent, sheltered by nearly continuous forests, feasting on uncountable deer, antelope and smaller prey. Then the Europeans arrived, claiming farmlands from forest, becoming the dominant predator of game animals, and hunting, trapping and shooting mountain lions to protect livestock, and for sport. As a result, the cougar, once the most widely distributed land mammal in the Western Hemisphere, can now be found in only about one-third of its original range. And it was only this year, 2018, that the Eastern cougar, a distinct subspecies that once roamed all states east of the Mississippi, was declared extinct and removed from the endangered species list.
The last officially confirmed identification of an Eastern cougar occurred in 1938, but rural residents and outdoors enthusiasts in Pennsylvania and elsewhere in the eastern states have sworn over and over again to have seen, heard or tracked mountain lions. Over 10,000 such encounters have been reported since the 1960s. Most assume that these encounters were either faked, were with other species (e.g., bobcat, dog, coyote), or with western cougars trekking east, which has occasionally been documented. Some speculate that the government has reasons not to acknowledge survivors of a highly endangered species–the dilemma of either offering potentially unpopular protection to a feared predator, or being guilty of aiding its extinction.
But regardless of the causes of the reports, it is remarkable how hard it has been to suppress the romantic and persistent notion that somewhere in the remaining patches of northeastern wild, a stealthy spirit from the past continues to elude human contact and eke out its survival. This is the stuff of time-honored legends, proud local tradition, and now, a pretty entertaining musical comedy.
The Very Last One and Only Highly Endangered Mountain Lion in Pennsylvania 