Despite their extirpation from the east, there are hundreds of reports each year to state and federal wildlife agencies of cougar and black panther sightings. The U. Fish and Wildlife Service says that most sightings turn out to be bobcats, but also bears, deer, domestic cats, or dogs. Still, many people remain unconvinced and claim to have seen the species dash across the road at night and even to have had face-to-face encounters.
A curious cougar checks out a camera trap in Peperpot Nature Park, Suriname. In , a male cougar was indeed killed by a vehicle in Connecticut.
However, it is important to note the difference between an established population and dispersing individuals. Dispersing individuals are males looking for new terrirories, and in the case of large carnvirores, can sometimes travel extremely long distances. These sightings alone are not enough to conclude that there is a population of cougars in the eastern United States. An established population must include males, females, and their offspring, and there has been no concrete evidence camera trap or handheld camera photos to demonstrate that a population exists in our state.
Cougars are tan or slightly yellow in color, large, and have a long tail. Adults can reach a length of 5 feet 1. Males are heavier than females, at between and pounds 52 and 99 kilograms , while females grow from 65 to pounds 29 to 63 kilograms.
As with many predators, however, a cougar may attack if cornered, or a fleeing human stimulates a cougar's instinct to chase or a person "plays dead" and seems like a target. In case of an attack, intense eye contact, loud but calm shouting, and any other action that might make a human appear larger and more menacing than they are likely will make the animal retreat.
Fighting back with sticks and rocks, or even bare hands, also can be effective when it comes to disengaging an attacking cougar. When cougars do attack, they usually employ their characteristic neck bite. That means they attempt to position their teeth between the vertebrae and into the spinal cord, sometimes resulting in fatal neck, head and spinal injuries. Children are at greatest risk of attack, as well as the least likely to survive an encounter.
The cougar is a carnivore, which means it requires meat in its diet, but it will eat any animal it can catch, from insects to large hoofed mammals. Its primary prey are various deer species — including mule and white-tailed deer, elk and even moose — while other food bases can include bighorn sheep, horses and domestic livestock like cattle and sheep.
Oh, and they'll go after other predators, too, to reduce competition and feed themselves to boot. The cougar is capable of breaking the neck of some of its smaller prey with a strong bite, and then with momentum, bearing the animal to the ground. Kills are generally estimated at around one large mammal every two weeks, while females raising their young may kill every three days.
The cat commonly drags a kill to a preferred spot, covers it with brush and returns to feed over several days.
Today, the panther is presently restricted to less than five percent of its historic range in a single breeding population in southern Florida. The panther population size within the occupied breeding range south of Caloosahatchee River has increased from approximately 20 in the early s to an upper bound of approximately adult and subadult panthers in These population numbers do not represent a complete or true population estimate and do not included newborn kittens or older kittens that are traveling with their dams.
However, the panther continues to face numerous threats due to an increasing human population and development in panther habitat that negatively impacts recovery. More than a century ago, natural genetic exchange occurred between the Florida panther and other contiguous populations of Puma concolor. This exchange, known as gene flow, occurred as individuals dispersed among populations and bred. Gene flow helped maintain a genetic variation and a healthy population of Florida panthers by reducing the probability of inbreeding.
However, beginning with early European colonization and continuing through the 19th Century, the panther population began to decline and became geographically isolated from other puma populations, eliminating gene flow. The combination of a lack of gene flow and the small isolated nature of the population resulted in increased levels of inbreeding in panthers that subsequently had a negative impact on genetic variation, survival rates, and overall fitness of individuals.
Between and , biologists convened three workshops to discuss the genetic health of the Florida panther population. Experts in the fields of genetics, conservation biology, captive breeding, and panther biology participated.
Scientists concluded that some means of restoring a level of gene flow to the population was critical to improving the genetic health of the panther and its long-term prospect for recovery. A genetic restoration plan was implemented in with the release of eight female pumas from Texas into Florida panther habitat in southern Florida. Texas pumas P. Five of the eight Texas pumas produced a total of at least 20 kittens. Marbled Murrelet.
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