The majestic large cats historically roamed every state of the US east of the Mississippi River. However, not everyone agrees that these cats from eastern North America are extinct.
Eastern Puma Officially Declared Extinct, Taken Off Endangered Species List Conservationists Urge States Like New York to Consider Reintroductions WASHINGTON— The U.S.
The Eastern puma’s plight has been ongoing for over a century, and by 1900 they had all but vanished due to systematic hunting and trapping. Eastern puma US Fish & Wildlife Service
For this reason it is present in almost all pre-Columbian cultures, assigning each of them one or more names.
The subspecies was officially declared extinct by the U.S. The eastern cougar is not extinct, it never existed–here is a mountain lion from the west, which genetics confirm is as much an eastern cougar as those cats that historically roamed New England. Now the U.S.
In fact, Mark Elbroch, the lead scientist for the puma program at the big cats conservation group Panthera, said the cats have been ‘long extinct’. The last time there was a confirmed sighting of an Eastern cougar was 80 years ago. The Eastern Cougar, also known as the eastern puma, was a large feline that has officially been pronounced extinct by the authorities. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2018, though it was likely extinct for years before.
The Eastern Puma has been officially declared extinct.
Fish and Wildlife Service today confirmed the eastern puma is extinct and removed it from the federal endangered species list.
The puma concolor couguar (or eastern puma) was a subgenus of the puma concolor, which was once the most widely distributed mammal in the entire American continent, inhabiting from the Yukon in Canada to the South American Patagonia.