Remember when cougar sightings were common here in Delaware?
Although I have heard rumors that Delaware’s cougar sighting were likely caused by up to three ‘pet’ cougars that were released by their owner in southeastern Pennsylvania about 10 years ago, I now question if the cougars could have actually been wild!
I was following an interesting story in early June about a cougar (a.k.a. mountain lion) that was killed by a car in Milford, Connecticut. Today, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection presented genetic testing results that showed the cougar killed in Connecticut actually traveled from the Black Hills region of South Dakota.
The cougar’s movements were tracked and recorded as it progressed through Minnesota and Wisconsin, and genetic tests showed that tissue from the Connecticut cougar matched the genetic structure of the mountain lion population in the Black Hills region of South Dakota. After further DNA analysis and comparison, the United States Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service Wildlife Genetics Laboratory matched the Connecticut cougar’s DNA with DNA collected from the cougar whose movements were tracked in Minnesota and Wisconsin from late 2009 through early 2010.
According to Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Daniel C. Esty, “The journey of this mountain lion is a testament to the wonders of nature and the tenacity and adaptability of this species. This mountain lion traveled a distance of more than 1,500 miles from its original home in South Dakota – representing one of the longest movements ever recorded for a land mammal and nearly double the distance ever recorded for a dispersing mountain lion.”
Now that science has proven that cougars are capable of traveling long distances, should we reconsider if the Delaware cougars are/were wild after all? I will conduct some more research and cover this topic in The News Journal.
To read more about the traveling cougar, see http://www.ct.gov/dep/cwp/view.asp?A=4013&Q=483778. You can also view the PowerPoint presentation that was delivered on the topic.