The present and future of the Eastern Cougar

Are mountain lions here in the eastern US? The answer is complicated. More critical is the question, “Should we actively bring them back?“

The infamous “black panther”

It’s interesting when new items about the same topic cluster together in time or space. Earlier this week, I was listening to an episode of Dark Outdoors podcast featuring Shadow Cats author Michael Mayes. The topic was the reports of “black panthers” in North America. This was a very rational and balanced take on the many reports of people claiming to see large black cats and what could reasonably account for the experiences.

What they can’t be is melanistic mountain lions because that is not a biological possibility, knowing what we know about the genetics of mountain lions and the fact that they have been hunted for centuries, including to extinction in the northeast U.S. Chester and Mike explained that a black coat variant is associated with cats that are patterned – leopards and jaguars – where the excess of dark pigment results in a melanistic individual. This isn’t an option for mountain lions, which are not patterned but uniformly tawny to gray with light underbellies. Give this episode a listen!

Sightings of eastern cougars

On this blog, the most vehement arguments I get in the comments is from people who insist that dowsing is real. Had I written content critical of big cat sightings in the northeast, I’m pretty sure this would result in the same outraged and insistent comments. It’s such a controversial topic! Yet, facts are facts: there is no evidence that wild mountain lions can be found in northeast states.

The example trotted out time after time is that of the young male that was killed in Connecticut in 2011. Testing showed that it was part of a population from the Black Hills of South Dakota, and that genetic testing matched samples of an animal confirmed as having been in Wisconsin and Minnesota. The animal had likely taken a northern route, through Canada, and came south, meaning it crossed at least one major river only to be done in by a car. He was an outlier and a loner.

Other cats that have been found in the east may or may not have been migrants. We don’t know. Consider the mystery of the October 2015 game camera photograph from Obion County, Tennessee that was authenticated by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. They report that there have been a handful of other sightings in western and middle Tennessee since that time. It’s unclear how many individuals account for the incidents, but it’s single digits.

Remember the Rochester lion from June of this year? That was almost certainly a captive animal that got loose in the New York town. We never got a conclusion to that mystery.

Otherwise, we don’t have photographic proof, definitive prints, or other bodies. So, it’s possible that a few intrepid males are making it this far, but there is not an established breeding population. Individuals are very rare.

Almost all the modern stories about mountain lions east of the Mississippi (north of Florida) are mistaken identifications or tall tales. (No, I don’t want to hear your stories, please. They won’t do anything to convince me.)

Should they, would they… come back?

Mountain lions were native to the eastern US until they were extirpated in the 1930s. There remains an argument regarding the “Eastern cougar” being its own subspecies. With modern genetic testing, the consensus is that the eastern cougar population was not distinct enough to be labeled a subspecies. (They are all Puma concolor, from Canada to Chile.) Therefore, an expansion of “western” animals to the east would be a repopulation. That’s the goal one organization, Mighty Earth affiliate Bring Catamounts Home, who advocate for rewilding – bringing the big cat back to the Northeastern US.

On 18 November 2025, an article in The Guardian floated the idea of introducing the mountain lion, or catamount, back into Vermont. Quoting Renee Seacor, the group’s northeastern rewilding director, Vermont is a leading contender for welcoming back the big cat. The amazing, rich forest lands of Vermont would be prime habitat, flush with deer, their main prey item. Vermonters are actively considering the proposition, with the majority of opinions being positive.

Without assistance, the animals would not be able to gain a foothold in the east in our lifetime. Here was a quote from the Guardian article that got my attention:

Reintroducing mountain lions to Vermont as a breeding population could happen naturally but it would take decades, Seacor estimated, as they migrate from the Dakotas to the Carolinas and Tennessee and up the Appalachian chain to the north-east.

Wait a second! They come from the Dakotas to the south and then up the Appalachians? That’s not right. How do they get across the Mississippi!? I messaged Bring Catamounts Home to ask about this confusing scenario, and Renee Seacor immediately got back to me. Renee confirmed that phrasing was incorrect. There is no basis for a scenario where the Carolinas and Tennessee as part of any potential recolonization route. (Always read news articles carefully. Big errors are not uncommon.)

Renee pointed me to a 2024 study in Biological Conservation journal using a model of carnivore range expansion applied to cougars. The model successfully predicted past historical recolonization. The projected model showed the most likely area to see a breeding population would be Manitoba, Canada by 2100. Natural expansion goes slowly, with the far more likely scenario that the population expands north into new areas.

The immediate issue, then, is not to worry about errant and rare individuals who may get lucky and make it all the way here. That effort would be for naught if they have no mates, and are not part of a cohort to reestablish the population. It’s going to take an intervention. But people are nervous about bringing back apex predators. Will they really take only wildlife prey and make an impact on the nuisance numbers of white-tail deer? Or will they threaten livestock, pets and children. Fear is a hard thing to overcome.

I’m not going to lie. When I’m walking around rocky woodlands in Pennsylvania, I think about what it would be like knowing there are mountain lions around. It’s freaky. But, in my mind, these are rightfully their spaces too. It’s an exciting idea.