Proceedings of the Seventh Mountain Lion Workshop

close range, came upon the gripping scene
of what he described as a puma mortally
ravaging a bobcat (Tischendorf 1994a). A
sampling of other data from Maine on file at
the American Ecological Research Institute
(AERIE) includes a hair sample
confirmation from 1995, a track photograph
from the mid-1990s, and a credible 2000
report of what was thought to be a female
puma and kitten. This author has also seen
puma track photos taken by biologist George
Matula of the Maine Department of Inland
Fisheries and Wildlife at a deer yard during
routine winter surveys circa 1984 or 1985.
Credible New York puma reports on file
with AERIE include the killing of a puma
kitten by a bobcat hunter in the early 1990s
and three believable sightings of individual
pumas by professional natural resource
workers. All of these events stem from the
vast Adirondack Park area and occurred
during the 1990s.
Other areas of the Northeast are not
without their own intriguing data. In 1994,
for instance, a group of 3 pumas was
observed and tracked near the community of
Craftsbury, Vermont (Theodore Reed,
Friends of the Eastern Panther, personal
communication). Presumably an adult
female with 2 kittens, a scat deposited by the
group was collected; subsequent analysis
confirmed presence of puma hairs (Bonnie
Yates, USFWS Wildlife Forensic
Laboratory, personal communication). A
hair sample from the remote and
untrammeled Gaspe’ Peninsula in northern
Quebec was also recently confirmed as that
of a puma by Marc Gauthier and his
Canadian research team (Mark Dowling,
Eastern Cougar Network, personal
communication).
Evidence of Breeding and Validity of
Sighting Reports
The questions of confirmed puma
breeding and actual puma numbers are
problematic. In the absence of systematic,
PROCEEDINGS OF THE SEVENTH MOUNTAIN LION WORKSHOP
CRYPTIC COUGARS · Tischendorf 77
scientifically objective, replicable, and
typically expensive multi-year studies, such
as those involving mark and recapture
techniques or radio telemetry, it is difficult
to extrapolate population-level
characteristics of any animal. And, as
several speakers at this conference have
noted, even with robust, million dollar
studies, it is difficult to quantify puma
populations. Even more difficult and more
expensive is monitoring a puma population
over substantial periods of time. What does
this bode for eastern and midwestern
resource agencies trying to decode the issue
of cryptic cats that many seem to report but
few can verify?
Complicating the issue is the fact that
agencies and their human constituency east
of the Rocky Mountains have limited
exposure to large carnivores and their
management. In this geographic area there
truly is a different mindset and comfort level
towards research and management involving
these animals, especially those capable of
attacking and killing people. In the Black
Hills of South Dakota, for instance, radiotracking
of a young male puma in the early
1990s was discontinued after only a short
time due to concerns over liability if the
animal were implicated in damage to a
human or to human property (Tischendorf
and Henderson 1994).
Again due to concerns over liability,
Missouri officials are reluctant to approve
any studies involving handling or marking
of black bears, which are apparently
repopulating the Show-Me-State (Lynn
Robbins, Southwest Missouri State
University, personal communication).
Confounding the matter further are the
controversial predatory and wide-ranging
characteristics of the animal and local
uncertainty regarding its actual status as an
endangered species versus a FERC. Not
surprisingly then, in the case of the puma in
the East, Midwest, or prairies where it is