Monday 23 January 2012

Extinct? Cougar sightings on the rise in eastern United States

A recent increase in sightings of cougars may force wildlife officials to rethink the notion that they're extinct.

A year ago the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared that the big cat no longer existed in eastern states. But earlier this month a journalist at the Recorder newspaper in Greenfield, Massachusetts, reported cougar sightings on a farm near the Vermont border, by an Amtrak engineer.

Sports editor and blogger Gary Sanderson told msnbc.com that he began writing about cougars, also known as mountain lions, when he went hunting with a trapper who found footprints too big to belong to a bobcat in Conway ibn rural Massachusetts.

He added that he was told by wildlife officials that he was irresponsible to promote the notion of their presence.
In the past week local media in Connecticut have reported on the increase in sightings in that state.

Last June a cougar, which was spotted in Greenwich just 70 miles from New York City, was killed by a car in nearly Milford six days later. 


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