Sunday, February 6, 2011

Mountain Lion in Suburban St. Louis

At 2:30 AM, January 12, deep in the heart of the suburbs, a camera clicked. Triggered by heat and motion, the infrared flash fired taking 2 digital photos per second. Seeing the images must have been a shock. Here in St. Louis County, the most populated county in Missouri, a mountain lion had stepped within 10 feet of  the camera, leaving several glamour shots to tell the tale. 
Courtesy of Missouri Dept. of Conservation
This is the third confirmed report in the state since November 2010! The other two were in rural counties on the western edge of the state. Both border on the Missouri River. Garrett Jensen's camera trap is only about 2 miles from the Missouri R., but 200 miles or so east of the other sightings. The last confirmed sighting of a cougar in St. Louis County was in 1994. As I recall, that sighting was about 15 miles south and a bit west of this one, in an area much less developed. This sighting is in the high rent district: lovely homes, treated lawns, and fragments of good habitat here and there. 

Mountain lions, sometimes called cougars, prefer areas that offer plenty of deer and few humans. St. Louis County certainly has deer--too many for some homeowners. Hunting deer by humans with firearms is not a good idea in the suburbs, so deer populations are quite dense in some neighborhoods. According to The Wild Mammals of Missouri, by Charles and Elizabeth Schwartz, an adult cougar requires about 35 deer per year. In spite of the abundance of deer, the suburbs have too many hazards and too little cover for a large carnivore. The Missouri Department of Conservation's Jeff Beringer states, "To date, we have no evidence to suggest that a breeding population of mountain lions exists in Missouri." They believe that these animals are young males, dispersing from self-sustained populations in the Rocky Mountains--northern Nebraska and South Dakota being the closest.

Wild Mammals of Missouri, 2nd rev. ed., 2001, shows a map of the distribution of mountain lions that includes most of the southern half of Texas, almost all of Louisiana, and most of Arkansas, touching the Missouri border at Taney and Ozark counties. Comparing with other sources, this map seems outdated or overly optimistic. Mammals of North America, by Bowers, Bowers, and Kaufman, 2004, shows a very different range, including only the states of the far west, the Rio Grand Valley in Texas, and a tiny area of south Florida. The Florida panther, as that subspecies is called, has suffered from genetic problems brought on by its isolation from other populations. The Cougar Network, an organization interested in the sightings of mountain lions in their former range, has a detailed map showing established populations and confirmed sightings. Their map is similar to the one in the Kaufman guide.


I remember reading that Big Bend National Park in south Texas had no bears when the land was first made a national park. Later, bears dispersing from Mexico repopulated the park. Could the same thing happen with mountain lions following corridors of habitat outward from the Rocky Mountains? Do we value these beautiful animals enough to tolerate their presence?

9 comments:

  1. That's amazing! I clicked through to the map on the Cougar Network site, and I'm a little surprised that there are no cougar populations in the "north woods" areas of the country (ie northern Wisconsin, UP Michigan, Minnesota) - surely if it's wild enough there to support wolves, it could support cougars as well.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is a really interesting observation. Although the Cougar Network map shows come confirmed sightings in the upper Midwest, it's puzzling that there is no self-sustaining population. The only theory I can think of is that wolves are well established in Canada and may have come south through deep woods to Minn. and the Upper Peninsula of MI, but there's no bridge to the Rocky Mt. cougar strongholds.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Good point. They'd have to be reintroduced, and that would never fly with the general public there, I'm sure.

    ReplyDelete
  4. We have them in Oregon, and once in a while they're spotted near the urban area. Usually the cougar is "removed" pretty quickly after that. I've still never seen one in the wild, though I suspect they've seen me...

    ReplyDelete
  5. @Rebecca: It would be a hard sell. The Missouri Dept. of Conservation has been very careful to remind the public that they have no plans to reintroduce cougars.

    @Mike: That's something I hadn't considered, but you're right!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Mountain lion sightings like this always leave me with very mixed emotions. On the one hand, it is inspiring to know these big cats exist and are even expanding their population. On the other hand, common sense warns that in most cases such expansion cannot have a happy ending.

    Unofficial cougar "sightings" are fairly common here in the Arkansas Ozarks. Most can be quickly dismissed as "things that go bump in the night" stories, but I have no doubt that some are true if unofficial. The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission works very hard denying wild cougars actually "live" in Arkansas. AGFC's reasons for denial are purely political. If it admitted Arkansas had mountain lions, AGFC would be required to develop a management plan, hold public hearing and officially propose either protection or extermination. Opening that furball is the last thing AGFC wants. (Source) The situation in Missouri may be similar.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I've been focusing on the inspirational part of this story, but realistically, it seems likely that the cougar will end up on the wrong end of a vehicle or gun. Budgets and politics being what they are, Missouri agencies aren't any more willing to step out into a public outcry than are the agencies in Arkansas and Oklahoma. Change is incremental in any case, and a captured photo such as this one might be the start of something big. Thanks for your thought-provoking comments and the link you included Marvin!

    ReplyDelete
  8. He still is a magnificent creature. I hope and pray that he stays safe in such a populated area. But I also wish people wouldn't panic and do stupid things like shooting him, just because he's a cougar! He could actually be of great service in the area, considering the overloaded deer population, but let one little dog come up missing or have one confrontation...and the ending will be tragic. Great story Anne!

    ReplyDelete
  9. He certainly is magnificent. Mountain lions can function as an important part of the ecosystem as you describe. I'll stay in touch with this story--thanks for your comment!

    ReplyDelete