This is your chance, those of you out there who have seen a mountain lion. Somebody in authority is ready to listen.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is seeking information, both scientific and anecdotal, about the existence of mountain lions in 21 Eastern states.

"This is not something we are doing because all of a sudden there has been an increased number of sightings," said Diane Weaver, a public information officer for the agency. "We are required to prepare an update every five years on the status of every animal listed as endangered."

The Eastern cougar, also referred to by the common names of puma, mountain lion and even panther, painter and catamount, is just that, listed as endangered.

The FWS declared the Eastern cougar endangered in 1973.

"We know people see cougars in the Eastern states," said Mark McCollough, the federal wildlife biologist in charge of the project.

A certain portion of the reports come from observers who are mistaken and have actually seen something else, such as a bobcat, according to McCollough, though some reports are accurate, he said.

"There are three possible explanations," he said. "The most improbable one is that a remnant population of Eastern cougars has survived and reproduced. The second is that Western cougars have expanded eastward. And the third, and the most likely, is that they have seen a released or escaped pet."

It could be, though, that a cougar is a cougar is a cougar.

McCollough said that North American cougars of any ilk do not show distinct genetic differences, making it at least very difficult to determine whether any cougars eventually discovered in the East are actually Eastern cougars in the scientific sense.

The taxonomic description of the Eastern cougar is more than half a century old and was based upon just eight specimens from three Mid-Atlantic states. "It came at a time when taxonomists were eager to split subspecies out and there was a certain amount of recognition that came to the person doing it," McCollough said.

McCollough is seeking any hard-core information that is available from state natural resources agencies.

"The only thing they need to know from us is that there are no breeding populations of cougars in West Virginia," said Rich Rogers, the furbearer biologist for that state's Division of Natural Resources.

That doesn't mean Rogers, based in Romney, doesn't hear often from the public about mountain lions.

"I lived in Wyoming where there is a breeding population of cougars and I get more reported sightings here in West Virginia than I did there," he said.

Rogers said people are often mistaken about what they have seen.

"Police know that eyewitnesses to a crime often are not able to pick the right person out of a lineup, even to the point where they identify a person with the wrong skin color," Rogers said.

A few years ago, DNR personnel responded to the sighting of a large black feline in Berkeley County. Rogers said the DNR eventually recovered a black jaguar type of cat that had escaped from captivity. "We have a couple of collectors of big cats in that county," Rogers said. "Our agency has no authority over them."

Rogers said people often misidentify cat tracks, thinking a bobcat or housecat track is that of a cougar. "A mountain lion track is huge, 6 inches across or even bigger if it is splayed out in mud," he said.

"People want to believe we have cougars. They think it would be cool to have cougars, but if we had a breeding population they might not like it very much in another 10 years," Rogers said.

Biologists everywhere agree that photographs or videos of potential cougars are made more credible when something appears in the image to establish size.

That's what makes the Rev. George Loar's 1996 video of a large black cat so believable.

Loar filmed the cat first through the window of his home near Midlothian not far from Frostburg and then moved outside to continue documenting the animal. A viewer of the film could easily go to the location in the field to determine the height of the grass and thus the animal's dimensions as well.

"Most of the confirmed cougar records since 1950 - such as animals killed, good-quality photos and videos, and genetic evidence - are known to be escapes of captive origin. There may be thousands of captive cougars in the Eastern United States," McCollough said.

McCollough said that it is certainly possible that cougars that escape from captivity in the Eastern states can adapt to a life in the wilds and begin catching and eating prey. "Housecats do it," he said.

John Lutz began the Eastern Puma Research Network in 1965 in Baltimore and continues to head the effort from his home in Maysville, W.Va. See www.easternpumaresearch.com.

"There have been a lot of sightings recently in Western Maryland," Lutz said. "The Flintstone area, Black Valley Road and Chaneysville, Pa., makes up a hot spot."

Lutz said his group is involved in a project on various private lands in this tri-state area in which cougar urine is placed on trees that the big cats like to scratch to establish territories. Then barbed wire or Velcro is put on the trees to snag the animals' belly hairs, which will be tested for DNA to determine if the animals are of South American, Central American or North American origin.

The Maryland wildlife agency recently used a somewhat similar hair-collection method to estimate the state's bear population.

Glenn Theres, who keeps track of all things cougar for the Maryland agency, said he will report to FWS what has been reported to him.

"We get calls about sightings from all over the state, even the Baltimore suburbs and the Eastern Shore. Rande Brown (wildlife technician) has put out trail cameras in places in Allegany County where we have found evidence of cats and we've gotten some nice pictures of bobcats," Therres said. "We have never been able to confirm a cougar sighting in Maryland, though we investigate if there is reasonable evidence."

Therres said the nearest known cougar population is that of the Florida black panther in the Sunshine State. "There are fewer than 100 of those and every year there are four to seven road kills. You'd think if we had cougars in Western Maryland that one of them might get hit on I-68 like the bears do, but that's never happened."

"We anticipate receiving a lot of comment by March 30," Weaver said. "The cougar is a charismatic species."

Michael A. Sawyers can be reached at msawyers@times-news.com.



You have until March 30 to contact the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with your information by sending an e-mail to EasternCougar@fws.gov or mail to Eastern Cougar, Northeast Regional Office, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 300 Westgate Center Drive, Hadley, MA 01035.

* For information about the Eastern cougar, see www.fws.gov/northeast/ECougar and for information about the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's endangered species program see www.fws.gov/endangered.

* Early settlers of the East systematically shot, trapped and poisoned cougars because the big cats competed with settlers for large game animals and occasionally killed livestock.

* Cougars usually do not chase deer, but stalk and ambush. A cougar may leap as far as 20 feet onto a deer's back and can kill an animal with one bite to the neck. One cougar consumes a deer every week to 10 days.

* Cougars are mostly lone animals, except for mothers raising cubs and during mating.

* Most reports of cougar sightings in recent years have come from the Great Smoky Mountains, the Allegheny Mountains of West Virginia, the Adirondacks, Maine or eastern Canada.

Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service