Dr. Mark Elbroch

I mean, a remarkable journey that was documented with not just photographic evidence of people who had cameras in their backyards,

but also genetic evidence that was gathered by different state wildlife agencies and then later compared with each other and goes, oh my goodness, it's the same one that died in Connecticut in 2011.

So it was an amazing story, and it just shows that it is possible.

So I like to say that to folks, that it is possible that they really did see a mountain lion in Vermont.

It's just...

Highly unlikely.

There are no established breeding populations in New England, no.

I wish that were true, too.

Great question and an easy answer.

So I'll just start by saying the mountain lions are generalists, meaning that they inhabit every kind of forest and almost every kind of habitat available in North America.

And so is there habitat in New England?

Absolutely.

And is there food for mountain lions in New England?

Well, their most common prey in the West are deer, elk, beavers, porcupines, and raccoons.

Other than elk, we have all of those things in New England.

Yeah, so highways...

are a big issue for mountain lions in the sense that generally mountain lions don't make home ranges that overlap a highway.

So they don't split one side, you know, spend half their time on one side, half their time on the other.

And so we generally see large highways that have heavy traffic loads.

They're not always a barrier to movement because young mountain lions, which we call dispersers or transients, the ones that are looking for territory,