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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hi, I'm Jane Lindholm, and you're listening to Science Friday. I'm filling in today for Flora and Ira. Big cats used to roam across the entire United States. You might know them as mountain lions, pumas, cougars, or catamounts. They have many different names, but they're actually all the same species. Their current U.S.
population is mostly confined to western states and a small population in Florida, though in recent years they've been spotted east of the Mississippi River. Most mountain lions were gone from the northeast by the 1800s, with the last verified accounts in the 1930s.
My next guest is a mountain lion conservationist hoping to reintroduce these wildcats back to their previous habitats in New England.
Chapter 2: What historical context surrounds mountain lions in the Northeast?
But should we? Dr. Mark Elbrock is the director of the PUMA program at Panthera, a big cat conservation and advocacy organization. Mark, thank you so much for joining me.
Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for having me on the show.
Let's just jump right in. Why would people want to bring mountain lions back to the Northeast?
Ooh. That's a great question. I think one is that sort of reintroducing species that were previously part of ecosystems in the East is quite honestly a core American value. You know, it's been part of American culture, at least our conservation culture, for more than 100 years. We have reintroduced hundreds of species. People don't even realize it.
Like the black bears, white-tailed deer, river otters, beavers. All of these things were rare at one point in New England or absent in parts of New England and were successfully brought back through reintroduction efforts and protections.
And so I think it's fair to say that, you know, it is a core value of American people to say we did something wrong and we want to right that wrong and bring back and rebuild the ecosystems which we changed.
Beyond wanting to maybe repair something that humans could say we were the ones who damaged, is our ecosystem missing anything without mountain lions?
Yeah. So, I mean, large carnivores contribute all sorts of things to ecosystems. And one is that they bolster the ecological health and resilience of an ecosystem, meaning that they are better armed with the sort of internal mechanisms needed to protect themselves after a fire, a wildlife disease outbreak, a timber harvest.
And the ecosystems can recover from those events more quickly when they have systems that are more complex. And large carnivores add to that complexity. And then the other is that they make animals afraid. And As strange as that sounds, it's a really important thing. And so, for instance, their primary prey, which in New England would be deer, would be pooping in different places.
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Chapter 3: What are the reasons for wanting to reintroduce mountain lions?
Highly unlikely.
Yes. And no established breeding populations.
There are no established breeding populations in New England, no. I wish that were true, too.
Well, let's talk about what it would take to bring back breeding populations in New England. Do we have the right ecosystem now or are there further steps that would need to be taken before mountain lions could successfully survive here?
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.
What about forest fragmentation? Not a huge deal in Vermont, but in some of the New England and northeastern states, a lot more highways that could cause problems for moving mountain lions.
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, They will cross these highways, even with heavy traffic loads. And that's what ensures the genetic health of all mountain lions scattered across an area with highways in it.
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Chapter 4: How do mountain lions contribute to ecological health?
And it's just not conducive to embracing and reintroducing large carnivores. But I do think it's important to emphasize that all of these state agencies are strapped for cash. They all have the list of things they'd like to do, and they all have a budget that doesn't meet those desires.
And so when an outside group comes in and says, hey, we'd love you to do reintroduction of mountain lions, it isn't even on their radar. Of course, the response is like, my goodness, we can't even keep up with our current priorities. And if we were given money, would this be one of our top priorities?
Do you think it's actually going to happen? Are we going to see wild mountain lions in the Northeast in your lifetime?
I believe it's possible.
That's not very affirmative.
No.
I'm not the decision maker. You know, if it were up to me, I'd say absolutely. All we need is that political champion who says, let's do this. I want part of my legacy to be rebuilding the health of these local ecosystems that we can, as a community of people, embrace that reintroduction as well and be proud of it.
Well, Mark, thank you very much for sharing your enthusiasm for these wildcats with us and your expertise. I appreciate it.
Sure. My pleasure.
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