Cougar Travels from South Dakota to Connecticut from Wildlife
Promise A wild cougar that was born in South Dakota recently
walked all the way to Connecticut, a journey of over 1,500
miles. Cougars were extirpated from Connecticut many decades
ago, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently declared
the eastern cougar subspecies that once lived there officially
extinct throughout its range in the East. This particular South
Dakotan cougar met a sad ending after its long journey when it
was struck by a car and killed. Despite these facts, the story
still has a silver lining. It demonstrates that if the habitat
exists, given enough time certain wildlife species might just be
able to recolonize areas where they have been wiped out by human
activity. Who knows how many more western cougars are moving
eastward in search of new territory? There’s plenty of prey in
the form of white-tailed deer, which have become overabundant in
many eastern states due to the lack of their primary predators:
namely wolves and co