So why is it that almost every "hunting & fishing" news reporter has a near addiction need to tell everyone that some act of god will be necessary for cougars to once again roam the Eastern half of the USA?......Below is a Massachusetts reporter staying true to the "cougar imposible in the East" party line........... The equivalent mantra of a democratic or republican candidate adhering right down the line on his/her monotonous and likely untrue "talking points".............I realize that the odds are long of both a male and female cat wandering down from the Dakotas or Great Lakes to mate up in New England............I also know it would be best if State Wildlife Agencies grew some cajones and went about restoring Cougars because it was optimum for the landscape to have this trophic carnivore "doing its thing" as a "regulator of the watershed".............But we have had one occurrence(Connecticut cat from Dakotas)take place that no one felt was possible.......I choose not to swallow the party line of "cougar imposible"..............While simultaneously also working to get the States to restore our majestic Mountain Lion as part of their rewilding programs

The brouhaha over local mountain lion reports quieted considerably, with most authorities having speculated that we're likely seeing single animals that were illegally kept and escaped or were released.

Maine bear and bobcat hunter Mark Dufresne responded to my recent column on local mountain lion sightings. He's regularly in contact with 20 bear and cat dog hunters up north. None — including Paul Laney, who has taken as many as 55 bobcats in a single year, and Nelson Cole, who is always in the big woods — has ever crossed a mountain lion track. They know as much about New England wild cats as anyone, having guided clients every possible day in any weather, including blizzards. They know they would have long ago treed lions if any had established a breeding population. For Dufresne, resident local mountain lions are wishful thinking. "You can make yourself believe anything you want," he said.

Dufresne remarked that up north, mountain lion sightings tend to come not from typical lion habitat but rather "big money areas like Cape Elizabeth that have no big pieces of forest." He believes people who can afford and are enamored with unusual pets have illegally kept and released them there.

Dufresne has considerable experience hunting mountain lions in Utah, where he's cornered many. When females have kittens, they're particularly easy to detect. He's consequently certain there's no breeding population of them in New England. For many, he speaks ex cathedra on the subject. But the latest DNA findings from Connecticut are bound to increase the volume of the controversy, if not change the mind of Dufresne and local scientists.

The mountain lion killed in June on the Wilbur Cross Parkway not far from New Haven sneaked its way here from 2,000 miles away in the Black Hills of South Dakota, passing through Minnesota and Wisconsin in 2009 and 2010. This astounding revelation surprised many skeptics, who were confident the big cats could never migrate such enormous distances across a labyrinth of human obstacles. But this single incursion appears to be a one-in-a-million lightning strike, a monumental aberration. The lion's journey and brief presence were followed for two years. The treacherous gauntlet of roads and highways soon caught this cat and would likely catch many more such vagrants if they were here in any substantial number.

How likely is it that two or more migrating mountain lions could make such an extraordinary odyssey, somehow survive, encounter each other, and begin a new population here? A lottery ticket is a surer bet.