Our friend and Biologist Rick Rosatte at the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources has just had his peer reviewed paper entitled: EVIDENCE CONFIRMS THE PRESENCE OF COUGARS(PUMA CONCOLOR) IN ONTARIO, CANADA published in Volume 125 of THE CANADIAN FIELD-NATURALIST..............Rick states without a doubt that there are free-ranging Pumas of unknown origen in Ontario...........Rick thinks that these animals are most likely escaped or released captive animals but there very well could be immigrants from Western North America as well as there being Ontario origened historical pumas admixed into the population..........Rosatte backs up his premise by having collected 21 pieces of Class 1 evidence(scat, hair, DNA, tracks, photographs) during his 1991-2010 study...........This Study was run by 89 biologists from the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ontario Puma Foundation and the Forensic Centre at Trent University...............Unlike our U.S. Fish & Wildlife folks who last year declared the Cougar extinct East of the Mississippi(despite 100 pumas alive and well in Florida), the Ontario Ministry continues to classify Pumas as endangered in the Province............From my perspective, regardless of whether they be escaped, emigrees from the West or remnant natives, as long as the Pumas roaming the landscape in Ontario are of North American origen(Puma concolor couguar), then as Mr. Spock of Star Trek would say: "LIVE LONG AND PROSPER!!!!"

click here to read Rick Rosatte's full paper entitled: EVIDENCE CONFIRMS THE PRESENCE OF COUGARS(PUMA CONCOLOR) IN ONTARIO, CANADA