Sue Morse is our good friend in Vermont and and Director of KEEPING TRACK, the organization that she started in 1994 to help people discover, document and conserve key wildlife habitats across North America........Sue is a nationally known naturalist whose philosophy is that human infrastructure development in all its forms often unwittingly harms, isolates and eliminates habitat critical to local biodiversity and broad-scale ecological health.............. Compounding the problem, many of those responsible for protecting habitat lack the resources needed to “keep track” of the status of wildlife and habitat in their assigned areas.............. Sue started KEEPING TRACK to fulfill that need.......... Through her programs, whole communities can become engaged in monitoring potential habitats and threatened regions..............Sue recently gave an interview suggesting that the Puma may be able to recolonize her home state of Vermont on it's own without a human assisted rewilding effort...............I hope she turns out to be right about this but despite the lone Puma that crossed the Country from South Dakota into Connecticut a few years back(only to be killed by an automobile), there really is no nearby source population to easily make natural recoloniztion a likely event...............Even with a small eastern wolf population across the St. Lawrence River from Maine in Ontario, there has only been an occasional prospector making it's way into New England...........With Pumas at best at "ghost" status in eastern Canada and 100 Pumas way down south in Florida the closest reproducing population, it would seem a miracle for a male and female "cat" to somehow get into the northeast kingdom of Vermont(Vermont's wildest and least human populated sector) and start a family...........Sue has all my support on her prediction of a breeding Puma population to occur in Vermont in 2034 despite the long odds as we begin the New Year of 2015

https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://www.sfchronicle.com/news/science/article/Cougar-expert-Cats-could-return-to-Northeast-US-5989013.php&ct=ga&cd=CAEYAioTODkwOTM5ODI5MDE2ODgzMDUxMjIaNDY5MjBhOTZlZmMxMTU4ODpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AFQjCNF5crHf_aXgVhHkrxYCzC56e6bWhg

Cougar expert:

 Cats could return 

to Northeast US

WILSON RING, ASSOCIATED PRESS

January 1, 2015 Updated: January 1, 2015 8:28am

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — A Vermont animal

 tracker known nationally for her expertise in

 tracking cougars believes the big cats will

 eventually return to the Northeastern United

 States and neighboring parts of Canada, bu

t she says the region won't see large numbers

 of them anytime soonThe forests of Maine, New
 Hampshire, Vermont and upstate NYork have

 ideal cougar habitat, meaning plentiful

 forest cover and large animals to sustain

 a cougar population, said Sue Morse of 

Jericho, the science director and founder 

of the organization Keeping Track.

"Back in the '80s, I just looked at that

 huge expanse of country between the

 Rockies, the western slope of the 

Rockies and here, and I thought

 to myself 'how can this happen?'" said Morse.

Since then, scientists have tracked the

 animals moving out of South Dakota

 into Midwestern states. Cougars also 

are moving north into Manitoba, the 

Canadian province to the west of Ontario,

 which Morse considers their most likely

 route back to the Northeast.

"We need our apex carnivores in a big 

way," Morse said. "We need them for

 the health of our forests. Our forests

 are being ravaged by too many deer in 

some places."

of names: mountain lion, puma, panther

, catamount. Vermont's last known 

cougar was killed in 1881 in Barnard.

 The animal, now stuffed, is on display

 at the Vermont Historical Society in Montpelier.

"It's a known fact that dispersing tom 

cougars will go hundreds, if not thousands of

 miles as they search for a habitat in which

 they can settle down in the company of 

females and call home," said Morse, who 

is planning a lecture on the topic Jan. 7 in 

Richmond.

The challenge is the females are more

 likely to stay near their home range,

 but they too will sometimes move into

 new territory, she said.

Scientists say sightings of individual 

cougars are possible, but they're 

skeptical that breeding populations

 of cougars will return to the region

 on their own.

Mary Parkin, endangered species

 recovery coordinator for the Northeast

 Region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife

 Service, agrees the region has suitable

 habitat for cougars and male cougars 

do pass through.

"The trick is getting that female there,

 they would have to be brought in,"

 she said, adding that was unaware of a

ny effort to bring cougars back to the Northeast.

Mark Scott, director of wildlife for the

 Vermont Department of Fish and 

Wildlife, said his agency regularly

 receives reports of cougar sightings 

and it's possible that individual cougars

 could be spotted in Vermont, but he

 calls the possibility of a breeding population

 returning to the state "a long shot."

"It used to be if someone saw a mountain 

lion they'd say 'I'm not going to tell anybody

 because they're going to think I'm crazy,'"

 Scott said. "But people shouldn't feel that 

way today. There really is a possibility that

 if they see a large cat, obviously it needs to

 have a long tail ... they could be seeing the 

real thing."

Other scientists say there's no question the

 animals are moving far from what is 

considered their current range. In 2011, 

a cougar was hit by a car and killed on

 DNA testing found that the animal 

was from South Dakota.

Morse said the animals regularly confound 

scientists by doing the unexpected. It coul

d take 30 years (Morse hopes less) for a 

breeding population to return.

"I am looking forward to seeing how 

these animals pull it off because I'm

 convinced they 

will," she said

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Keeping Track

Keeping Track, Inc., PO Box 444,

 Huntington, VT 05462 |

 (802) 434-7000 | Contact Us

Our Philosophy

The fragmentation and destruction 
of habitat is a primary cause of 
decline in wildlife populations. 
When development or irresponsible
 resource extraction occurs, critical
 habitat is often unwittingly harmed,
 simply because no one realizes that 
the area affected is an important 
denning, feeding, wintering or travel 
area for one or more species. 

The isolation of wildlife populations
 within fragmented habitats severely
 compromises the long-term well-being
 of many species as healthy ecosystem
 functions, services and resiliency 
declines over time.

By monitoring potential habitats and
 threatened regions - systematically 
searching for and recording evidence 
of use by “focal species” over multiple
 years - citizens can obtain the 
information needed to make informed 
decisions about wildlife habitat
 stewardship. Our adult and youth 
training programs are designed to
 both inspire community volunteers
 as well as turn them into practitioners
 of a science-based field study 
methodology. Keeping Track^®
recognizes that more “boots on the
 ground” field research is essential 
if we are to successfully conserve 
an appropriate matrix of 
core and connective habitats. 

---------------------------------------

All original writing above and
 photography © Susan Morse  

Keeping Track, 
Inc., PO Box 444,
 Huntington, VT
 05462 |
 (802) 434-7000 |
Contact Us

.