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YOU DON’T HAVE to be an alum from Pitt or Penn State to lament the apparent extinction of the big cats from the East. Whether you call them Nittany lions, golden panthers, cougars or pumas, the magnificent animal is apparently gone for good.
Researchers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who review endangered or threatened species recommended this month that the eastern cougar be declared extinct. While that’s disappointing it’s not as sad as it sounds, given the fact that biologists believe that no wild panthers have stalked the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic for a hundred years or more.
So what the declaration is really terminating is a myth – the fanciful notion that 8-foot cats existed here in wild, breeding populations in the latter part of the 20th century, let alone now. Any sightings then were likely to have been misidentified, but they could have been wayward pets – actual cougars of South American or Western origin that escaped or were released from menageries or homes.
Given population growth and modern development in this part of the country, the best chance for seeing these animals tangle again is by visiting a zoo. Unless, of course, those two universities can work out a deal in which the Lions and Panthers resume their rivalry on the gridiron.