Edlr: Does the cougar still travel the forests of the province? Testimonies are multiplying and opinions diverge. Our journalist Simon Bérubé tried to see more clearly. Every day by Friday, we will present a text to you on the question. Today: the history of cougar to N.-B.
The presence of cougars in 2025 in the province is the subject of a debate. Among experts, there is also a debate on the magnitude of their historic territory. New Acadia has tried to understand the history of the animal in the region and its difficult cohabitation with humans.
The modern story of the cougar dates back to around 300,000-100,000 years. It was at this time that the feline would have recolonized almost the entire Americas, according to a 2019 study.
All this from a population from eastern South America, which would have come back to North America, especially in the American West. Also according to the study, the common ancestor of all North American Pumas would have lived during the last 20,000 years.
This would be quite recent at the genetic level according to Nicolas Lecomte, professor in the Biology Department of the University of Moncton. He adds that these figures are credible and would point to the origins of the population of the east of the continent.
“There is a possibility that the cougar even colonized east of North America, including the Maritimes region.” Mr. Lecomte nuance, however, that it is difficult to determine the exact date of arrival of the animal in the region.
The cougar is a very difficult species to observe because of its particularly fierce behavior.
“These are elusive predators. They avoid contacts with humans, avoid roads. All the areas where there would be an observation potential, these are areas where it will be difficult to see. ”
Other specialists in the subject such as Don McCalpine, curator of zoology research at the New Brunswick Museum, are rather skeptical in the face of the magnitude of the historic distribution area of the Cougar.
“There is no evidence that suggests that there was, historically, a population of cougars living in New Brunswick.”
He also wants to undo the myth of the subspecies of the East Cougar, a population of cougar from the northeast of the continent who had obtained a status of subspecies at a time.
“A recent analysis suggests that cougars are genetically fairly uniform, certainly through North America, with the exception of populations in Florida. The criteria that has been used to qualify the eastern cougar today we could not accept these criteria. ”
On the other hand, he recognizes that there would have been a population not far from our southern neighbors.
“Once you go to the Appalachians, in the south of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, there is evidence that there was a population there. But in the north of Maine and New Brunswick, it’s less clear. ”
According to him, the cougar would have avoided the territory due to the lack of appropriate prey such as deer.
“We do not have much evidence that Virginia’s deer was here in large numbers, even before 1900. So, we do not have much evidence that there was a good prey population for cougars before the arrival of Europeans.”
Not so distant disappearance
Nicolas Lecomte, however, argues that the mountain lions were indeed present in Acadia before the arrival of European settlers.
“The forest was structured differently. There were caribou. As soon as you have ungulated this type. The cougars are near. They need big weight like that. ”
The colonization of the Maritimes and the northeast American noted the start of the end for the cougar, according to Nicolas Lecomte.
“It is believed that deforestation, hunting pressure from cougars, the elimination of potential prey which is important for them have done everything to make the population decline.”
The professor also evokes the low population density of the cougar as a factor who participated in his “accelerated disappearance”.
Mr. Lecomte argues that most of the last signs of the wild beast in the region date back to the late 1930s. Whether written documents or expelled specimens.
The professor of the University of Moncton notably refers to the “last cougar of Maine” trapped in 1938. His capture place would be located on the border of Maine and Quebec, not far from New Brunswick.
Mr. McCalpine takes as an example a photo of a hunter holding the skin of his prey. According to legend, the Puma was killed in Kent’s county in 1932. Don Mcalpine, however, to qualify this event. According to him, there is no way to confirm the location of the photo and the origin of the animal.
Several years after the capture of the beast, Mr. McAlpine and the museum have got hold of the stuffed animal in order to take its DNA for analyzes. They determined that he was from this continent, but there is no way to determine how he arrived in the region, according to the researcher.
In the next article in this series, Acadia Nouvelle will explore the phenomenon of cougars among the population. Why does the animal still fascinate?