Mountain lions aren’t in Pennsylvania yet, so far as anyone knows. Might they arrive someday?
I never say never.
Every so often, word crops up of a mountain lion seen — or even killed — in Pennsylvania. That news usually comes via the internet, with a photo of a hunter holding a lion in the woods or posing with his freshly killed cougar in his garage.
Usually, these tales are tired retreads. Each relies on the same photo or two that’s been sent around several times before, with only the location of the mysterious kill changing.
Talk about nine lives. Some of these cougars have been bagged dozens of times each, from Allegheny National Forest to the outskirts of Harrisburg.
The stories spawned by these wild ruses are often the same, too.
Have you heard the one about the guy whose brother’s cousin’s neighbor saw the Pennsylvania Game Commission releasing dozens of cougars from the back of a trailer truck, so the animals could kill off the deer herd?
How about the one about the guy who saw a dead cougar on the edge of the road and called the police, only to have the Game Commission swoop in and steal it away. You know, to get rid of the evidence.
It’s enough to make you dismiss every cougar story out of hand.
And yet, they’re coming.
Mountain lions once ranged across North America. Then, human persecution ultimately eliminated them from all but a handful of Rocky Mountain states.
That’s changed.
Cougars, mostly young males — the first of any species to disperse — have been expanding eastward, even crossing the Mississippi River in search of new homes. In 2011, a cougar that DNA showed had been born in South Dakota traveled to Connecticut before being killed crossing a highway. Most recently, a mountain lion sighting was confirmed in Tennessee for the first time in a century.
We should expect more of the same. Cougars already have started showing up with some frequency in Illinois, Michigan, Missouri and Kansas.
Now, a study by researchers at the University of Minnesota and Southern Illinois University Carbondale predicts that mountain lions will recolonize the Midwest within 25 years. They identified at least eight patches of potential habitat. They expect lions to occupy at least seven within that time frame.
Might they eventually take up residence further east — even in Pennsylvania? My guess is maybe. Mountain lions lived here before, and could again — but only if people tolerate them. That’s not a given.
The cats’ appearance in the Midwest has, in cases, caused people to call for being allowed to shoot them, out of fear for human safety, predation on livestock, and their potential impact on populations of wild game, such as deer.
You can be sure we’d hear that same kind of thing here.
But nature has a way. The cats in the Midwest moved in without permission, so to speak. Some could come to Pennsylvania the same way.
It might not be soon, or even be in my lifetime.
But you never know, so keep an eye on those same old stories. Someday, one of them will be true.
This story originally appeared at triblive.com/sports/outdoors.
