Cougar (Phoenix Zoo - Arizona Trail)

Cougar

Puma concolor

Summary ⁷

The cougar (Puma concolor), also known as the mountain lion, puma, panther, mountain cat, or catamount, is a large cat of the family Felidae native to the Americas. Its range, from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes of South America, is the greatest of any large wild terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere. An adaptable, generalist species, the cougar is found in most American habitat types. It is the second heaviest cat in the Western...

Range description ⁸

The geographic range of the puma is the largest of any terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere (Sunquist and Sunquist 2002), from Canada through the US, Central and South America to the southern tip of Chile. While the puma is an adaptable cat, being found in every major habitat type of the Americas, including the high Andes (5,800 m in southern Peru: Sunquist and Sunquist 2002), it was eliminated from the entire eastern half of North America within 200 years following European colonization (Nowell and Jackson, 1996). A remnant Endangered subpopulation persists in Florida, and records of pumas in northeastern Canada and the eastern US are on the rise, indicating possible recolonization (M. Kelly pers. comm. 2007).

Iucn red list assessment ⁹

Red List Category

Least Concern

Red List Criteria

Version

3.1

Year Assessed

2008

Assessor/s

Caso, A., Lopez-Gonzalez, C., Payan, E., Eizirik, E., de Oliveira, T., Leite-Pitman, R., Kelly, M., Valderrama, C. & Lucherini, M.

Reviewer/s

Nowell, K., Breitenmoser-Wursten, C., Breitenmoser, U. (Cat Red List Authority) & Schipper, J. (Global Mammal Assessment Team)

Contributor/s

Justification

Listed as Least Concern as it is a widespread species. However, it is considered to be declining, and as a large predator its conservation presents numerous challenges. It has been extirpated from large areas of its historic range in North America (Nowell and Jackson 1996).

History