Description

Puma concolor goes by many names. Puma, cougar, catamount and mountain lion are the most common. Despite much popular misinformation, they’re all the same species, and have the greatest range of any large animal in the Western Hemisphere, extending from the Canadian Yukon to the Southern Andes. There have been isolated mountain lion sightings in the American East and Midwest, but they're primarily found—and hunted—in the Western United States. They're the second largest cat in the Western hemisphere, behind the jaguar of South America. Mountain lion hunts nearly always involve hounds. The dogs are typically used to find a scent trail where a cat has crossed a road or field. The dogs are then released, where they’ll chase the cat until it’s treed. In other cases, lions are taken as “targets of opportunity” when encountered while elk or mule deer hunting. Mountain lions are both nocturnal and crepuscular, so daytime sightings are rare, but they do happen. Despite their popular mythology, attacks on hunters—or humans in general—are extremely rare.