From the great broad-leaved woodlands of New England and the wide open expanses of the prairies to the arid beauty of the southern deserts and the bleak, unforgiving tundra and conifer forests of Alaska, the USA has a huge variety of expansive, pristine habitats.
And living in these wildernesses are wild cats, some big, some small, along with impressive numbers of bears and – in a few places – wolves.
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Are there are any big cats in the USA?
By big cat, we normally mean any of the five species in the genus Panthera – and here the USA does have skin in the game, but only just. Of the five big cats, only jaguars are found in either of the American continents, and the US’ southern states were historically the species’ northern limit.
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But with habitat loss and persecution, jaguars disappeared from the country in the 1960s. Today, according to the conservation group Panthera, they are returning, albeit tentatively, crossing the border from Mexico into the states of Arizona and New Mexico. Protected areas such as the Northern Jaguar Reserve in the foothills of Mexico’s Sierra Madre Occidental offer refuge for these rosetted beauties, but it is unlikely the US will ever become a hotspot for them.
What are the most numerous wild cats in the US?
With an estimated population of up to 3.6 million, the most numerous and wide-ranging wild cat is the bobcat, one of four species in the Lynx genus and a close relative of the Eurasian lynx.
These are small cats, with even males averaging just 14kg in weight – about the size of a smallish medium-sized dog – but they are highly adaptable and thrive equally well in northern boreal forests as they do in the arid deserts of the south-west.
They have long been prized for their beautiful, spotted coats, and they are still hunted today, though scientists say they are worth much more alive for ecotourism than they are dead as furs.
What other cats are numerous?
The only other felid found over a wide area of the US is the cougar or mountain lion, a medium-sized cat renowned for its feistiness. It would have originally been found throughout the entire ‘lower 48’ – all the contiguous states south of Canada – but today it is confined to the western half of the country, largely hunted out by European colonisers.
They are still hunted for sport, and only have full protection in California and Florida – in the latter state, a small population of 120-130 individuals of a distinct subspecies known as the Florida panther survive in the south-west. Cougars can grow to a weight of nearly 70kg and can be dangerous to humans – though attacks are extremely rare.
There are occasional sightings of cougars in Alaska, but this state is generally not considered good habitat for them. The Mountain Lion Foundation says there are unlikely to be more than 30,000 individuals in the USA, and many of those survive in fragmented and increasingly degraded habitat.
OK, what other cats does the USA have?
The bobcat and the cougar are easily the most numerous, but there are a few other species found in particular pockets. Most important is the Canadian or Canada lynx, closely related to the bobcat and, with its outsized paws and long hind legs, specially adapted to hunting prey such as snowshoe hairs in deep powdery snow. It ranges across most of Canada and Alaska, but also crosses over into some of the US’ most northerly states in small numbers.
Any other wild cats?
Yes, in the southern states, there are occasional reports of small cats more normally associated with rainforest habitats of Central and South America such as ocelots, jaguarundis and margays.
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Of these, the beautiful spotted ocelot, once a prized target for fur traders but now well protected across its range, is the most common, with a population of up to 100 individuals in southern Arizona and southern Texas. The distinctive jaguarundi, remarkable for its short legs and long tail and sometimes described as resembling a weasel, may also occasionally make forays into the southern US from Mexico.
What about sightings of other cats not necessarily native to the USA?
There are occasional reports of black panthers. Black panthers are not a species, but refer to either melanistic (ie, black) leopards or jaguars.
As the Enviroliteracy website reports, most if not all sightings are likely to be misidentifications of anything from large black dogs to bobcats in bad light. It does not completely discount the possibility of the occasional black cougar coming out of the woodwork, but there’s no real evidence for them. As in other parts of the world, the idea of a black panther has an almost mystical aura about it and people see them because they want to.
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Top photo by James Keith / Getty Images
