Mountain Lions Returning To Missouri After More Than A Century

MISSOURI — Mountains lions haven't lived in Missouri in almost a hundred years, but they may be making a comeback, the Kansas City Star reports. While hikers, hunters and rural residents have long reported the occasional sighting — about 70 since 1990, according to the Missouri Department of Conservation — the proof has been only slightly less elusive than Bigfoot. But that changed this week, thanks to a dead elk in southern Missouri and the telltale DNA evidence left behind by its killer.

The Missouri Department of Conservation says tracks and genetic material found in Shannon County, Missouri, in April, are definitely from a mountain lion, and are a genetic match for a 2012 sighting from Reynolds County, Missouri. The animal likely migrated from the Black Hills in South Dakota, officials said. This marks the first time the same mountain lion has been sighted more than once in the state since MDC began tracking sightings in the mid-1990s.

Only about 1 percent of sightings are ever confirmed by the Department of Conservation, which requires photos, tracks or DNA evidence before it backs any claims.

The North American cougar, also called a mountain lion, puma, panther or catamount, was once widespread across the continent, ranging from the Florida Keys to the Pacific Northwest. While more closely related to house cats than African lions, a fully-grown mountain lion can easily outweigh an adult human, topping out at around 220 pounds.

Fatal attacks on humans are very rare, with only about 20 being reported since 1890. That's good, since experts say the latest sighting in Missouri could be part of a trend. Mountain lion populations seem to be slowly moving eastward to stake out new territories, state biologist Laura Conlee says.

“We know the mountain lion population has grown in western states, and that could translate to more dispersing mountain lions making their way into Missouri, but we have also gotten better at finding them,” Conlee explained. “As technology has advanced, we’ve seen an explosion in the numbers of game cameras across the Missouri landscape. We’ve also established more efficient methods for reporting and investigating mountain lion sightings. These factors all likely play a role in the increased number of confirmed mountain lion sightings in our state.”

Officials believe the Shannon County mountain lion is a male. A female mountain lion was confirmed in the same area in January, 2017, the first confirmed sighting of a female in the state in 23 years.

“Mountain lions are still rare in Missouri,” said MDC Wildlife Management Coordinator Alan Leary last year. “The detection of a female increases the likelihood that breeding could occur within the state, but at this point we don’t have evidence that a breeding population exists in Missouri.”

If you've sighted a mountain lion, you can call the Department of Conservation's mountain lion response team at 573-522-4115 or email mountain.lion@mdc.mo.gov.

Image via Missouri Department of Conservation