Eastern cougars that once roamed North America from parts of Canada to South Carolina are extinct and no longer warrant federal Endangered Species Act protections, U.S. wildlife managers said on Tuesday. The proposal to remove so-called eastern cougars from the list of endangered and threatened species comes nearly 80 years after the last of those mountain lions was believed to have been trapped and killed in New England, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Fish and Wildlife Service in 2011 opened an extensive review of the status of eastern cougars, cousins to mountain lions that still roam western U.S. states and imperiled Florida panthers.
U.S. wildlife managers declare eastern cougar extinct
