Over the last several years, numerous reports of a possible mountain lion roaming the Wayne County area have come in. Many who have seen the elusive creature have been certain of what they were seeing.
Kerry Gyekis, a private consulting forester from Tioga County, and vice-president of the Eastern Cougar Foundation, spoke to a nearly filled assembly Saturday at the PPL Wallenpaupack Environmental Learning Center about the possibility of mountain lions living in the wild in Pennsylvania.
He brought his talk to the conclusion that evidence is lacking that the mountain lion- otherwise known as cougar, panther or puma-  has a breeding population in the wild anywhere in the eastern United States other than Florida. On the other hand, he said there appears to have been mountain lions surviving in the wild in the east, which had been released by private owners who were trying to raise them from cubs.
This may account for some of the sightings, although Gyekis noted that what most people report believing they have seen a mountain lion turns out to be another animal, often a bobcat, and even a house cat seen under certain vague conditions. Coyotes and even white tail deer have fooled some.
The purpose of the Eastern Cougar Foundation is to repair some of the destruction in habitat and restore at least some parts of the East to the ecological balance found when the first Europeans arrived, their brochure notes. In the 1700s, colonists still had a virgin wilderness in front of them, which gradually fell to the interests of the settlers who needed farmland and timber. Native Americans were pushed away, and along with them, species of large predators were killed off, including the wolf and cougar.
Both animals were natural to what is today northeastern Pennsylvania. The cougar, however, has not been identified as a wild breeding species in Pennsylvania for more than a century.
The volunteer organization, through donations and grants, conducts remote camera surveys in areas of highly credible cougar reports. They also investigate field evidence of cougars across central and eastern United States.
Gyekis stated that cougars are native to western Pennsylvania, a section of western South Dakota and southern Florida. There have been confirmed reports of the animal just east of the Mississippi River, which he states is evidence the cat is “moving east.”  The migration, he said, is due to habitat pressures where their territories are shared by people wanting to live in the country. They also seek game- and the East has plenty of tasty deer.
He presented a detailed, illustrated description of the big cat, which can be 30 inches high at the shoulder and usually weighs 130 to 170 pounds. The tail’s length is 40 percent of the body. Normally having fur of a rusty, apricot or “smoky” shade, he said there are no black cougars in North America.
Caution was recommended over photos that circulate over the Internet. There have been some popular hoaxes, including a cougar on a deck looking in a house supposedly in Pennsylvania, and a more whimsical one of a mule carrying a dead cougar in its mouth.
“We look to verify photos,” he said; their investigators have to be able to identify the very trees shown in a photo submitted to them.
In Pennsylvania it is possible to own a mountain lion, if you have a permit. In other states it is flat out illegal. He suggested that in some cases the pet was released- or escaped- into the wild. They may have become too big for the owner to handle. “People do crazy things,” he said, recalling the story of a man in New York City who had a full grown Bengel Tiger in his apartment.
The Eastern Cougar Foundation hopes to eventually see protected wild areas in the East, where the mountain lion could thrive. In the meantime...
“There’s been thousands of sightings on Pennsylvania, but we lack for hard evidence,” Gyekis said. “...The wild population hasn’t hit here yet.”
Whether they do migrate here, “is all about habitat and our fears,” he added.
For more information on the Foundation, see online at www.easterncougar.org.