After a week break, the Wiki Corner is back! Last week, a ring doorbell in the city caught what is believed to be a cougar prowling the streets. Cougars are also called pumas, mountain lions, catamounts, and panthers. They have the Guinness record for the animal with the greatest number of names – over 40 in English alone! The cougar has the most extensive range of any wild land animal in the Americas, roaming a massive range, from the Yukon and Canadian Rockies all the way south through the western U.S., Mexico, and deep into the Amazon Rainforest and Patagonia.
Slender and agile, cougars are built for explosive power. Adult males can reach up to 7 feet 10 inches in length (including the tail), and females average about a foot shorter. Their muscular hind legs allow them to sprint up to 50 mph and leap 18 feet into a tree in a single bound. While they can’t roar, cougars do growl, purr, hiss, and even scream.
Cougars are solitary animals, mostly active during dawn and dusk. Except for mothers raising cubs, they live and hunt alone. Their main prey is deer, but they also hunt smaller animals like rodents. Ambush predators by nature, they prefer to stalk and strike rather than chase. Cougars are territorial and tend to avoid human contact—but as cities expand into wild lands, encounters have slowly increased.
The good news is that attacks on humans are extremely rare. Cougars don’t naturally see people as prey, and aggressive encounters often stem from surprise or provocation. If you ever face a cougar, the best defense is to appear large and threatening: make loud noises, maintain eye contact, and fight back if attacked.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has said it’s working on validating the video. They noted that if the animal is indeed a cougar, it probably didn’t get here on its own. The last documented cougar sighting in New York was in 2011, when one traveled from South Dakota through Lake George and eastern New York. It made its way to Connecticut, where it died after being hit by a car.