{"id":463768,"date":"2026-02-12T07:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T07:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/463768\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T07:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T07:46:10","slug":"an-international-group-wants-to-reintroduce-mountain-lions-in-vermont-state-officials-say-not-so-fast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/463768\/","title":{"rendered":"An International Group Wants to Reintroduce Mountain Lions in Vermont. State Officials Say Not So Fast"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a campaign to reintroduce mountain lions in Vermont moves forward, wildlife managers there and in neighboring states are asking lion advocates to slow down and \u201cpump the brakes.\u201d This was the predominant message in an op-ed<\/a> written by a group of wildlife officials and shared by the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe love Vermont\u2019s wildlife and wild places, and we can appreciate why some are excited to bring back a native large carnivore,\u201d the authors write. \u201cWe share the dreams of a wilder Vermont, but even so, we need Vermonters to understand that reintroducing mountain lions would be much more complicated than it might appear.\u201d<\/p>\n

The officials who wrote the op-ed include many of the state\u2019s top wildlife management officials, including commissioner of the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department Jason Batchelder. They note at the beginning of the article that the local rewilding campaign is being led by Mighty Earth<\/a>, an international nonprofit organization. The group\u2019s primary mission, according to its website, is \u201cprotecting Nature, restoring wildlife, and decarbonizing industry.\u201d One of its stated goals is to rewild 250 million acres around the globe through the restoration of keystone species, which would include \u201creturning catamounts to their rightful home\u201d in the forests of the Northeast.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir return would deepen Vermont\u2019s wilderness, inspire awe, and offer future generations of Vermonters a symbol of what\u2019s possible when we choose to restore wildlife and invest in truly wild places,\u201d reads the website for Bring Catamounts Home<\/a>, a project of Mighty Earth.<\/p>\n

A bill<\/a> that\u2019s been introduced in the Vermont House would take the first step in that direction by requiring VFWD to conduct a feasibility study. According to the bill\u2019s text, the study would address how the big cats would be reintroduced, the locations suitable for reintroduction, and how to manage human-wildlife conflicts. It would also determine metrics for successful reintroduction, and provide an estimated timeline and cost for the effort.<\/p>\n

Read Next: Mountain Lion Kittens Were Finally Photographed in Oklahoma. Skeptics Claim the Cats Have Been Breeding There All Along<\/a><\/p>\n

Vermont officials caution that conducting a feasibility study would be \u201cputting the cart before the horse.\u201d This is because, as VFWD explains<\/a> on its website, there isn\u2019t much existing research on mountain lions in Vermont, where the species has been absent for more than 140 years. There hasn\u2019t been a verified mountain lion sighting there since 1881, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department officially declared the Eastern mountain lion subspecies extinct<\/a> in 2018.<\/p>\n

The agency says that until wildlife biologists can build a base of peer-reviewed research on mountain lions in the Northeast, it would be difficult and irresponsible to consider how to feasibly reintroduce the apex predators.<\/p>\n

\u201c[This comprehensive research] needs to be complete before we can responsibly grapple with deeper questions like whether bringing mountain lions here is the right thing to do, both for our communities and for the cats themselves,\u201d the authors write. \u201cBeyond the scientific and moral questions, there are also stark realities Vermont will have to face if we are serious about living alongside mountain lions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those realities would include conflicts with farmers, as well as the effects that a restored cougar population could have on deer and other wildlife. There\u2019s also the concern of mountain lion attacks on humans, which are rare but have occurred in several Western states over the past few years. Already in 2026 a mountain lion killed a hiker<\/a> in Colorado \u2014 a state that is currently dealing with a host of conflicts<\/a> stemming from its own ongoing large carnivore reintroduction of gray wolves.<\/p>\n

Read Next: Colorado to Pause Wolf Reintroductions as Feds Apply Pressure and States Balk at Providing Them<\/a><\/p>\n

As Vermont officials also point out, these realities would extend far beyond the borders of the Green Mountain State. Because of Vermont\u2019s relatively small size and proximity to neighboring states and provinces \u2014 and the species\u2019 natural instinct to disperse\u00a0\u2014 any mountain lions released there would inevitably cross state lines into other areas.<\/p>\n

The Northeast Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies brought up these same concerns in a letter<\/a> it sent to the Vermont House of Representatives in June, when H. 473 was first introduced. The group states that any considerations to reintroduce mountain lions in Vermont \u201cmust include close consultation\u201d with every other state fish-and-wildlife agency in New York, New England, and the eastern Canadian provinces. NAFWA explains that with 100 miles being a common dispersal distance for subadult male lions, a cougar released in the middle of Vermont could easily travel to New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Maine, Connecticut, or Quebec.<\/p>\n

That dispersal distance might also be on the lower end. Journeys of 1,000 miles<\/a> or more have been documented across the West, and even on the East Coast. In 2011, after a mountain lion was found dead on a Connecticut highway<\/a>, wildlife biologists confirmed through genetic testing that the animal had traveled more than 1,500 miles from South Dakota before getting hit by a car.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, for the sake of the cats,\u201d the Feb. 9 op-ed reads, \u201cwe are imploring mountain lion advocates to pump the brakes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As a campaign to reintroduce mountain lions in Vermont moves forward, wildlife managers there and in neighboring states…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463769,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[2354,79,27076,216017,216018,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-463768","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-mountain-lion","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-vermont","11":"tag-vermont-house","12":"tag-wilder-vermont","13":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}