The existence of mountain lions in New York state has been a hotly debated issue since their believed extirpation in the 1890s, and even back then, there was debate as to what their actual numbers were.

Record-keeping was poor, and someone with a mountain lion pelt obtained anywhere could collect the then highly lucrative $25 bounty, often many times for the same lion.

Though the New York mountain lion debate is an ongoing one, we do know that out West the big cats, also called cougars, are expanding their range both eastward and northward.

In the past few months, a young male cougar was shot in Iowa, a state where these animals are not afforded protection; trail cameras have recorded cougars in Minnesota and very recently in Wisconsin. With the added protection in western states, plus a wealth of food in the deer-rich Midwest, cougars, usually young males, have left their crowded nuclear areas of the West where reproduction takes place and have moved to the Midwest, sometimes covering great distances. However, wildlife officials in Iowa and Wisconsin don't believe there is a breeding population in their states.

To the north, cougars have followed the mule deer and whitetails into the Yukon Territory and Northwest Territories of Canada. Today, deer are found as far north as the Great Slave Lake and Central Yukon, as the big cats follow the food source.

Unlike the Midwest, northern Canada has plenty of open space for the cougars to move about, but their eastward progress has more obstacles; despite a plentiful supply of deer in states like Illinois and Indiana, there are cities, suburbs and large open farm districts to impede their progress. As such, these cougars need corridors like wooded river valleys in their trek eastward to get from point A to point B successfully.

Another possible travel route east could be around the Great Lakes in Ontario, the same avenue the western coyote took in the early 1900s. If ever and whenever these western cougars move into eastern states, it will not be anytime soon, according to cougar researchers, and that leads to the often debated question: Are there cougars already here, perhaps a vestigial population that survived since 1900?

My response to that question will undoubtedly bring some nasty e-mails; my answer is "No!" Then what about local cougar sightings by reliable people over the years? Could not some of these be real cougars? My answer to that is "Yes!" Let me explain.

After researching cougars for 25 years, I find it hard to believe we have a breeding, self-sustaining cougar population in New York for a number of reasons. First, we would need 20 or so cougars for minimum genetic diversity. Out West, wildlife biologists have found the home range of the average male cougar is 100 miles across. Let's assume half those 20 are males. In their travels, they would cross roads, even interstates, and eventually one would be hit by a vehicle. So far this has not happened, yet in Florida's Everglades where there are 100 or so documented cougars (called panthers down there), one or two are killed on the only main highway through that massive swamp each year.

Leonard Lee Rue III, in his classic "Sportsman's Guide to Game Animals," writes, "An adult (mountain) lion will, if possible, kill one to three deer per week." That's 52 deer a year per mountain lion, and if there were 20 of these cats here, that would add up to more than 1,000 deer killed and eaten per year. You would think there would be quite a lot of evidence lying around — deer kills, etc. — not to mention the fact that breeding populations do not remain stagnant; they either grow or decline. If they are growing, where are all the offspring? If in decline, over the decades they would cease to exist.

In the past 10 years, I have been sent trail-camera photos of local cougars. One that comes to mind was a cougar stalking deer near the Chasm Road in Keeseville. I sent the photo to the Department of Environmental Conservation who identified the deer as a blacktail, a species found in the far west. Other photos lacked reference points like a distinguishing tree or rock to clearly prove they were local. As we all know, with the Internet and a Photoshop program, almost anything is possible.

Now to the other question: Do I believe people are seeing cougars in northern New York? I believe some actually do see a cougar, but their sightings are not of a native cat. Over the years I have written about conservation officers going into a Long Island home and confiscating a grown mountain lion, one of a pair brought in illegally by the owner. The other cat, they were told, "was released up north." In an era where drug dealers are arrested with tigers in their New York City apartments, anything is possible. As Homeland Security has found out, if people are determined to do something illegal, there is a good chance one or two of them will get away with it.

Therefore, the real questions for me are not whether there has been the occasional cougar released into northern New York, but rather by whom and what happened to that cat? Just one specimen would allow for DNA testing, which can tell its origin, either North American or South American, and would show if the cougar had been declawed, as pet ones often are.

When you think about the number of deer needed to sustain a viable cougar population, not to mention a new set of challenges for hikers in cougar territory, I remind cougar advocates to be careful what they wish for.

E-mail Dennis Aprill at daprill2000@yahoo.com and check out our Web site at www.pressrepublican.com/0105_outdoor_perspective for more photos and past articles.