Mighty Earth<\/a> wants to see them in the Northeast once again, but that would not be a simple process.<\/p>\n\u201cCatamounts are kind of one of the last missing puzzle pieces of our forests,\u201d said Renee Seacor, the Northeast rewilding director of Mighty Earth.<\/p>\n
Seacor is spearheading Mighty Earth\u2019s Bring Catamounts Home initiative. She says they know what an undertaking this would be, reintroducing an apex predator. But they want to kickstart the process and make Vermont\u2019s heavily connected forested landscape the anchor.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re aspirational that catamounts could be back on a shorter time frame and we don\u2019t have to wait decades to see their return,\u201d Seacor said.<\/p>\n
However, Vermont Fish and Wildlife biologists say \u201cslow down.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would have to be a collaborative, regionwide effort,\u201d said John Austin, the director of wildlife for Vermont Fish and Wildlife.<\/p>\n
Austin says they\u2019re open to the idea, but animals don\u2019t adhere to man-made borders, and every single state and Quebec would have to be completely on the same page, and every detail fine-tuned.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want to go and capture cats somewhere, bring them back to the Northeast, release them, without the high level of confidence they would be successful,\u201d Austin said.<\/p>\n
Declan McCabe, a biology professor at St. Michael\u2019s College, acknowledges concerns with having these big cats around Vermont\u2019s outdoor recreation and agriculture areas.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to make sure you minimize the conflict between, in the case of an apex predator and the human population and the livestock population. So, there\u2019s a lot involved,\u201d McCabe said.<\/p>\n
All details that Mighty Earth hopes to iron out sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n
\u201cA timeline really needs to be set. One, by responsible science, and two, by the people of Vermont and the interest in seeing this species restored,\u201d Seacor said.<\/p>\n
But for wildlife experts, not too soon.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one is being dismissive of the idea of bringing it back, but there\u2019s still these larger questions that have to be considered,\u201d Austin said.<\/p>\n
The Massachusetts Wildlife Department said they are involved in these conversations. Wildlife departments in New York and New Hampshire were not available for comment.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 WCAX. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – There\u2019s another push to get the iconic catamount back to Vermont sooner rather…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":588637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[27],"tags":[4361,254642,137401,50,159,67,132,68,2742,47139,837],"class_list":["post-588636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-biologists","tag-catamount","tag-catamounts","tag-news","tag-science","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-vermont","tag-wcax","tag-wildlife"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116067147665338225","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}