Map © 2004 by The Eastern Puma Research Network. All rights reserved.

Jim died on the Ides of March, 2007, of lung cancer.

Click on Farewell to Jim for details or if moved make a contribution.

The Almanac was the love of his life (after myself!) and I will do my best to update the site regularly again beginning in April. The cougar section may take me more time to bring up-to-date, as he had fallen behind on it while devoting his energies to researching Weird Egypt in the last two active years of his life.

Cougar Watch

• Local Sightings page updated 19 April 2005
• Jim reflects on the year's Cougar news, including
• Jim's Commentary on what's to come

Welcome to our Cougar Pages. It is the belief of your editors - based on the evidence we've managed to accumulate so far - that wild, free-ranging cougars have returned to the midwest. This belief is also shared by a growing number of professional wildlife biologists both inside and outside of government. As naturalists we see this new development in our regional ecology as a basically positive event and one which we watch with great interest. However the return of these animals raises numerous questions and concerns among both biologists and lay persons alike.

For the present most of these questions concerning the biology and ecology of the animals living here can't be answered owing both to their secretive nature and their current relative rarity in the environment. But if present trends continue - and they show every indication that they will - the next decade will begin to answer some of them.

This page has been posted to answer as many of them as our current limited knowledge allows and to keep our readers current with new discoveries and events. We strive to maintain neutrality on the many issues involved in the cougar's return and we wish to encourage a rational discussion of their presence here and the environmental and social effects that flow from that presence. To that end we encourage you to report any sightings you or someone you know may have had and to share any feelings the return of Puma concolor to our area engenders.

Thanks for visiting!

Jim Jung

Carbondale, Illinois

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