Mountain Lion sightings in Missouri are reported often but rarely confirmed, but since November, four Mountain Lion sightings have been confirmed by the Missouri Department of Conservation.
That’s not many, but significant when you consider that that makes only 14 confirmed sightings since 1994.
"I don't really have an answer as to why we've now had 4 in the last two months” said Roger Wolken with the Missouri Department of Conservation in St. Joseph. “Previous to that the last confirmed sighting was December of 2006."
The Missouri Department of Conservation might not have concrete answers, but they do have theories. “We speculate that these mountain lions are actually transients coming from the South Dakota area," said Wolken."What happens is, these young males, they cannot compete with the older male cat to be the dominant male cat for breeding so they basically get kicked out of their home area and they start wandering and looking for their own area of residence."
Mountain Lions live coast to coast and at all latitudes. When they look for a new place to live they are willing to travel hundreds of miles, but they only have a few things in mind.
Mountain Lions are native to the state of Missouri. They were just hunted and kicked out by human settlers years and years ago.
Experts say that turkey and deer populations are higher in Missouri than they have been in recent memory, so Missouri has all the comforts of a mountain lion's home.
The thought is that this could become a natural reintroduction of mountain lions back into an area where they used to thrive.
If that is true, officials say, this would just be the very beginning.
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