Re(1): New Female Disperser Evidence Continued IP: 12.238.249.2 Posted on June 2, 2015 at 08:24:03 PM by Chris
Weather,
Wonderful to see you keeping up with research.
One Utah female traveled over 1000 miles - not in a linear line - and didn't get pregnant. In 2011, one Black Hills female made it to Oklahoma, and didn't get pregnant. Sadly she is now in a Kansas zoo. Had she headed east rather than south, and had crossed the significant physical barrier of the Missouri River that so few females - like their counterparts in Florida failing to cross the Caloosahatchie - have done, she may have met a male and mated. Though it sure is curious that she traveled over 600 miles and didn't get pregnant.
Indeed, females can travel long distances, they just tend to stay closer to where they're born. The closest breeding source to New England remains the Niobrara River Valley in Nebraska. It took seven years of dispersal from the Pine Ridge National Forest, and 25 years of dispersal from the Black Hills - not to mention protection from Nebraska's open prairie hunting policy - to establish this new nursery in central Nebraska.
BTW, all of CN's female confirmations - research dated no further than 2008 - are in Prairie State habitat.
We pray every day that a female will turn up with kittens in MN, IA, MO, AK, WI, IL, or MI. It will be huge news when she does.