I was just in Florida visiting family. Always fascinated with flora and fauna of an area and the challenge of learning new species I'm not familiar with. Florida is estimated to have around 150 panthers as they call them, the same species known as cougars, mountain lions, pumas, etc. Anyways, with only 150 cats, in excess of a dozen are killed on state roadways each year. So about 1 in 10... Most tend to be young dispersing males.
In the last decade only one mountain lion of wild origin has been killed in the east. The famous Connecticut cat which DNA testing showed originated from the furthest east naturally reproducing population which is in South Dakota. This cat was a young male who was dispersing, nature's way of preventing inbreeding. So if only 1 cat has been killed in the east in 10 years that means in all the east only about 10 mountain lions got so lost as to find their way here. If you use Florida population to annual roadway mortality numbers. I think 10 is far fetched though.
Look, if the east had mountain lions, people would be waffling them more regularly with their cars, poachers would be killing them, just like they do in Florida and we'd have female cats. All cats killed east of the Dakotas have been young male cats dispersing. I'm just a statistics and facts driven person though.
