ARTICLE: 'America's lion' needs wild space, less hunting, for a Northeast comeback

Keep wilderness intact and stop the killing of them in the West. Then, maybe mountain lions will make a real comeback here, according to one expert. Ecologist Susan Morse, who studied mountain lions for 20 years in the western states where they are established, says a true recovery of the species in the Northeast will require enough wild space for the big cats to have the privacy "to do what they do unmolested by people or livestock." She says this would be a good thing, since the cats would control deer populations that are "ruinous for our woods." Morse, founder and director of Keeping Track, a Vermont-based nonprofit that trains people to record and monitor wildlife, says politically, restoring predators isn't popular.

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