Are wild cats afraid of water?

Are all cats afraid of water? Do wild cats bury their poop? How are the cats that live in your house related to lions and tigers roaming in the wild? We take a walk in the woods with wildlife biologist Emily Carollo. She works with a conservation and research organization called Panthera that’s dedicated to helping all 40 species of wild cats in the world. Why do cats live in different habitats? What do cats eat? Why do they chase mice? Why do cats' eyes glow in the dark? Why do some cats roar and some purr? Do cats have their own language? 

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Episode Transcript

Jane (00:19):
This is But Why
Public. I'm Jane Lindholm. Onthis show, we take questions
from curious kids all over theworld, just like you, and we
find answers. Close your eyesand picture yourself at the
start of a mountain trail on alate November day in Vermont.

(00:40):
The path is covered with fallenleaves. The trees are bare, and
big flakes of snow are startingto fall, making the world around
you look just like a snow globe.That's what it was like the day
we started making this episode.

Emily Carollo (00:55):
You know what? I brought plenty of water, though,
and plenty of snacks, and, youknow, some emergency equipment,
like a lighter, just in case.

Jane (01:03):
How far are you taking us?

Emily Carollo (01:05):
About a mile, mile and a half. It's not too
far.

Jane (01:09):
That's Emily Carollo. She's a wildlife biologist, and
she works at Panthera, aconservation and research
organization dedicated tohelping all the species of wild
cats in the world.

Emily Carollo (01:21):
So that includes our small cat species, some of
which we find in North America,like our lynx and our bobcat,
and some of our larger catspecies, again, North American
example would be our mountainlions.

Jane (01:31):
And where are we? Where are you taking us?

Emily Carollo (01:33):
So right now, we are in the state of Vermont. We
are in a wilderness area calledBread Loaf Wilderness Area. It
is part of the Green MountainNational Forest. And so right
now, we are heading up part ofthe Long Trail to go check out
some animal sign that I found acouple days ago with a colleague
of mine and talk about it.

Jane (01:52):
Let's go.

Unknown (01:52):
All right.

Jane (01:54):
Melody and I met up to hike into this forested area
with Emily to learn about wildcats. When you think of wild
cats, you might be picturing thereally big ones, like lions,
tigers and jaguars, thatcaptivate a lot of our
imagination, but most of usdon't live near lions, tigers
and jaguars. And yet, there areprobably wild cats living closer

(02:18):
to you right now than you mightthink. Let's take bobcats, for
example. These elusive,medium-sized cats live all over
the United States, southernCanada and parts of Mexico.
Their name, bobcat, refers totheir stubby, bobbed tail, and
they have distinctive pointyears that end in a black tuft of

(02:40):
fur right at the top. Theyweigh, on average, about 15 to
20 pounds, so they're nowherenear the size of a tiger or a
lion, but they're strong huntersof small animals. In Canada and
some far northern parts of theUnited States, you'd be lucky to
spot a Canadian lynx, which is aslightly bigger cat. And in the

(03:02):
western parts of North Americaand in Florida, there are
cougars, sometimes calledmountain lions. They are much
bigger. If you live on othercontinents, you have wild cats
too, but you're unlikely to seethem. Cats are stealthy, and
they know how to hide frompeople. So given that, we kind

(03:22):
of guessed we weren't verylikely to spot a bobcat while we
were tromping through the woodswith Emily, talking and making
plenty of noise as we went. Butthat's okay. We weren't trying
to spot a cat itself. Emilywanted to show us the forest
because it's exactly the kind ofhabitat wild North American cats
thrive in. And when you knowyour habitat and you can start

(03:45):
to look for animal signs, evenif you don't actually see a cat,
you can learn more about wherethey live and how to protect
them.

Emily Carollo (03:54):
So all these little pinched off limbs here,
and this kind of low,,..this isa hobblebush. I think we figured
out it's also elderberry. Someof these are elderberry. And so
these kind of little pinched offtops here are signs of deer
browse, which is a superimportant prey animal, the many

(04:19):
different deer species in NorthAmerica, super important prey
animal for many differentcarnivore species, including
cats. You know, one of our NorthAmerican cats are mountain
lions, and that medium sizedundulate deer species is
definitely a main food sourcefor them. Obviously, no mountain
lions here, but deer are sohunted by some species.

Jane (04:42):
So just to put a fine point on it, if you're out
looking for signs of cats, whyis it helpful or important to
see signs of deer?

Emily Carollo (04:52):
Yeah, that's a really good point, and it's
because these animals allcoexist with each other, right?
They have a cycle of,particularly for cats, they're
what's called obligatecarnivores. They only eat meat,
and so they are predators. Theydepend on prey species. So for
example, sort of known thatCanadian lynx in North America,

(05:13):
which is another North Americancat, they depend heavily on hare
populations, snowshoe harepopulations, and their
populations will show ebb andflows that coexist with or align
with hare populations. They'llgo up and down as hare
populations go up and down. Soit's important to know the whole
landscape and get a better ideaof what species you're seeing in
the woods, because they're allconnected to one another. And so

(05:37):
it's really great to come outhere and see signs that there
are, you know, deer here, whichhelps, again, some predator
species.

Jane (05:46):
We continued up the trail, over a ridge, down, around and
through and finally to a lowerspot where Emily wanted to show
us something.

Emily Carollo (05:54):
How cool is this?

Jane (05:55):
We've been walking through the woods, and then we went off
trail through this sort ofboggy, mossy bit, and now we've
just come out to an opening.

Emily Carollo (06:03):
Yeah, so it's this probably an opening, I
don't know, maybe 50 yards by 40yards in size. And it's a
wetland. I mean, the ground isvery wet, but this is, you know,
a higher elevation wetland. Andobviously there's different
kinds of plant species that growaround here that may attract

(06:25):
different kinds of animalspecies. Even within a giant,
you know, forested landscape,you kind of get these pockets of
unique ecosystems that supportmany different forms of
wildlife. So actually, righthere is what we think is a moose
wallow. So you see how it's justlike a particularly dug in
little wet spot here? It's likea miniature pond within the

(06:48):
wetland. So sometimes theselarge underlying species,
whether it be moose or elk,especially during the rut, which
is the breeding season, they'lltake their antlers and they'll
dig into the ground, and theboys will actually pee on that
ground, and they'll dig theirantlers and throw it all over

(07:09):
their bodies, and must smelllike, you know, the $300 cologne
that people buy, and so thathelps attract females.

Unknown (07:19):
I was really glad Emily pointed out this special spot,
because I would never have knownthat what kind of looks like
just a big puddle in the middleof a wetland could be a spot
that a moose made. And althoughwe don't have any elk
populations in Vermont, thereare elk as nearby as
Pennsylvania, and they lovethrowing mud. After looking at

(07:40):
the wallow for a few minutes, wedipped back under the tree cover
to get out of the wind and snow,and I asked Emily some of the
questions you've sent us aboutcats--the wild kind.

Benny (07:49):
My name is Benny, and I'm 6 years old. I live in Colorado
Springs. How many species ofcats are there?

Emily Carollo (08:02):
Forty wild cat species, and then there's
obviously the domestic catspecies, which makes it 41
total. These species are brokenup into small cats and big cats.
Typically the big five cats thatwe include are tigers, lions,
leopards, snow leopards andjaguars.

Jane (08:19):
And within that, are there different species of all of
those big cats?

Unknown (08:24):
Yeah, so some of these species have what's called a
subspecies, and typically thatmay mean they look very similar,
right? For example, tigers, theyare striped. They have their
orange coloration, but sometimesit they may be slightly smaller
in size. On average, they mayhave slightly different, like,
morphometrics, like slightly.I'm talking maybe a slightly

(08:46):
different head shape, or theyespecially live in different
areas of the world. That'sreally the most important thing
there is that, for example,there's Siberian tigers that
live in Russia and in parts ofChina and a much more cold
environment. And then there'sSumatran tigers that live on the
island of Sumatra, and it's moreof a tropical climate.
I was a little confused whenEmily didn't mention mountain

(09:08):
lions among the big cats. Iwondered, are mountain lions a
subspecies of lion, or are theydifferent?

Emily Carollo (09:16):
Well, so to be clear, lions in Africa are a
totally different species andmountain lions in North America.
Yeah, granted, mountain lions goby many different names, and so
it may be a little confusing,because sometimes people might
say like lions when referring tomountain lions in North America,
but they obviously look verydifferent and are found are
completely different continents.

Jane (09:34):
Yeah. Although I think mountain lions are pretty darn

Roderik (09:35):
How did big cats evolve into little house cats?
big, they're not actuallyconsidered one of the big five
cats. They're kind of thelargest of the small cats, and

Jane (09:44):
How did the cat that we keep in our house evolve from
they go by lots of differentnames: cougar, puma, catamount,
painter, panther and evensometimes mountain screamer.
something like a lion or atiger, or evolve from the same
Here's a question from Roderik.

(10:07):
place that all those other catsevolved from?

Unknown (10:10):
The evolution of domestic animals is really a
super cool process. Long storyshort, they believe the process
was these cats understood thathumans often meant some sort of
food around their civilizations,around their villages, and
particularly we're talking aboutsmaller rodents that may be

(10:32):
attracted to things like grainstores or food stores. And so
these wild cats would realizeand kind of figure out like,
hey, if I hang around thesehumans. I get a lot of prey to
eat, right? I get a lot ofrodents to eat, or maybe small
birds, et cetera. And over time,people started to recognize
like, oh, these wild catsactually kind of help us,
because they kill these peststhat consume our store food. And

(10:56):
so maybe there was some level ofencouraging these smaller wild
cats to stick around theirvillages, their encampments,
their civilizations, whatever itmay be. And over time, that led
to these smaller cats becomingmore and more and more trusting.
And we're talking aboutthousands of years, by the way.
Long story short, thateventually led to the
domestication of this small catspecies. That led to our

(11:18):
domestic cat species.

Jane (11:20):
You mentioned that there are five species that are called
the big cats, and we have aquestion about why.

Quinn (11:26):
Hi, my name is Quinn, and I'm six and a half years old,
and I live in Los Angeles inCalifornia. And my question is,
why are cats like tigers, lionsand, you know, jaguars called

(11:47):
big cats?

Jane (11:48):
Why are they called big cats? Are they just big?

Unknown (11:51):
Yeah, so they're all big, which is great and super
helpful. They're big, for sure,right? If you look at tigers,
for example, they're the largestwild cat species in the world.
But in addition to that, it'sreally mostly the line of
evolution that they took. And sothey are in a group called
panthera, right? And thenthey're under a subfamily
heading of Pantherinae. Andbasically they just had similar

(12:15):
evolutionary processes thatthey're in the same part of the
evolutionary tree. Because notnecessarily all these cats have
very similar characteristics,other than being big, right, or
even where they're found. Youknow, for example, snow leopards
can't roar, whereas our otherbig cats can. So it's both the

(12:36):
size, but then mostly thatevolutionary aspect and how they
kind of evolved from older catspecies that existed on the
landscape many years ago.

Vera (12:45):
My name is Vera. I'm five years old. I live in Rochester,
New York, and my question is whycan cats live in different
places, like, for example, thedesert or rainforest?

Jane (13:04):
How can cats live in so many different environments?

Unknown (13:07):
The process of wildlife being able to adapt to the
spaces that they're living in,in general, is really a cool
process, and it's just all thisprocess of evolution and where
these cats evolved, right? So welook at snow leopards living in
very cold, mountainous areas ofAsia, but then we can come to
parts of Brazil where it's a lotmore tropical. We have our

(13:31):
rainforests, and we havemultiple cat species there, like
jaguars and mountain lions. Buttypically, there's kind of two
groups of wildlife that we talkabout, specialists, right, that
live in very specializedenvironments or unique
environments, and they're verywell adapted to living in those
environments. Another one,again, would be snow leopards.
But then you get generalistspecies like mountain lions that

(13:52):
literally live in boreal forestsof Canada all the way down into
Central America and SouthAmerica, into tropical
rainforests and down into thePatagonia and Chile where we
have these open, kind ofgrassland, mountainous
ecosystems that get cold butalso get hot, right? But are
much more open in comparison tosome of the forested areas that
we may find mountain lions.

Jane (14:14):
Yeah, that's pretty cool that they can be...they're
different cats all over theplace. So no matter where you're
listening from, you probablyhave a wild cat species
somewhere nearby you.

Unknown (14:23):
Right. The only continent that doesn't have wild
cats is Antarctica.

Jane (14:27):
And we don't have many listeners there.

Emily Carollo (14:29):
No, probably not.

Unknown (14:32):
Now, if you have a house cat, it might use a litter
box to go to the bathroom, andhouse cats often cover their
poop after they've gone. Doother cats do that?

Niko (14:43):
My name is Niko. I'm seven years old. I live in Casper,
Wyoming. My question is, dotigers bury their poop?

Unknown (14:50):
This was a super fun question. So in general, big
cats tend not to really burytheir poop too much. Now, there
is a behavioral action that catsdo called a scrape. And so what
they do is they'll actually taketheir hind paws and they'll push
dirt with those hind paws. Andthis is not unusual for it to be

(15:10):
associated with them going tothe bathroom, either having a
scat, or going to the bathroomand peeing. And so it kind of is
a mixed combination, in thatsense, of when they do a scrape
of typically some sort ofterritorial marking. And it may
look like they're kind ofburying their poop, but it's
kind of like taking the groundand scraping a little bit. And

(15:32):
actually, cats have glands inbetween their digits or their
fingers, and they will scrapethe ground, and that is not only
leaving a scent from their scator their urine, but then also
leaving a scent from thoseglands In between their their
little digits there.

Samuel (15:49):
Hello my name is Samuel why do cats chase mice?

Jane (16:02):
Why do cats chase mice?

Unknown (16:04):
There's two reasons why, if we're talking about our
house cats, right, why theychase mice. And this is also
very applicable to wild cats aswell, is food, right? They're
predators. They're obligatecarnivores. They hunt animals.
Like especially small cats,they'll hunt rodent species for
them to consume. And then alsoplay. You know, play is a super
important part of life for allwildlife species when it comes

(16:30):
to learning how to interact withthe environment. And when we
talk about wild cat species andtheir young, it's not unusual at
all to see, particularlysiblings, or even if it's just a
single kitten or cub, you know,playing with older adults or
maybe juveniles in the familygroup that they're with. And
play helps teach these youngcats how to stalk and how to

(16:54):
hide themselves, and how toclimb things and maybe escape
danger, or how to hunt, right,and how to take down prey that
they eventually need to learnhow to do so they can survive on
their own. So it's consumptionand eating things and also
playing.

Jane (17:08):
We did get some questions about what cats eat.

Autumn (17:11):
My name is Autumn, and I'm five years old, and I live
in Chicago. Do cats eatsquirrels?

Jack's adult (17:18):
Okay, what's your question?

Jack (17:21):
Why do sand cats eat snakes?

Jack's adult (17:24):
And what's your name?

Jack (17:26):
Jack.

Jack's adult (17:26):
How old are you?

Jack (17:28):
10!

Jack's adult (17:28):
No.

Jack (17:31):
10.

Jack's adult (17:31):
Five. We're five.

Unknown (17:32):
Cats eat a variety of prey. And when you think about
the vast amount of cat speciesaround the world and the fact
that they are predators, thatmeans there's a lot of things on
the menu for cats around theworld. And it ranges all the way
from, you know, here in NorthAmerica it could be voles and
small birds to elk and deerspecies. And, you know, in other

(17:54):
parts of the world, looking atAfrica, it could be some, you
know, smaller rodent or rabbitspecies, all the way up to
giraffes and buffalo. I mean, itis absolutely incredible the
vast differences in diet andkind of how many different
species that wild cats will eat.Now, some cat species, as we
talked a little bit about beforewith Canadian lynx, become more

(18:15):
of a specialist. They mightreally focus on certain types of
prey species more than others.That doesn't mean they don't
consume other animals, just theymight be better at catching
certain animals than others. Butthen, if you look at some
species, for example, mountainlions, their prey diversity is
absolutely vast.

Jane (18:33):
To answer your questions, specifically, Autumn and Jack,
yes, Autumn cats do eatsquirrels! House cats will
sometimes eat squirrels if givena chance, especially the smaller
red squirrels, and then bobcatsand even sometimes mountain
lions also like a squirreldinner. And Jack, sand cats eat
snakes because they have to eatwhat's available, and sometimes

(18:55):
that means a snake. These verysmall and very cute cats are
fierce hunters who live indesert areas in parts of Africa
and Central Asia. They can go along time without needing water,
and they sometimes hunt venomoussnakes by hitting the snake on
the head to stun it and thenbiting it in the neck to kill
it. Coming up more cool factsabout wild cats.

BREAK (19:19):
BREAK

Jane (19:20):
This is But Why
Lindholm. We're out in the snowywoods in Vermont today with
wildlife biologist EmilyCarollo. She works for the
nonprofit Panthera, which is aglobal wild cat conservation and
research organization, and she'sanswering questions about
fearless felines, or maybe notalways so fearless.

Mae (19:43):
Hi, my name is Mae. I live in BC, Canada. I'm 10 years old,
and my question is, how cometigers like swimming, but other
kinds of cats don't?

Olivia (19:52):
Hi, my name is Olivia, and I am six years old, and I
live in Westcenter Washington,and my question is, why are cats
afraid of water?

Valerie (20:06):
Hello. My name is Valerie, and I am 10 years old,

Frankie (20:06):
Hi. My name is Frankie. I am five years old, and I live
and I live in the United Statesof America, in Colorado. And my
in hogmana, states, Illinois,and I want to know, why do cats
question is, why do many catshate water? Thanks so much. Bye.

(20:29):
not like water?

Kora (20:31):
My name is Kora, and I'm seven years old. I live in
Georgia, and my question is, whydo cats not like water?

Jane (20:47):
Are cats afraid of water?

Unknown (20:48):
Yeah, so yes and no, right? Like, there are some cats
that are...some cat species thatreally are not huge fans of
particularly, like swimming inwater, right? So all cats drink
water, and they can be found,you know, drinking from various
types of bodies of water. Butsome cats, like tigers, enjoy

(21:10):
water a lot. Jaguars are knownfor being able to hunt in very
watery areas and even catchspecies like caiman to consume,
which is pretty impressive. Andthen other cats, like fishing
cats, you know, a small catspecies in Asia, they evolved
around these wetland areas, andso they learned to not only be

(21:32):
in the water and be comfortablearound it, but also hunt in
those areas as well. So somecats, particularly, you probably
talking about your domestic cat,some domestic cats, not a fan,
but there's also some domesticcats that seem to love water. So
I think it's a little bit of apreference thing, but also how
some of these cats evolved inthe landscapes that they evolved
in.

Iris (21:50):
My name is Iris. I live in Chicago, and I am five years
old. Why do cats eyes glow inthe dark?

Jane (22:03):
Why do cats eyes glow in the dark? Do we get to talk
about one of my favoritevocabulary words--the tapetum

Unknown (22:10):
I'm glad you said it, because I was afraid I was gonna
lucidum--here?
mispronounce it. Yeah, so cat'seyes glow in the dark because
they have a reflective lens intheir eye, and it's called the
tapetum lucidum, if I'mpronouncing it correctly. And
essentially, what that helpscats do is see better in low

(22:32):
light conditions. And so lightcomes into the eye, it reflects
off of that lens, and then itgoes back out the eye, and
really helps cats be able to seein those low light times like
dusk and dawn and at night.

Jack (22:47):
Hi, my name is Jack, and I'm 10 years old, and I'm living
in Wellington, New Zealand, andmy question is, do cats have
their own language and can talkto each other? Thank you. I love
your show. Goodbye.

Jane (23:01):
Are cats able to talk to each other? And how do they do
that?

Unknown (23:05):
Yes, absolutely. And so it's really interesting, because
I would say cats communicate inthree main ways. Vocally, right?
So there's many different soundsthat cats make. They roar, they
purr, they hiss, they growl,they you know, snort, they huff.
They do all these kinds ofdifferent sounds to communicate
with one another. They meow,right? They kind of communicate

(23:26):
that way, so very similar towhat we may hear in some
aspects, maybe other than aroar, from our domestic cats,
right, from our cats that livein our house. But they also
communicate through bodylanguage. It's a very important
way to for animals tocommunicate, and people actually
communicate a lot through bodylanguage as well, whether or not
we realize it. And lastly, usingscent. And so it's not unusual

(23:50):
for wild cat species to dovarious forms of marking. We
talked about scraping before,and how they'll use their hind
feet to kind of, you know,scrape the ground and leave
scent with those glands that arein those paws, and typically in
combination with urine or feces.Or they'll spray, particularly
large cats. They love to sprayon items especially high up to

(24:11):
try and attract maybe females,or for females to kind of
communicate that they're readyto have kittens with the males
that are in the area, right? Orto also mark territory and say,
Hey, this is my home, and Idon't want anybody else in it
type of deal. So they use,really, those three main forms
of communications, vocal, bodylanguage and using scent.

Ronan (24:32):
Hi, my name is Ronan, and I'm six years old. I live in New
York City. Why do some cats roarand why do some purr?

Jane (24:44):
Who can purr and who can roar?

Unknown (24:47):
Great question. So the species that can roar are lions,
leopards, jaguars and tigers?

Jane (24:57):
Can they all purr? Can all cats purr?

Unknown (24:59):
So the cats that can roar can't purr, but the cats
that can't roar can purr.

Jasper (25:09):
My name is Jasper. I'm I'm in second grade. I live from
Long Beach, Washington. I'malmost eight years old. And my
question is, what are some waysto get a cat to trust you?
Because there is this white catthat was at my neighbor's house
that I really wanted to trustme, but it's scared of me.

Jane (25:27):
We would never recommend that you pressure an animal or
harass an animal. But what aresome of the things that you can
do that won't make an animalscared? And Jasper's animal is
presumably a house cat, not awild cat, but how can you
observe an animal and start togain its trust?

Unknown (25:46):
Yeah, so I think to make sure, again, we're talking
about really two different kindsof animals: domestic animals and
wild animals. And when it comesto wildlife and wild animals,
it's actually not a bad thingthat they don't trust humans.
You know, unfortunately, humanscan be a big source of mortality
for wildlife, and this canactually cause a lot of problems

(26:07):
for some species that encouragewildlife around human areas and
may end up resulting in bothinjury to the wild animal and to
people. And so it's actually agood thing if wildlife does not
trust us, and one of the waysthat we can help animals remain
wary and wild animals remainweary is to always respect them.
Always give wildlife plenty ofspace. But we're talking about

(26:31):
our domestic cat friends. Iactually just experienced this
myself a little over a year ago,where we had a younger kitten
and her mom running around ourapartment complex, and I was
living in Pennsylvania, and oneof the ways that you can get
domestic cats to trust you isyou can feed them. Sometimes the

(26:52):
way to a kitty's heart isthrough their stomach, so you
can use things like treats orfood to encourage them to hang
around the area that you wantthem to be in. But also
recognize that it's not unusualfor cats that may not have had
too much exposure to people tobe super weary of people as
well. And time is a really justbig one. And so making sure that
you're always giving a positiveexperience for your domestic cat

(27:13):
friends, not wild cat friendsaround you, and they'll
eventually begin to trust you.And you know what? It worked for
me. We now own that littlekitten that was running around,
and she is an absolutehousepanther, but she loves to
be pet.

Jane (27:28):
So Emily, we're here in the wilderness in Vermont, and
we've hiked up and hiked downand gotten to this boggy, marshy
area, and you've shown us thesigns of potentially moose,
maybe bear. We've seen deerpoop. One thing we have not seen
is any cat of any kind. Why didyou bring us here when we

(27:51):
haven't even seen any cats?

Emily Carollo (27:53):
Yeah, so most cat species are incredibly elusive.
They're really good at not beingseen because they don't really
want to be seen. So here inVermont, we have two native cat
species, one far more rare thanthe other, and actually found a
little bit further up innorthern Vermont, which is the
Canadian lynx. And then we alsohave bobcats. But even though

(28:16):
bobcats are pretty common, theyhave healthy populations
throughout the Northeast,they're still really hard to
see. They're really good atavoiding people. So I wanted to
kind of bring us to thislandscape because there are, you
know, native cats of Vermontthat live in these woods that
you can occasionally find signfor when you're looking for it.

(28:37):
But also because there was athird native cat species that
lived here in the Northeast, andthat is mountain lions. They're
also called pumas, catamounts,cougars, they go by many
different names because they'refound, or historically were
found, throughout a vast area ofNorth and South America, so
encountering many differentpeople that called them by many
different names. And one of theprojects that I'm working on is

(29:03):
looking at trying to see if wildmountain lions can come back to
the eastern United States. Youknow, large cats like mountain
lions fill very importantniches. So right now, I'm
working on a project that'slooking at the possibility of
this native cat that was oncehere to come back and either

(29:28):
through the form of naturalrecolonization, which we've
done, which means that cats comeback on their own right, into
places that they formallyexisted on the landscape. And
we've done some research that,unfortunately, does not look
very promising for that. Butthere is also always the
possibility of humans doingsomething called a

(29:51):
reintroduction and bringing catsback, you know, through human
activity, right? Andessentially, this is a very
interesting topic. But it's alsonot new to the northeast. You
know, believe it or not, therewere a number of species
reintroduced to manynortheastern states, including
fisher, including bald eagle,and some that had populations

(30:13):
reinforced because they were solow. Some of the common ones
that we see, white tailed deer,wild turkey, river otter,
beaver. I mean, all of thesespecies that we see today pretty
frequently and may have veryhealthy populations throughout
many northeast states, wereactually reintroduced or
reinforced, meaning we tookanimals from another part of the

(30:34):
range, typically out west or inCanada, and brought in extra
individuals to add to thepopulation that was struggling
here in the Northeast. So it'sreally kind of cool to come to
an environment where we knowmountain lions once walked, you
know, at some point, and we havean opportunity to maybe try and
fix some of the mistakes of thepast that humans made, and be

(30:55):
really great to be able to saysorry and bring them back.

Jane (31:01):
Wow, that would be really something if mountain lions were
reintroduced, brought back, tothe northeastern United States.
There's no reintroduction planin motion at the moment, and
lots of people would want toweigh in with very strong
feelings on both sides as thatplan progresses. But it's pretty
cool to walk through the samewoods that mountain lions once

(31:22):
called home, and imagine theselarge predators may be coming
back someday. Thanks to EmilyCarollo of Panthera for sharing
her knowledge and answering allof your wild cat questions.
That's it for this episode. Ifyou have a question about
anything, have an adult recordyou asking it. It's easy to do
on a smartphone using an applike voice memos, then email the

(31:45):
file [e-mail]. But
Why is produced by, oh, wait!Remember at the beginning of the
episode when I told you to closeyour eyes and pretend you were
at the trailhead on a beautiful,snowy day in Vermont? I never
told you to open your eyesagain! I'm sure none of you
peeked during this wholeepisode, so go ahead and open

(32:07):
your eyes now.
But Why is produced by MelodyBodette and me, Jane Lindholm,
at Vermont Public. Joey Palumbois our video producer. If you
want more But Why, we produce ashort video episode called a But
Why Bite every week we don'trelease a podcast episode. So
you can get But Why every weekif you want. Our latest episode

(32:28):
explores why T-rexes have suchshort arms. Go to YouTube and
find But Why Kids and subscribeto our channel. Our theme music
is by Luke Reynolds, and we'redistributed by PRX. We'll be
back in two weeks with an allnew episode. Until then, stay
curious.