Suitable Habitats for Cougars (Puma concolor) in Texas and Northern Mexico

We predicted current and potential distribution of cougars (Puma concolor) in Texas and bordering states in Mexico (Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas) by creating a model of suitable habitats. We used MaxEnt to create our model using radiotelemetric data from southern and western Texas, as well as a suite of environmental variables. Our values for area under the receiver-operator curve (>0.85 for both training and test data) suggested that our model was a good predictor of habitat and distribution. Our map can aid in identifying areas where further research is needed to detect presence, status of populations, connectivity of corridors, and other demographic characteristics that are necessary for conservation and management of cougars.