The cougar is the largest of the North American wildcats. Male cougars can be 8 feet in length and weigh more than 200 pounds. Females are smaller at 6 feet long and up to 140 pounds. In all of the Americas, only the jaguar of South and Central America is bigger. Most cougars in North America live in the west.
Cougars live from Canada to the southern tip of Central America.
Biologists estimate there are about 20,000 cougars in North America. Cougars once lived all over the mainland United States. But people changed wilderness into towns and ranches. The cougars' habitat shrank rapidly. Settlers shot and killed cougars until they were almost all were gone.