Strong jaws and long canine teeth then make it possible for cougars to kill their prey with one bite to the nape of the neck. After an initial feeding, a cougar may cover the carcass with leaves or other debris to be saved for a later meal. Cougars begin breeding at about 3 years of age and may mate during any season. Typical litters of 1 to 6 kittens are born after a gestation period of 82 to 98 days. Their eyes open in 8 or 9 days and the young are weaned in 2 to 3 months, though the kittens may remain with the mother into their second year.
Cougars can occupy a variety of habitats from coastal swamps to mountain slopes.
These large predators require extensive, undisturbed forested areas that also support adequate white-tailed deer populations. Cougars are still fairly abundant in some of the sparsely populated western states. Today the only known cougar species still found in eastern North America is the Florida Panther. They survive as a small remnant population in the remote, thickly wooded swamps of south Florida. It is thought that the Eastern Cougar, the species native to the southern Appalachian region, is now extinct in the wild.