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The strange tale of how UVM became the Catamounts

An elated crowd wearing green and gold presses toward soccer players at the edge of a field
Ben McKeown
/
Associated Press File
Vermont players celebrate with fans after defeating Marshall in the NCAA College Cup National Championship soccer final in Cary, N.C., Monday, Dec. 16, 2024.

The University of Vermont has used the catamount as its mascot for nearly a century, sometimes to the confusion of a broader nation that's unfamiliar with the large cat that once roamed this region of the country.

The catamount — also known as the eastern cougar — was adopted as UVM's mascot in a vote of all-male students in 1926. The animal once roamed across the eastern U.S. and Canada, but was already fading into state history by the time the mascot vote was held.

The Vermont Cynic reported that the "men students" chose the catamount mascot, over the lynx, by a vote of 138 to 126. (Other options considered were cows, the camel, the tom-cat and no mascot at all.)

UVM had admitted women since 1872 but was just beginning, reluctantly, to allow women to study at the medical school in the 1920s.

A local newspaper writer responded to the mascot vote with a wink, saying the school wouldn't get much publicity since the name was too long to fit in a headline.

"If they were going to use a long named animal why didn't they pick out something like rhinoceros or caterpillar or angleworm?" the unnamed newspaperman was quoted as saying in the Burlington Daily News.

This catamount is on display at the Vermont History Museum in Montpelier.
Matthew Johnson
/
Vermont Historical Society
This catamount is on display at the Vermont History Museum in Montpelier.

For a short time in the late 1960s, the school had a live cat mascot — a puma named Rink that had been adopted by a local couple and that would appear, caged, at athletic events.

Today's human-in-a-suit mascot, Rally, can be seen at UVM games. There are four to eight staffers playing the Rally Cat role at any one time, according to the Vermont Cynic.

And publicity doesn't seem to have been a problem. The UVM men's soccer team became 2024 Division I national champions with the nickname "Cardiac Cats," reflecting their propensity for late-game winning goals.

The last catamount that was killed in Vermont was shot in 1881 — you can view it at the Vermont History Museum in Montpelier.

A catamount killed in Maine in 1938 was the last killed in New England.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officially declared the catamount extinct in 2018. But there are still reports of sightings across New England.

More from Vermont Public: It's official: Feds declare the catamount extinct

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