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Kind of a student of these stories, but my experience is the opposite of Jason G. I have been told by locals for near thirty years that we have "cougars" here in our area, but have as yet to see any viable sign or sighting. My own hunting time, time on the job marking boundary, etc, but not a clue. Seems like I read somewhere that a mtn lion will kill a deer a day or near it for food, as they do not like carrion.
Heck, the guy we bought our house from twenty years ago said he shot one out of a tree out back , but it escaped of course.
What I do have are a handful of reports (2-3 in person) over twenty years of plus similar to Jason's, big cat with big tail, unmistakable etc.......a mountain lion. Right..........? Maybe.
A recent study done in the SE ( I have the book somewhere, "Southern cougar...fact or fiction? something like that) shows "cougars" killed by locals in WV and elsewhere exhibit DNA not pure for mountain lions but crossed with some big cat from south of the border. Conclusion, a big cat that looks like a mountain lion, but crossed with other breeds, likely for the exotic pet trade. Raised locally, but released when the owner could likely not afford to feed it) it was released to become another "cougar" sighting.
The fact that the LA cat caught near Natchidoesis (a major city) does not surprise me. Maybe another wayward exotic??
My locals are seeing something, very rarely, but I wonder if it is a true mountain lion??
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That's interesting. I have heard tale of black panthers in the southeast as well, but I've never seen any. So, who's to say for sure what's out there, or whether or not there may be some sorts of mingling/hybridization going on. 15 years ago, if someone told me there were boa constrictors and pythons in FL, I'd have laughed, but with folks smuggling in invasive species and natural immigration of non-native species over time, who knows?
I will say though, that the cat I saw did not bear any semblance to anything other than a mountain lion. That's not to say it might not have been a hybrid of some sort, but the phenotype was all mountain lion.
Jason