cougars

bamaranger · February 2, 2016, 06:29 PM

Another thread started by a member got me searching for a book, and low and behold, in the dust of my den, I found same. I thought I had loaned it out, but no.

"The Eastern Cougar-historic accounts, scientific investigation, new evidence" - by C. Bolgiano and J. Roberts.

There is a long running debate in some eastern and southeast areas regards "black panthers, puma's, cougars, moutain lions" and local sightings versus what wildlife "professionals" claim is not happening. This book addresses the issue and anybody interested might find it an interesting read.

If one doesn't care to run out and buy a copy, you might get a local library to search a copy out, and get it on loan from another source.

CarJunkieLS1 · February 2, 2016, 06:51 PM

I believe there are mountain lions here in the southeast. I don't care what the "state officials" say. Seen a black panther myself and have heard to many accounts for everybody to be wrong. I'll share my story for everyone to see.

I live in Limestone County Alabama and within the last few months I have heard about a few people seeing mountain lions all around this area. Just last week a man from work had a video on his phone that his neighbor sent him from his outdoor security camera. It shows a mountain lion on the other side of a chain link fence having a staring contest with a rottweiller. That video proves to me that mountain lions are here, there was no doubt, even though state officials say there is no evidence.

Back to my panther story: It was the first weekend of January and it was in Limestone County between Rogersville and Athens down near the river. It was like 4:30 pm I didn't see any deer so I was just glancing around and approximately 100yds away I see it...it was solid black and was taller than a labarador retriever the tail was as long as the body. There is NO DOUBT in my mind what I saw, it wasn't a dog, coyote, bob cat etc. Here is the kicker:

A co-worker and friend of mine who hunts that same area I do, we were talking on a lunch break about how our seasons went and I made mention of what I saw the only person I had told at that point was my wife so there is no way he knew about it. He replied "you saw it too" his story and description was eerily similar to mine and best we can tell it was less than 1/4 mile from where he saw it and where I saw it. Sorry for the long post, but here is the story

Llama Bob · February 2, 2016, 06:58 PM

If multiple people are seeing them in the same area, it seems like going there and getting a picture from a camera that GPS tags would be compelling evidence.

CarJunkieLS1 · February 2, 2016, 07:05 PM

If i ever see it again I won't be using a camera lens...I'll be using a rifle scope.

Panfisher · February 2, 2016, 07:18 PM

No question as to whether or not there are cougars, pumas, mountain lion, Catamounts whatever, than most state wildlife agencies will readily admit to. Missouri says there are no breeding populations, well if there isn't there will be. As for black panthers I have heard many many stories through my life including from my father and actually want to believe but in the entire cat world there are only I believe 2 known black cats, (not counting domestic felines) leopards and jaguars, and the pics I have seen of the melaninistic jaguars you can readily see the spotting pattern underneath, but would say from more than a few yards away that pattern would not be visable. Maybe next week I will be on here saying I have seen one and now am fully on board, but for now I remain skeptic strictly on a biological/scientific basis. I don't discount anyones story but I guess being from missouri I gotta see one.

Art Eatman · February 2, 2016, 09:19 PM

Back some twenty-plus years ago, my wife was driving into town (NW Thomas County, Georgia) and saw a cougar cross the road.

Talking about it a few evenings later at our favorite watering hole, a guy (with an Aw, now, little lady tone of voice) asked her how could she know it was a cougar.

In true Southern Lady syrup she said, "It looked just like the hide we have draped over the couch at home."

Gigglesnort.

hartcreek · February 2, 2016, 09:51 PM

Yep we have cougars up this way too. I haven't seen on but one year there were plenty of tracks at the cabin. Back when I started bow hunting the early bow season was later then it is now so I was hunting in snow. Before I went back to my vehicle I retraced my early morning tracks just incase an elk had wander back that away.....I found that a cougar had tracked me earlier in the day for half a mile.

bamaranger · February 3, 2016, 02:29 AM

There's enough evidence surfacing now, with modern DNA, game cams and general interest, to indicate that mountain lions/puma, do indeed surface now and again in the southeast, and as far north as Illinois, Ontario, Michigan, maybe Maine too. Florida has their own recognized subspecies.

Missouri has at least two "recent" carcasses that I can tell of, 1994, and 2003. Arkansas has some convincing game cam pics from 2003. There are others listed in the text I mentioned earlier. There may be more now, as the text was published in 2005, and it is a decade later. Great Smokey Mtns NP gets a good number of sighting reports annually. The question is, are they local animals so to speak, or merely passing through, or escapees from the pet trade?

With all due respect, a genuine, all black, big cat is really suspect of the pet trade, as puma/mtn lions/eatern cougar are not totally black at all, even in a melanistic phase. That doesn't mean anybody hasn't seen a big black cat, , simply that the likelihood of a "black panther" being an eastern cougar, is very highly unlikely. More likely, its an escaped exotic, ie jaguar or leopard.

I'm going to hush now, and let this roll. I'm far from an expert, and have a single text I'm referencing. But I have taken a number of black panther/mtn lion reports myself, and have always been fascinated by the accounts.
Thanks for all the interest.

samsmix · February 3, 2016, 02:50 AM

Mighty. Good. Eatin'.

Mobuck · February 3, 2016, 09:18 AM

I've been looking for a "cougar" for a while. Either one that leaves tracks in the snow or one that leaves a trail of clothes as she heads for the bedroom. So far haven't positively located either.

Hunter Customs · February 3, 2016, 09:34 AM

Quote:

I've been looking for a "cougar" for a while. Either one that leaves tracks in the snow or one that leaves a trail of clothes as she heads for the bedroom. So far haven't positively located either.

Mobuck, even the one leaving the trail of clothes may leave tracks in the snow, it depends on if you have and where the hot tub is located.

As for the four legged cougars the MDC now admits we have them in the State, I guess all the pictures from the trail cams plus the few that's been shot finally convinced them.

Best Regards
Bob Hunter

T. O'Heir · February 3, 2016, 01:25 PM

"...Ontario..." Yep. Been a few kitty sighting reports around here in the last few years. OPP(Provincial cops) and MNR are playing it down, most likely trying to prevent scaring the indigenous urban population. Said indigenous population panics when Yogi is spotted where they don't think he should be. Yogi has been known to frolic a bit in swimming pools just like the kitty that leaves a trail of clothes. Some of us don't care where that trail leads to as long as it does and we're allowed to follow. snicker.

roashooter · February 3, 2016, 02:02 PM

guess my mind is wandering.....I was thinking bout an entirely different "cougar".....sigh....

mete · February 3, 2016, 03:25 PM

While the game departments always deny, there was one a couple of years ago found [dead by automobile ] near the NY/CT border .
But the better way to know how it was in the past just look at maps. I live very close to Panther Brook and there are other such names in the general area ! They do travel long distance though a nesting pair is the much better proof of existance in you're area.
All different names but it's an animal that ranges from well into Canada all the way down to Argentina !!

johnwilliamson062 · February 3, 2016, 07:00 PM

About ten years ago I was backpacking alone near Harpers Ferry didn't make my mileage and ended up making an emergency camp by myself. I had a feline visitor during the night. Only growling and I didn't see it. I couldn't sleep. When I reached the next ranger station I told the ranger about it, and said I didn't think it was a Bobcat, but rather a Cougar. I was familiar with a Bobcats growl and this was not it. After asking me where I was from, how long I had been in the area, and whether I had spoken to anyone else about COugars in the ares, he indicated they had received several reports of Cougars in the area and were trying to get photos
on cam. He didn't seem to doubt it had been a Cougar at all.

They just found lions in several parks in Africa where naturalist were adamant they had not lived in living memory and could not reach through migration from the areas with lions. Possibly a thought to be extinct species/variant involved.

OTOH, people see big foot and similar pretty frequently.

Mobuck · February 3, 2016, 07:06 PM

"As for the four legged cougars the MDC now admits we have them in the State, I guess all the pictures from the trail cams plus the few that's been shot finally convinced them."

The Amish community near Macon MO killed a cougar a few years back and handed it over to MDC with the comment "Now what do you say about them being here?". MDC said "Just a traveling male looking for territory". Same comment as the one hit by a vehicle in the outskirts of KC a while back. Same as the one treed and shot after killing a calf in the Excelsior Springs area 3-4 years ago(that one was kept VERY low key).

big al hunter · February 3, 2016, 09:54 PM

Washington Dept of Fish and Wildlife had collars on several cats for a study several years ago. I was very interested, as I had been followed by a cougar. My interpretation of the data leads me to believe that a male " passing through" looking for territory, in an area without any other male cats....just found home sweet home! I have no doubt that cougars are spreading out. Every healthy female bears multiple kittens. I don't recall the survival rate, but it was enough that the population in Washington is high enough that tags are available over the counter.

.

If there is a breading population in the east without a hunting season and enough cover to hide them....they are very sneaky.

. You will eventually have a large enough population to be detected and confirmed.

JERRYS. · February 3, 2016, 10:36 PM

the few confirmed cougar/puma/mountain lion sightings in the southeast where I live have been found out to be exotic pets that have gotten loose by irresponsible owners.

979Texas · February 3, 2016, 10:54 PM

Down here in nearly every part of Texas cougars are a known animal, although they are very seldom they are definently out there. But the state denies any kind of "black panther" if you will, even though there are sightings of them all over the state each year.
When I was a very very young boy my family went up to New Boston, Texas to visit my family up there as we are very deeply rooted in that area. New Boston is in very deep Northeastern Texas, located about 10 minutes from Arkansas, 15 minutes from Oklahoma, and 30 minutes from Louisiana. Its nothing but pine tree jungles and swamps up there, just like the rest of the Deep South.
Anyway this was in the winter time and I remember me, my father, and my grandfather were driving way down some back dirt road way out in woods near my families deer lease up there and all of a sudden a HUGE black panther with a very long tail jumped out in the middle of the road in front of us and with one more bound he was gone in the piney woods. So I know they exist and I know a few more people from northeast and central east Texas that have seen them also.
So yes I agree that they do agree no matter what the State claims.
And regular ol cougars are a presence too. A lady I go to church with has had a few sightings of one on her ranch just within the last month. I have never seen one but I have heard one scream in the woods one time when I was in high school out fishing on the Navasota River one evening. A few months before that a buddy of mine and me were hog hunting down there and he saw one that evening near his corn feeder but it was gone before he got a shot off at it. And I have some other hunting friends that lived outside of Huntsville and several times a year they would find dead deer wedged up in the limbs of a tree a good 30 feet off the ground or more. Gee what in East Texas could have done that?

Blindstitch · February 4, 2016, 06:19 AM

I've seen my share of cougars in Michigan.

When I was a kid there was said to be no moose in Michigan besides on Isle Royal. That was a farce as we had moose in our back yard (U.P. northern michigan) on more than one occasion.

Before they started releasing them in the area my grandfather had seen them for 20 years. Well he got talking to a DNR warden who swore there was no such thing as moose in the area. So then my grandpa said well if there aren't any moose and they're imaginary it's ok if I shoot them. The warden just short of lost his head.

Later on during deer season a big doe had been shot and one of his friends had a canadian moose rack that they tied to the deer. The DNR got all kinds of calls about it and had to investigate. They were pretty convinced till they got within 30 feet of the garage.

Moral of the story is just because you don't see something doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Art Eatman · February 4, 2016, 09:57 AM

Go to Google maps: Texas Parks & Wildlife released a radio-collared young male cougar from the Black Gap Game Management Area in Brewster County. The cougar was killed in a rancher's sheep pen, two nights later--80 miles north, near Marathon.

A pilot friend of mine tracks radio-collared wild critters via his Cessna 172. One cougar was regularly tracked in hunting/mating travel from the Glass Mountains just north of Marathon, all the way to the south end of the Sierra del Carmen in Mexico--approximately a 200-mile ranging.

g.willikers · February 4, 2016, 10:06 AM

Years ago, while vacationing in Florida one winter, we saw a cougar dart across a very busy interstate.
It made it ok with moves any running back would have been proud of.

dylank0723 · February 4, 2016, 10:34 AM

I'm in southeastern NC. When I was little my parents swear they saw a panther. Few years back we saw one cross the road by my house, found the tracks for it. Last year we heard something weird, like a high pitched yell or something, idk how to really explain it, looked it up and it was identical to a cougar. Last spring I saw tracks, they were old but looked very close to one. Our neighbor a road over swears he saw one 2 years ago. Also, about 10 years ago a lady 3 miles over was saying something about she saw a big cat. We got a book and had her flip through the pictures and the one she picked out was a cougar. I think they're sparse here, but I'm convinced we have them

NINEX19 · February 4, 2016, 01:15 PM

Quote:

Washington Dept of Fish and Wildlife had collars on several cats for a study several years ago. I was very interested, as I had been followed by a cougar. My interpretation of the data leads me to believe that a male " passing through" looking for territory, in an area without any other male cats....just found home sweet home! I have no doubt that cougars are spreading out. Every healthy female bears multiple kittens. I don't recall the survival rate, but it was enough that the population in Washington is high enough that tags are available over the counter. .

If there is a breading population in the east without a hunting season and enough cover to hide them....they are very sneaky.. You will eventually have a large enough population to be detected and confirmed.

Yes, they are very sneaky and even with a large population, they are very difficult to find and hunt. Most people just happen across them. I get a cougar tag each year, but as part of a combo license in case I ever cross one. I don't actively hunt them though. WA state had 177 harvested in 2014 (2015 activity not yet complete or posted) http://wdfw.wa.gov/hunting/harvest/2...rts/cougar.php

The state harvest guidelines varies from year to year, but hovers somewhere in the 250-300 range. So as you can see, even hunters can not reach the harvest limits in a healthy population. They are out there, just difficult to find. I do hear them occasionally at night from my house, (usually when the females are in heat). That is a sound that sends chills up and down your spine. Always sounds like a girl yelling "help" in the middle of the night.

JERRYS. · February 4, 2016, 01:26 PM

"they've" been sort of monitoring a male jaguar in southern Arizona lately... believed to be the only documented jaguar in the U.S. for over a hundred years.

if jaguars are trying to make a comeback in the U.S. there's no reason why a puma which is already here can't expand its range.

again, the confirmed sightings of pumas in my area (east Alabama and west Georgia) have been confirmed to be exotic pets that got loose.

February 2, 2016, 06:29 PM	#1
bamaranger Senior Member Join Date: October 9, 2009 Location: North Alabama Posts: 8,296	cougars Another thread started by a member got me searching for a book, and low and behold, in the dust of my den, I found same. I thought I had loaned it out, but no. "The Eastern Cougar-historic accounts, scientific investigation, new evidence" - by C. Bolgiano and J. Roberts. There is a long running debate in some eastern and southeast areas regards "black panthers, puma's, cougars, moutain lions" and local sightings versus what wildlife "professionals" claim is not happening. This book addresses the issue and anybody interested might find it an interesting read. If one doesn't care to run out and buy a copy, you might get a local library to search a copy out, and get it on loan from another source.

February 3, 2016, 02:29 AM	#8
bamaranger Senior Member Join Date: October 9, 2009 Location: North Alabama Posts: 8,296	cougars There's enough evidence surfacing now, with modern DNA, game cams and general interest, to indicate that mountain lions/puma, do indeed surface now and again in the southeast, and as far north as Illinois, Ontario, Michigan, maybe Maine too. Florida has their own recognized subspecies. Missouri has at least two "recent" carcasses that I can tell of, 1994, and 2003. Arkansas has some convincing game cam pics from 2003. There are others listed in the text I mentioned earlier. There may be more now, as the text was published in 2005, and it is a decade later. Great Smokey Mtns NP gets a good number of sighting reports annually. The question is, are they local animals so to speak, or merely passing through, or escapees from the pet trade? With all due respect, a genuine, all black, big cat is really suspect of the pet trade, as puma/mtn lions/eatern cougar are not totally black at all, even in a melanistic phase. That doesn't mean anybody hasn't seen a big black cat, , simply that the likelihood of a "black panther" being an eastern cougar, is very highly unlikely. More likely, its an escaped exotic, ie jaguar or leopard. I'm going to hush now, and let this roll. I'm far from an expert, and have a single text I'm referencing. But I have taken a number of black panther/mtn lion reports myself, and have always been fascinated by the accounts. Thanks for all the interest.

February 3, 2016, 02:50 AM	#9
samsmix Senior Member Join Date: June 29, 2006 Location: Montana (Montucky?) Posts: 1,273	Mighty. Good. Eatin'. __________________ You'll probably never NEED a gun. I hope you never do. But IF you do, you will need it worse than anything you've ever needed in your life. IF we're not supposed to eat animals, howcome God made 'em outta meat?

February 3, 2016, 01:25 PM	#12
T. O'Heir Senior Member Join Date: February 13, 2002 Location: Canada Posts: 12,453	"...Ontario..." Yep. Been a few kitty sighting reports around here in the last few years. OPP(Provincial cops) and MNR are playing it down, most likely trying to prevent scaring the indigenous urban population. Said indigenous population panics when Yogi is spotted where they don't think he should be. Yogi has been known to frolic a bit in swimming pools just like the kitty that leaves a trail of clothes. Some of us don't care where that trail leads to as long as it does and we're allowed to follow. snicker. __________________ Spelling and grammar count!

February 3, 2016, 03:25 PM	#14
mete Senior Member Join Date: June 14, 2004 Location: NY State Posts: 6,575	While the game departments always deny, there was one a couple of years ago found [dead by automobile ] near the NY/CT border . But the better way to know how it was in the past just look at maps. I live very close to Panther Brook and there are other such names in the general area ! They do travel long distance though a nesting pair is the much better proof of existance in you're area. All different names but it's an animal that ranges from well into Canada all the way down to Argentina !! __________________ And Watson , bring your revolver !

February 2, 2016, 06:51 PM	#2
CarJunkieLS1 Senior Member Join Date: October 1, 2013 Posts: 686	I believe there are mountain lions here in the southeast. I don't care what the "state officials" say. Seen a black panther myself and have heard to many accounts for everybody to be wrong. I'll share my story for everyone to see. I live in Limestone County Alabama and within the last few months I have heard about a few people seeing mountain lions all around this area. Just last week a man from work had a video on his phone that his neighbor sent him from his outdoor security camera. It shows a mountain lion on the other side of a chain link fence having a staring contest with a rottweiller. That video proves to me that mountain lions are here, there was no doubt, even though state officials say there is no evidence. Back to my panther story: It was the first weekend of January and it was in Limestone County between Rogersville and Athens down near the river. It was like 4:30 pm I didn't see any deer so I was just glancing around and approximately 100yds away I see it...it was solid black and was taller than a labarador retriever the tail was as long as the body. There is NO DOUBT in my mind what I saw, it wasn't a dog, coyote, bob cat etc. Here is the kicker: A co-worker and friend of mine who hunts that same area I do, we were talking on a lunch break about how our seasons went and I made mention of what I saw the only person I had told at that point was my wife so there is no way he knew about it. He replied "you saw it too" his story and description was eerily similar to mine and best we can tell it was less than 1/4 mile from where he saw it and where I saw it. Sorry for the long post, but here is the story

February 2, 2016, 06:58 PM	#3
Llama Bob Senior Member Join Date: January 13, 2016 Posts: 337	If multiple people are seeing them in the same area, it seems like going there and getting a picture from a camera that GPS tags would be compelling evidence.

February 2, 2016, 07:05 PM	#4
CarJunkieLS1 Senior Member Join Date: October 1, 2013 Posts: 686	If i ever see it again I won't be using a camera lens...I'll be using a rifle scope.

February 2, 2016, 07:18 PM	#5
Panfisher Senior Member Join Date: July 30, 2010 Location: Missouri Posts: 1,337	No question as to whether or not there are cougars, pumas, mountain lion, Catamounts whatever, than most state wildlife agencies will readily admit to. Missouri says there are no breeding populations, well if there isn't there will be. As for black panthers I have heard many many stories through my life including from my father and actually want to believe but in the entire cat world there are only I believe 2 known black cats, (not counting domestic felines) leopards and jaguars, and the pics I have seen of the melaninistic jaguars you can readily see the spotting pattern underneath, but would say from more than a few yards away that pattern would not be visable. Maybe next week I will be on here saying I have seen one and now am fully on board, but for now I remain skeptic strictly on a biological/scientific basis. I don't discount anyones story but I guess being from missouri I gotta see one.

February 2, 2016, 09:19 PM	#6
Art Eatman Staff in Memoriam Join Date: November 13, 1998 Location: Terlingua, TX; Thomasville, GA Posts: 24,798	Back some twenty-plus years ago, my wife was driving into town (NW Thomas County, Georgia) and saw a cougar cross the road. Talking about it a few evenings later at our favorite watering hole, a guy (with an Aw, now, little lady tone of voice) asked her how could she know it was a cougar. In true Southern Lady syrup she said, "It looked just like the hide we have draped over the couch at home." Gigglesnort.

February 2, 2016, 09:51 PM	#7
hartcreek Junior member Join Date: April 22, 2014 Location: Washington Posts: 1,549	Yep we have cougars up this way too. I haven't seen on but one year there were plenty of tracks at the cabin. Back when I started bow hunting the early bow season was later then it is now so I was hunting in snow. Before I went back to my vehicle I retraced my early morning tracks just incase an elk had wander back that away.....I found that a cougar had tracked me earlier in the day for half a mile.

February 3, 2016, 09:18 AM	#10
Mobuck Junior member Join Date: February 2, 2010 Posts: 6,846	I've been looking for a "cougar" for a while. Either one that leaves tracks in the snow or one that leaves a trail of clothes as she heads for the bedroom. So far haven't positively located either.

February 3, 2016, 02:02 PM	#13
roashooter Junior member Join Date: December 24, 2010 Posts: 508	guess my mind is wandering.....I was thinking bout an entirely different "cougar".....sigh....

February 3, 2016, 07:00 PM	#15
johnwilliamson062 Junior member Join Date: May 16, 2008 Posts: 9,995	About ten years ago I was backpacking alone near Harpers Ferry didn't make my mileage and ended up making an emergency camp by myself. I had a feline visitor during the night. Only growling and I didn't see it. I couldn't sleep. When I reached the next ranger station I told the ranger about it, and said I didn't think it was a Bobcat, but rather a Cougar. I was familiar with a Bobcats growl and this was not it. After asking me where I was from, how long I had been in the area, and whether I had spoken to anyone else about COugars in the ares, he indicated they had received several reports of Cougars in the area and were trying to get photos on cam. He didn't seem to doubt it had been a Cougar at all. They just found lions in several parks in Africa where naturalist were adamant they had not lived in living memory and could not reach through migration from the areas with lions. Possibly a thought to be extinct species/variant involved. OTOH, people see big foot and similar pretty frequently.

February 3, 2016, 07:06 PM	#16
Mobuck Junior member Join Date: February 2, 2010 Posts: 6,846	"As for the four legged cougars the MDC now admits we have them in the State, I guess all the pictures from the trail cams plus the few that's been shot finally convinced them." The Amish community near Macon MO killed a cougar a few years back and handed it over to MDC with the comment "Now what do you say about them being here?". MDC said "Just a traveling male looking for territory". Same comment as the one hit by a vehicle in the outskirts of KC a while back. Same as the one treed and shot after killing a calf in the Excelsior Springs area 3-4 years ago(that one was kept VERY low key).

February 3, 2016, 09:54 PM	#17
big al hunter Senior Member Join Date: March 12, 2011 Location: Washington state Posts: 1,558	Washington Dept of Fish and Wildlife had collars on several cats for a study several years ago. I was very interested, as I had been followed by a cougar. My interpretation of the data leads me to believe that a male " passing through" looking for territory, in an area without any other male cats....just found home sweet home! I have no doubt that cougars are spreading out. Every healthy female bears multiple kittens. I don't recall the survival rate, but it was enough that the population in Washington is high enough that tags are available over the counter. . If there is a breading population in the east without a hunting season and enough cover to hide them....they are very sneaky.. You will eventually have a large enough population to be detected and confirmed. __________________ You can't fix stupid....however ignorance can be cured through education!

February 3, 2016, 10:36 PM	#18
JERRYS. Senior Member Join Date: September 23, 2013 Location: Alabama Posts: 2,968	the few confirmed cougar/puma/mountain lion sightings in the southeast where I live have been found out to be exotic pets that have gotten loose by irresponsible owners.

February 3, 2016, 10:54 PM	#19
979Texas Senior Member Join Date: January 24, 2015 Location: Houston, Texas Posts: 177	Down here in nearly every part of Texas cougars are a known animal, although they are very seldom they are definently out there. But the state denies any kind of "black panther" if you will, even though there are sightings of them all over the state each year. When I was a very very young boy my family went up to New Boston, Texas to visit my family up there as we are very deeply rooted in that area. New Boston is in very deep Northeastern Texas, located about 10 minutes from Arkansas, 15 minutes from Oklahoma, and 30 minutes from Louisiana. Its nothing but pine tree jungles and swamps up there, just like the rest of the Deep South. Anyway this was in the winter time and I remember me, my father, and my grandfather were driving way down some back dirt road way out in woods near my families deer lease up there and all of a sudden a HUGE black panther with a very long tail jumped out in the middle of the road in front of us and with one more bound he was gone in the piney woods. So I know they exist and I know a few more people from northeast and central east Texas that have seen them also. So yes I agree that they do agree no matter what the State claims. And regular ol cougars are a presence too. A lady I go to church with has had a few sightings of one on her ranch just within the last month. I have never seen one but I have heard one scream in the woods one time when I was in high school out fishing on the Navasota River one evening. A few months before that a buddy of mine and me were hog hunting down there and he saw one that evening near his corn feeder but it was gone before he got a shot off at it. And I have some other hunting friends that lived outside of Huntsville and several times a year they would find dead deer wedged up in the limbs of a tree a good 30 feet off the ground or more. Gee what in East Texas could have done that? Last edited by 979Texas; February 3, 2016 at 11:00 PM.

February 4, 2016, 06:19 AM	#20
Blindstitch Senior Member Join Date: April 14, 2013 Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin Posts: 2,691	I've seen my share of cougars in Michigan. When I was a kid there was said to be no moose in Michigan besides on Isle Royal. That was a farce as we had moose in our back yard (U.P. northern michigan) on more than one occasion. Before they started releasing them in the area my grandfather had seen them for 20 years. Well he got talking to a DNR warden who swore there was no such thing as moose in the area. So then my grandpa said well if there aren't any moose and they're imaginary it's ok if I shoot them. The warden just short of lost his head. Later on during deer season a big doe had been shot and one of his friends had a canadian moose rack that they tied to the deer. The DNR got all kinds of calls about it and had to investigate. They were pretty convinced till they got within 30 feet of the garage. Moral of the story is just because you don't see something doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

February 4, 2016, 09:57 AM	#21
Art Eatman Staff in Memoriam Join Date: November 13, 1998 Location: Terlingua, TX; Thomasville, GA Posts: 24,798	Go to Google maps: Texas Parks & Wildlife released a radio-collared young male cougar from the Black Gap Game Management Area in Brewster County. The cougar was killed in a rancher's sheep pen, two nights later--80 miles north, near Marathon. A pilot friend of mine tracks radio-collared wild critters via his Cessna 172. One cougar was regularly tracked in hunting/mating travel from the Glass Mountains just north of Marathon, all the way to the south end of the Sierra del Carmen in Mexico--approximately a 200-mile ranging.

February 4, 2016, 10:06 AM	#22
g.willikers Senior Member Join Date: September 28, 2008 Posts: 10,442	Years ago, while vacationing in Florida one winter, we saw a cougar dart across a very busy interstate. It made it ok with moves any running back would have been proud of. __________________ Walt Kelly, alias Pogo, sez: “Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent.”

February 4, 2016, 10:34 AM	#23
dylank0723 Member Join Date: April 15, 2015 Posts: 33	I'm in southeastern NC. When I was little my parents swear they saw a panther. Few years back we saw one cross the road by my house, found the tracks for it. Last year we heard something weird, like a high pitched yell or something, idk how to really explain it, looked it up and it was identical to a cougar. Last spring I saw tracks, they were old but looked very close to one. Our neighbor a road over swears he saw one 2 years ago. Also, about 10 years ago a lady 3 miles over was saying something about she saw a big cat. We got a book and had her flip through the pictures and the one she picked out was a cougar. I think they're sparse here, but I'm convinced we have them

February 4, 2016, 01:26 PM	#25
JERRYS. Senior Member Join Date: September 23, 2013 Location: Alabama Posts: 2,968	"they've" been sort of monitoring a male jaguar in southern Arizona lately... believed to be the only documented jaguar in the U.S. for over a hundred years. if jaguars are trying to make a comeback in the U.S. there's no reason why a puma which is already here can't expand its range. again, the confirmed sightings of pumas in my area (east Alabama and west Georgia) have been confirmed to be exotic pets that got loose.

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