cougars

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bamaranger

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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.
 
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
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
Click to expand...

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.:D

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
 
"...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.
 
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 !! :p
 
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.
 
"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).
 
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.
 
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.
 
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?
 
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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.
 
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