Sproulman, you "almost got it right." Except for that little bit of distortion.
Those are not "sightings." Sightings are "proven." They are "claimed to be sightings."
PGC does not say, "they don't exist." PGC says that they know of no breeding population of "wild" mountain lions.
Many of the "sightings" have been proven to be bobcats. In the most recent one that I am aware of in the Williamsport area, some mysterious person walked in all the "cougar" tracks prior to the PGC arriving. Funny ain;t it how when they so show up to investigate --- the tracks have been trampled.
Even so, the WCO did find tracks and verified them to be bobcat. Of course the guy who saw the cougar immediately said they was too small to have come from the cougar he saw. Imagine that, the PGC finds bobcat tracks within 100 yards of the trampled cougar tracks and the guy claims it was a different animal what made them!
In another "claimed sighting" where a picture was published in the newspaper it turned out be be verified as ---a housecat!
Pure geniouses and wildlife experts you're listening to there Sproulman.
last cougar killed in my area was in 1967,potter county ,pa..
Yes, and that one was proven positively to have been a pet.
I talked to a guy on Thursday who claimed to have seen five different cougars in hunting season in one area, one of them was "all black."
This was in the Sproul. Funny thing, about 60 people drove many miles on the forest road where ya could see virtually every slope and side hill because there ain;t no habitat. We did find tracks --- deer, fox, rabbitand squirrel tracks. So sorry -- no cougar tracks.
Maybe they are afraid to go out in fresh snow??????