banjo201

Some of us hunters at work were discussing the possiblitity of cougars and black panthers here in Georgia. I know that most biologists say that the only cougars in the east are in Florida, but there have been several reported sightings in recent years in the east. When I was about 15, I remember one night coming in from church with my mother and brother when a large black animal, about 4 1/2 feet long, with a tail about 3 to 4 feet in length, ran across in front of the car as we took the back drive into our house. It did not move like a dog, but more like a cat. Later on, I was talking to a deputy sheriff and he mentioned that he had seen several in our part of Georgia as well.

What about you eastern hunters out there? Have you ever encountered something like this?

hillbillyhunter1

banjo
I've got a few friends back east that swear to it----go to the northeast or southeast forum on this website---from the number of posts there on the subject, it seems like those guys see more mountain lions than whitetails

banjo201

Thanks HillbillyHunter,
How are things in Montana? I'm a proud graduate of Montana State at Billings and not a day goes by that I don't miss Montana. When I lived there in the early 90's, it was some of the best hunting in the lower 48. I used to hunt out from Red Lodge, Nye, and the Columbus area. Some of the best deer herds I have ever seen. My wife wants to move back.

hillbillyhunter1

things here suck--how could you like it here? too dry, too cold, rattlesnakes everywhere, high income tax, wolves everywhere, too many californians

I'm gonna try to suffer thru though

Mike01

Can't say I've heard/seen one, but my aunt who lives up around here swears by it she had heard one way up in the wilderness behind her house. Said it sounded just like a woman screaming, VERY high pitched, and several old timers who've been around here for a long time have claimed to have seen 'em. Personally I believe it, I think theres plenty of land, enough to where they could be alive without bein' found.

banjo201

It was about the time that I seen whatever it was I seen, that several neighbors were complaining about hearing a sound like a woman screaming. I truly believe I saw a black panther, regardless of what the experts say.

Virginia7

Friend of mine, not given to BS, has twice seen cougars in the swampy areas he hunts
over in eastern North Carolina.

Jonathan K

A few years ago one was seen a few miles from my house near the Mohawk Valley of New York - two co-workers saw the cat on two separate occasions about 20 miles apart. I had recently changed jobs and they didn't know each other. There were two explainations - an exotic cat that was released (apparently there are hundreds of privately licensed large cats in the state, one african cat was road killed a few years back in the northern Adirondacks, so that is a plausable explanation.) The other is that the cats were just passing through.

Time was the big cats were pretty common - a few boys were killed by cats while walking the mules on the Erie Canal back in the 1820's and my grandfather had a few encounters back in the 1920s. I just had a conversation with my grandmother (age 102) and she described seeing some on the farm back in the early 40's. The men were all out hunting and nobody believed her until a male neighbor verified her story. They are definately "native" to the east (Catskill = Cats Creek), just not many anymore.

An interesting aside - my grandfather shot a wolf in the Adirondacks back in 1957 and collected a bounty of $50 from the state - thing is that all of the history books show the "last wolf in the Adirondacks" killed in 1857, a hundred years earlier. I have pictures of it hanging with my older sister by its side.

truk

one just got hit by a car here in the u.p. of Michigan,DNR confirmed.

BrutalAttack

Well considering the u.p. had a confirmed wolverine sighting I don't think cougars are that much of a stretch. As for the south east there is probably a few but not as many as most want to believe.