For a rare animal there sure seems to be a lot of them around. A lot of sightings anyway.
Plain 'Ol Cougar....yeah I can believe a sighting or two just about anyplace, they are expanding. But when the discussion veers off to Black Panthers...you lose me there.
That could be what's going on around here - "too many lions." I brought it up in another thread about how it seems like once a year anymore the Idaho Department of Fish & Game has to tranquilize and deport a cougar from the big city of Pocatello - about 25 miles from here. In fact, last winter they had to tranquilize and deport one that was hanging around the Idaho State University campus.The reason was to many lions. The young adults were being pushed out of the older lions territories with nowhere to go but areas near towns.
Yeah, you're like me. I've heard and read that some places back east have overpopulations of white-tailed deer. I don't believe it though because I've never seen an white-tailed deer around here, and I've been successfully hunting deer (mule deer) around here for 55 years. Good grief.Show me some pic's or trail came pic's and I'll buy the cougar population is growing .But until then I think most peoples imagination is running away with them.
.308 Norma, check out the bag limits for whitetails in Alabama as one example of a population much larger than, say, in Oklahoma.
Central Texas, because of changes in land use and a reduction in hunting in some areas, has seen the whitetail become a pest. When I moved back to the old family ranch, I went spotlighting one night and in an area of maybe sixty acres or so I counted some fifty pairs of eyes. Way too many runty little deer. When very-dry weather hits, the deer move into the edges of towns. The little community of Jonestown made the headlines because of an estimated 1,500 whitetails in and around town. That was the beginning of increased cougar sightings in the general area.
Art, I was trying to be facetious.308 Norma, check out the bag limits for whitetails in Alabama as one example of a population much larger than, say, in Oklahoma.
I personally have seen 2 black panthers in my life- one on our farm 1/2 mile outside city limits around 1988 and a second about 2005 at the Alligator Wildlife Refuge. I’ve never seen a tawny colored one in the wild and I’ve never seen a black one in a cage. Just my personal experience.I don't know what they were calling "black panthers," but there were no actual black panthers, aka black mountain lions. They don't exist. They certainly don't exist in the frequency that people report them. Funny how many folks have seen one or more of these, but not actually seen a regular mountain lion.
I personally have seen 2 black panthers in my life- one on our farm 1/2 mile outside city limits around 1988 and a second about 2005 at the Alligator Wildlife Refuge. I’ve never seen a tawny colored one in the wild and I’ve never seen a black one in a cage. Just my personal experience.