Hve you ever seen a panther (cougar, mountain lion) east of the Mississippi?

Question

In 1994, the year of the big snows, I saw two of them walking down by the creek. This was in the northern Appalachian Mountains. Panthers, as they are called aound here, are supposed to have been eliminated many years ago. The case against their present existance says that #1 There have been no road kills. #2 Hunters haven't killed any. #3 There is no physical proof - only sightings. In other words, they are akin to Bigfoot. But have YOU ever seen one in the wild?

Answer 1

i havenever seen one myself but my father in law was hunting deer in the northwest region of Pennslyvania and saw a mountain lion slinking thru the fog he was later captured by the wildlife service because he had eaten a tavern owners prized set of beagles one night not too long before the sighting kinda makes the hair set up on yer arms huh?he was an experienced outdoorsman and told this sighting to the forest service many years ago

Answer 2

Interesting you ask. I guess the answer is a qualified no. I happened to see a show on the dangerous dozen animals and they had the range of cougars as west of South Dakota. While in the Black Hills, I found numerous mountain lion tracks and so the evidence was similar to bigfoot. I thought there was a cougar indiginous to the Everglades (called panther). I have actually seen cougar in California. Once up north and three near running trails in So Cal. They are pretty spooky sometimes because they have almost no fear of humans here. I ran up on one that was confronting another jogger but took off when it was outnumbered.

Answer 3

i wouldn't be surprised, I live in TX and they can be very secretive, we have even had the occasional sighting of them prowling around Fort Worth and Dallas. I have read a confirmed sighting of a group of the big cats in Illinois

Answer 4

see web page below for organization that tracks and records confirmed eastern cougar occurrences.

Answer 5

yes