The big thing in my neck of the woods are "Black Panther" sightings! :D

I'll admit, I'm the biggest skeptic in the woods. I'm not believing it till I kill one or actually see with my own eyes a dead one. :D

However, a fella in Ga last year shot a cougar during deer season. It was a western cougar. Nobody anywhere remotely close to that area had pets or cougars in enclosures. It was a Tom that weighed around 180 or so pounds. Had all of it's teeth and all of it's claws. If he was let go sometime in the past, he figured out how to make it in the wild or could have been a roaming transplant western cat from Florida, but it was shot in west/central Ga. Long ways to roam. They are trying to relocate cats to Florida to boost the dwinding population of wild eastern cougars down there.

Believe it was the first confirmed cat shot in Ga.

My brother in laws up in Illinois were telling me about cougar sightings and such last year while I was up deer hunting. I just laughed and said, "Sure.... Yeah, Right...." They got all defensive and I was just saying it to lift their skirts a little! :D

They killed one in Chitown last year... bonafide wild cat.

They killed one in Chitown last year... bonafide wild cat.

How far away is that from the Du Quoin area?

Here's a link to the cougar that got popped in Ga last year. My info above is a little off, but here's the real story.

http://www.gon.com/article.php?id=1787&cid=158

How far away is that from the Du Quoin area?

Chitown (Chicago) is 319 miles north of DuQuoin.

In 2000 a dead cougar was found on a train track in Randolph County Illinois.

There is no solid evidence of a live cougar living in Illinois outside of captivity.

It would be nice to see some evidence but most of it is speculation.

Chitown (Chicago) is 319 miles north of DuQuoin.

In 2000 a dead cougar was found on a train track in Randolph County Illinois.

There is no solid evidence of a live cougar living in Illinois outside of captivity.

It would be nice to see some evidence but most of it is speculation.
I'm pretty sure I read that they one that was killed on the train tracks was thought to be wild.

As long as it wasn't this one in GA: http://www.uwsp.edu/wildlife/carnivore/hoaxes/ATT1_small.jpg

:)

As long as it wasn't this one in GA: http://www.uwsp.edu/wildlife/carnivore/hoaxes/ATT1_small.jpg

:)


That cat has been killed from Kalifornia to Virginia!:eek::D:rolleyes:

I'm pretty sure I read that they one that was killed on the train tracks was thought to be wild.


Yes it was determined to be wild.

http://www.cougarnet.org/cmw-desc/Southern%20Illinois%20cougar%207%202000%20necropsy .pdf


Transactions of the Illinois State Academy of Science received 4/10/01
(2001), Volume 94, #4, pp. 227-229 accepted 9/10/01
Record of a North American Cougar
(Puma concolor) from Southern Illinois
Edward J. Heist1, Jennifer R. Bowles2, and Alan Woolf2
1Fisheries and Illinois Aquaculture Center
2Cooperative Wildlife Research Laboratory
1,2 Department of Zoology
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale, IL 62901


ABSTRACT
A cougar (Puma concolor) was recovered in the proximity of railroad tracks in Randolph
County, Illinois on July 15, 2000. A necropsy indicated that the cougar died from injuries
it received when struck by a train. The animal appeared to be in good health prior to the accident, and no indications of captive rearing were observed. Genetic data were used to verify that the cougar was of North American origin and not an escaped or released cougar of South American origin. This is the first confirmed occurrence of a cougar in Illinois in over 100 years.

INTRODUCTION
On July 15, 2000 officials of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources retrieved the carcass of a cougar from Randolph County, Illinois. The native range of cougars stretches from the Yukon to Argentina, and in North America from California to the Maritime Provinces of Canada (Hansen 1992). While cougars were native to Illinois, predator control efforts of the last two centuries and habitat alteration have extirpated cougars from the entire Midwest (Hansen 1992). The last resident cougars were removed from Illinois prior to 1860 (Danz 1999). The closest known cougar populations are in Texas and Colorado. However, there is evidence for the existence of cougars in the Arkansas Ozarks (Witsell et al. 1999) as well as eastern Kentucky and Tennessee (Nowack 1976) and there have been recent unconfirmed cougar sightings in southern Illinois. Some cougars found outside of their current range are escaped or released captive animals, and many of those cougars are of South American origin. In a recent study of 315 cougars from North and South America including 31 of 32 putative subspecies, Culver et al. (2000) compared partial DNA sequences of several mitochondrial genes. They found that cougars from North America are genetically homogeneous and distinct from South American cougars. Only two mtDNA haplotypes were found north of Panama, one of which was restricted to the Olympic Peninsula of the Pacific Northwest. Cougars from Panama and South America are genetically more diverse; however no South American cougar possessed either of the North American mtDNA haplotypes. Thus mtDNA provides a reliable method of determining whether 228 the cougar killed in Randolph County Illinois was of North American origin, and therefore potentially a wild cougar, or of South American origin and an obvious captive release.

METHODS
The cougar carcass was frozen by IDNR personnel and shipped to Southern Illinois University, Carbondale where a necropsy was performed. The animal was weighed and
measurements taken. The nature of the trauma to both external and internal anatomy
were noted. A piece of tongue was taken for genetic analyses. Whole genomic DNA was extracted from tongue tissue using a commercial DNA extraction
kit (Quiagen Inc.). Portions of two mitochondrial genes (ATP-8ase and ND-5) were
amplified using primers described in Johnson et al. (1998). Each 50 μl PCR reaction
contained 5 μl 10X buffer (Promega Inc.), 65 ng cougar genomic DNA, 2 mM MgCl2,
and 2.5 picomoles of each PCR primer. PCR products were prepared for cloning using a
commercial kit (Quiagen Inc.), ligated into a TA cloning vector (Promega Inc.), and
cloned into DH5α competent cells. Miniprep plasmid DNA was obtained using a commercial kit (Promega Inc.) and sequenced on an ABI 377 automated DNA sequencer. Sequences were compared to published sequences from Culver et al. (2000).


RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The cougar was a 226 cm long male with a tail length of 72.5 cm and a total weight of 50kg. Based on a combination of cementum annuli and tooth wear criteria the cougar was estimated to be a 4-6 year old adult. The head was nearly detached from the carcass between the 2nd and 3rd cervical vertebrae, and was connected to the carcass by only a few strands of dorsal skin. Findings were consistent with blunt trauma as a cause of death. There was no indication that the cougar had recently worn a collar, nor was there wear on the foot pads consistent with cage or pen habitation. Stomach contents included partially digested material (skin, hair, bones) from a single white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus)
fawn. The cougar exhibited well-developed musculature and abundant visceral/
mesenteric fat.DNA sequences at both mitochondrial genes were identical to those of haplotype “M” reported as the common mtDNA haplotype in North American cougars by Culver et al. (2000). Sequences of the Illinois cougar differed from all South American mtDNA haplotypes by at least one substitution in the ATP-8ase gene and two substitutions in the ND-5 gene. Thus the cougar killed by the train in Randolph County Illinois was of North American origin and appears to have been successfully foraging in the wild prior to itsaccidental death.
229


LITERATURE CITED
Culver, M., W. E. Johnson, J. Pecon-Slattery and S. J. O’Brien. 2000. Genomic ancestry of the
American puma (Puma concolor). J. Heredity 91:186-197.
Danz, H. P. 1999. Cougar! Ohio University Press, Athens Ohio. 310 pp.
Hansen, K. 1992. Cougar, the American lion. Northland Publishing, Flagstaff, AZ. 129 pp.
Johnson, W., C. Culver, J. A. Iriate, E. Eizirik, K. L. Seymour, and S. J. O’Brien. 1998. Tracking
the evolution of the elusive Andean mountain cat (Oreailurus jacobita) from mitochondrial
DNA. J. Heredity 89:227-232.
Nowack, R. M. 1976. The cougar in the United States and Canada. U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
Washington, D. C. and the New York Zoological Society, New York. 189 pp.
Witsell, T., G. A. Heidt, P. L. Dozhier, T. Frothingham, and M. Lynn. 1999. Recent documentation
of mountain lion (Puma concolor) in Arkansas. J. Arkansas Acad. of Sci. 53:157-158

I think there's a good chance that many of the sightings were bobcats. When I was up there earlier this month, though, I talked to a friend I've known many years who hunts a lot and he mentioned he saw a cougar up in Pope county a couple years ago when he was deer hunting. This is a guy who knows the difference between a bobcat and cougar, and his word is gold with me. I hiked across Lusk Wilderness then, and didn't see a trace of one but I did see bobcat tracks.

I do think that it's unlikely there is an established population since the sightings are so rare. They probably range through the area once in a while following the creeks and tree lines. They're known to cross bridges, too. There's a youtube vid you can find showing a Florida panther crossing one.

You're much more likely to find a track than see a live cat, so a good way to prove your find is to carry a camera, and GPS - lay the GPS unit next to the track for scale, in the mode that shows the coordinates then take the pic.

The guy that farms the ground next to us in Pike says he missed a very large black cat from his tractor while he was spraying one day. Of course there is no pics of it. We see a few bobcats there everyonce in a while too. I have talked to a lot of people that have seen a few of them. I heard of a guy who trapped one around Coulterville too. My buddy never got pics or anything though...

A Jaguar In Pike County?????????????????

The guy that farms the ground next to us in Pike says he missed a very large black cat from his tractor while he was spraying one day. Of course there is no pics of it. We see a few bobcats there everyonce in a while too. I have talked to a lot of people that have seen a few of them. I heard of a guy who trapped one around Coulterville too. My buddy never got pics or anything though...


With all of the trailcams in Pike you would think that we would see a pic. I would also imagine a big cat would be long gone before a tractor got close. I am very surprised that your "buddy" did not get a picture.

Yea, I told him to get pics of it and that was where it stopped. Not sure what to think about the black one... Guy is pretty straight up, but who knows. No trail cam or sitings before or since then.

black panthers come up to louisiana where my dad lives every now and again there aint nothin stoppin them from passin this way neither