Several years ago Florida Fish and Game Commission imported male
cougars from the West in oder to expand the gene pool of the Florida
Panther. The Florida Panther is closely related to the Western cougar.
They tagged the new residents and within a year one was found in
Northeast Georgia. So these beast will roam over a very large area. I
would be surprised that if there are not cougars in Northern AL. One
theory about the outbreak of the coyote population in the East is
blamed on the winter of 1979 when the Mississippi froze solid very far
South and gave them a bridge over the river. When I was a kid in
Western, KY (a year or so prior to 1979) we did not have coyotes. It
such a migration over a frozen bridge brought coyotes, I expect a
cougar or two might have also migrated.
Truman
Jody Rogers-Buttram wrote:
Thanks....looks like we won't have a chance to ride until
Sunday, and it may be late Sunday when we go. I did call the FS, and
they acted like that was all news to them. But I have had other people
tell me that the FS doesn't want to admit they (the cats) are up
there. Too many people have seen them though.
Jody
-- “I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in
pseudoscience
“I maintain there is much more wonder in science
than in
pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any
meaning,
science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one,
of
being true.” Carl Sagan