I can't see the tracks well enough to say anything one way or the other, but don't be too quick to dismiss a big cat. It's been awhile, but I have a vivid memory of sitting and staring out the kitchen window at a full grown mountain lion/cougar/puma----pick one---for a good twenty minutes. It was sitting and staring right back. The scope on my rifle was set on 10X, and the range was 135 yards----I swear I could count its whiskers!
I absolutely, positively KNEW there were no such wild critters in this neck of the woods, and figured it for some neighbor's pet that had gotten out---and didn't shoot. First thing the next morning I called the Zoology Department at the university in Knoxville to confirm there were no big cats in this neck of the woods.
WRONG!! There are---and they're in more places than they aren't. My neighbors were not pleased to learn I had the critter in my sights, and didn't shoot. It seems it and/or its compatriots have been dining on their livestock right along.
When I told a friend we let hunt deer here about it, he said, "Oh yeah, there are all sorts of big cat tracks down by the bluffs (where the deer congregate)---have been for years."
The one thing I remember from my education at the hands of the Zoology Department folks was the cat's range---35 square miles for a single cat!
Ralph Tremaine
I absolutely, positively KNEW there were no such wild critters in this neck of the woods, and figured it for some neighbor's pet that had gotten out---and didn't shoot. First thing the next morning I called the Zoology Department at the university in Knoxville to confirm there were no big cats in this neck of the woods.
WRONG!! There are---and they're in more places than they aren't. My neighbors were not pleased to learn I had the critter in my sights, and didn't shoot. It seems it and/or its compatriots have been dining on their livestock right along.
When I told a friend we let hunt deer here about it, he said, "Oh yeah, there are all sorts of big cat tracks down by the bluffs (where the deer congregate)---have been for years."
The one thing I remember from my education at the hands of the Zoology Department folks was the cat's range---35 square miles for a single cat!
Ralph Tremaine
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