| Other Articles |
| Protected by Copyright |
| Articles and photos on this website are for the viewing pleasure of patrons of this site. All articles and photos on this site are protected by the copyright laws of the United States. Any unauthorized usage is strictly prohibited. If you wish to purchase an article or photo, contact John N. Felsher as listed in the contact section. |
| How you can help keep this site operating |
| Articles and photos on this website are free for your viewing pleasure, but it takes money to keep this site up and running. If you would care to help keep this site up and running for the use of all outdoors patrons, you can make a cash contribution. If you care to donate, contact John N. Felsher as listed in the contact section. |
John N. Felsher's Other Adventures
 | |  | |  | |  | |  |
Occasionally, some things really do
go bump in the Southern nights
go bump in the Southern nights
Legendary blood-curdling screams punctuated nights in the wilderness
long ago.
Early settlers knew that the night sounds came not from imaginary
goblins, but from real toothy creatures. Florida panthers, also known as
mountain lions, cougars, catamounts, pumas and many other names,
lurked just beyond the shadows of feeble campfires in the endless cypress
swamps and forests of early Louisiana. Some people claim the big cats still
lurk in the shadows or recently returned to their ancestral homes.
Cougars can weigh more than 200 pounds and roam over hundreds of
square miles. They can easily bring down deer, elk, cattle — or humans!
During the past two centuries, intensive predator eradication programs tried
to exterminate cougars and other toothy creatures. Habitat loss and an
expanding human population also devastated big cat populations. By early
in the 20th century, cougars largely disappeared from most of the eastern
United States.
Florida panthers, one of about 30 subspecies of cougar, once ranged
throughout the southeastern United States including all of Louisiana. A few
dozen Florida panthers still fight against extinction in extreme southwestern
Florida. The eastern cougar, another subspecies, roamed over most of
North America east of the Mississippi River. Eastern cougars allegedly
became extinct in the 1940s.
Or did they? Since the Endangered Species Act passed in 1973,
existing cat populations in the United States began increasing nationally.
Expanding populations may force young cougars to spread out to find and
establish their own home ranges.
Now, hunters in nearly every southern and eastern state, including
Louisiana, describe seeing big cats in the forests and fields every year. In
2001, the Cougar Network received 510 cougar sightings from 27 eastern
states and four Canadian provinces. In about 21 percent of the cases,
investigators found additional hard evidence such as droppings, hair
samples or tracks.
In his book, Mammals of Louisiana and its Adjacent Waters, George
Lowery described several Bayou State cougar encounters. In November
1965, two Caddo Parish deputies killed a cougar 13 miles from Shreveport.
In January 1971, two deer hunters spotted a cougar estimated to weigh 150
pounds crossing an open field in Madison Parish. Two months later, a
person reported seeing a cougar in the same vicinity.
In the spring of 1972, a person spotted a lion in Webster Parish. In
October 1972, people reported seeing one in St. Tammany Parish. In 1972
and 1973, reports of a cougar with young came from Concordia and
Catahoula parishes.
In 1977, state biologists investigated cat tracks in Concordia Parish. In
December 1986, someone saw a cougar in East Baton Rouge Parish. A
month later, people reported seeing a cougar running along the Amite
River in Livingston Parish, said Ines E. Maxit, a Louisiana Department of
Wildlife and Fisheries zoologist.
In the past several years, reports became increasingly more frequent.
Most reports come from hunters who venture into wilderness areas or
private leases to pursue their sport. Deer hunters, especially those in the
thick forests and fields of northern Louisiana and the vast Atchafalaya
Basin, probably report more sightings than others.
The first confirmed sighting in decades occurred in April 2002. Then,
Mike Carloss, a biologist for Lake Fausse Pointe State Park near New
Iberia, and his wife spotted a cougar in the park. Some feces they collected
at the site tested positive for cougar DNA.
“We don’t know if it (the Lake Fausse Pointe cat) was a wild cougar or
a released cat,” Maxit said. “We just know that the droppings were made by
a North American cougar.”
Between May and July 2002, residents near Cutoff spotted a large tan
cat several times. State biologists investigated the first call, but found no
tracks or droppings. Later, area residents found tracks and droppings and
called the LDWF, but officials didn’t return to investigate further.
“We have 70 acres of mostly cattle pasture,” said Mary Ann Loupe of
Cutoff at the time. “My son has a crawfish pond and saw the tracks and
droppings on the levee. In May 2002, my son-in-law saw it running across
the levee. My daughter-in-law saw a big tan cat on the porch. It was going
after my cats. In July 2002, my neighbor saw it running across the road.”
One cat could possibly account for both the Lake Fausse Pointe and
Cutoff sightings. An adult male cougar may roam over many miles looking
for food and a mate. With few other adult cougars in the area, it might
wander a long distance looking for love.
In 2008, the LDWF announced confirmation of three cougar
occurrences. Trail cameras caught two images of cats positively identified
as cougars. One photo was taken in Natchitoches Parish on Sept. 4. The
second was taken in Allen Parish about 100 miles away on Sept. 29. State
officials could not determine if the two images were of the same cat or two
animals.
Tragically, law enforcement officials shot and killed a cougar found
sitting in a tree in a suburban area of Bossier City on Nov. 30, 2008.
Officials darted the cat with a tranquilizer twice, but then shot it as it made
aggressive moves after falling out of the tree. This was the first recovered
cougar corpse in Louisiana since 1965. Officials don't know whether the
three occurrences in 2008 constituted one cat or multiple cats.
In August 2011, a trail camera caught an image of a cougar in Vernon
Parish, as confirmed by the LDWF. Louisiana may or may not harbor a
permanent breeding population, but animals could certainly pass through
the state on occasion.
Hunters in Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas report seeing big cats
each year. More than 30 people reported seeing a cougar near Gulfport,
Miss., on Sept. 3, 2004. Cougars live in both Arkansas and East Texas.
Texas holds a hunting season in the western part of the state with about
190 animals harvested legally each year.
“At one time, mountain lions occurred everywhere in Texas,” said John
Young, a Texas Parks & Wildlife Department biologist. “We have cougar
populations in southern and western Texas. We’ve had reports and road
kills in central and East Texas. In East Texas, they are very uncommon.
The breeding population extends from about Corpus Christi to Austin to
Dallas and westward and southward.”
From 1983 to 2001, Texas officials recovered seven dead cougars in
East Texas. In 1990, people found a dead cougar near Texarkana, Texas,
only a few miles from the Louisiana and Arkansas state lines. In November
1991, a hunter shot an adult male cougar weighing 125 pounds in Newton
County just west of the Sabine River and south of the Toledo Bend Dam,
Young said. A big cat could easily cross the Sabine River into Louisiana.
“It’s highly possible that cats from Texas cross into Louisiana,” Young
said. “I’d say the mountain lion population in Texas is stable.”
In Arkansas, cougars remain mostly in the Ouachita or Ozark
mountains in the western part of the state. However, a few cats
occasionally stray into southern Arkansas, said Blake Sasse, the non-game
mammal program coordinator for the Arkansas Game and Fish
Commission. Individuals also own about 150 pet mountain lions in
Arkansas.
“I think it’s likely that a few mountain lions, probably less than 10, roam
Arkansas,” Sasse said in 2004. “In the 1940s, two mountain lions were shot
in Arkansas. In about 1974, another mountain lion was shot. The ones
from the 1940s could have been a remnant from the original Florida
panther population, but the one in the 1970s was probably a pet. At least
eight times in the past several years, pet lions escaped. All eight that we
know about were either shot or recaptured.”
In June 1996, people videotaped an adult cougar about two miles
south of Amity in Hot Springs County, Ark. In October 1998, researchers
found scat in Hot Springs County. In January 1999, an Arkansas Game
and Fish Commission wildlife officer reported seeing an adult female cougar
with two kittens south of Lake Winona on the Saline/Grand County line. In
November 1999, a U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service biologist
reported seeing a cougar along a highway in Garland County, Ark.,
according to Cougar Network officials.
Each year, biologists in many states receive reports about “black
panthers.” “Panthers” do not exist as distinct animals, but people often call
mountain lions “panthers.” No documented cougar in history ever had
black fur, although bobcats sometimes occur in black or melanistic phases.
In fact, the scientific name for cougar, Felis concolor, means “cat of one
color,” Young said.
In Africa and Asia, people sometimes call tigers, leopards and a few
other cat species “panthers.” These animals occasionally occur in
melanistic phases. In North and South America, rare black jaguars and
jaguarundis may occur. Jaguarundis, small long-tailed South American cats
resemble miniature cougars and range to south Texas, perhaps farther,
and have been released in Florida. Ocelots, another spotted South
American cat species sometimes called a panther, can look dark when
viewed in the shadows or at a distance.
“We don’t answer reports of black panthers,” Maxit said. “Someone
could possibly see a long-tailed cat at a distance and report a cougar that’s
really a jaguarundi, but to my knowledge, there has never been a confirmed
jaguarundi sighting in Louisiana.”
People would not likely see jaguars, jaguarundis or ocelots in
Louisiana today. Jaguars and ocelots once ranged into southwestern
Louisiana, but disappeared in the 19th century. Newspapers reported a
200-pound jaguar shot on June 1, 1886, in Ascension Parish. Arizona
officials reported 64 jaguars killed since 1900, the last one in 1986, but
jaguar reports have increased in recent years.
Texas historical records indicate jaguars killed as far east as
Beaumont. The last confirmed Texas jaguar death occurred in the 1940s.
Never very common, jaguarundis probably reached their northern limit in
extreme southern Texas. In 1986, a car hit a jaguarundi in Texas.
“We estimate about 100 to 120 ocelots live in extreme southern
Texas,” Young said. “At one time, ocelots roamed throughout Texas and
into Louisiana. Today, the primary population is on Laguna Atascosa
National Wildlife Refuge. In the last 20 years, ocelots have been seen as
far north as Kingsville, Texas.”
People reporting “black panthers” may actually see Labrador
retrievers, raccoons, small bears, big house cats, feral pigs, foxes, coyotes,
otters or maybe even rare melanistic-phase bobcats. They could possibly
see a genuine cougar in silhouette or in shadows so that it looks black or
might see a cat caked in mud. Many big cat reports occur at night or during
low-light conditions when distinguishing colors becomes extremely difficult
and everything looks black. Even brightly colored animals at a distance
often appear black. Sometimes, a person seeing a genuine tawny cougar
might simply remember it as black because that’s what he or she wants to
believe. Reported “panther screams” usually come from screech owls or
barn owls.
As an endangered species, eastern cougars fall under federal
protection with stiff penalties for anyone who shoots one. In areas with
hunting seasons, they fall under the game laws of that state. Anyone in the
eastern United States who spots a cougar should call the state wildlife
department.
long ago.
Early settlers knew that the night sounds came not from imaginary
goblins, but from real toothy creatures. Florida panthers, also known as
mountain lions, cougars, catamounts, pumas and many other names,
lurked just beyond the shadows of feeble campfires in the endless cypress
swamps and forests of early Louisiana. Some people claim the big cats still
lurk in the shadows or recently returned to their ancestral homes.
Cougars can weigh more than 200 pounds and roam over hundreds of
square miles. They can easily bring down deer, elk, cattle — or humans!
During the past two centuries, intensive predator eradication programs tried
to exterminate cougars and other toothy creatures. Habitat loss and an
expanding human population also devastated big cat populations. By early
in the 20th century, cougars largely disappeared from most of the eastern
United States.
Florida panthers, one of about 30 subspecies of cougar, once ranged
throughout the southeastern United States including all of Louisiana. A few
dozen Florida panthers still fight against extinction in extreme southwestern
Florida. The eastern cougar, another subspecies, roamed over most of
North America east of the Mississippi River. Eastern cougars allegedly
became extinct in the 1940s.
Or did they? Since the Endangered Species Act passed in 1973,
existing cat populations in the United States began increasing nationally.
Expanding populations may force young cougars to spread out to find and
establish their own home ranges.
Now, hunters in nearly every southern and eastern state, including
Louisiana, describe seeing big cats in the forests and fields every year. In
2001, the Cougar Network received 510 cougar sightings from 27 eastern
states and four Canadian provinces. In about 21 percent of the cases,
investigators found additional hard evidence such as droppings, hair
samples or tracks.
In his book, Mammals of Louisiana and its Adjacent Waters, George
Lowery described several Bayou State cougar encounters. In November
1965, two Caddo Parish deputies killed a cougar 13 miles from Shreveport.
In January 1971, two deer hunters spotted a cougar estimated to weigh 150
pounds crossing an open field in Madison Parish. Two months later, a
person reported seeing a cougar in the same vicinity.
In the spring of 1972, a person spotted a lion in Webster Parish. In
October 1972, people reported seeing one in St. Tammany Parish. In 1972
and 1973, reports of a cougar with young came from Concordia and
Catahoula parishes.
In 1977, state biologists investigated cat tracks in Concordia Parish. In
December 1986, someone saw a cougar in East Baton Rouge Parish. A
month later, people reported seeing a cougar running along the Amite
River in Livingston Parish, said Ines E. Maxit, a Louisiana Department of
Wildlife and Fisheries zoologist.
In the past several years, reports became increasingly more frequent.
Most reports come from hunters who venture into wilderness areas or
private leases to pursue their sport. Deer hunters, especially those in the
thick forests and fields of northern Louisiana and the vast Atchafalaya
Basin, probably report more sightings than others.
The first confirmed sighting in decades occurred in April 2002. Then,
Mike Carloss, a biologist for Lake Fausse Pointe State Park near New
Iberia, and his wife spotted a cougar in the park. Some feces they collected
at the site tested positive for cougar DNA.
“We don’t know if it (the Lake Fausse Pointe cat) was a wild cougar or
a released cat,” Maxit said. “We just know that the droppings were made by
a North American cougar.”
Between May and July 2002, residents near Cutoff spotted a large tan
cat several times. State biologists investigated the first call, but found no
tracks or droppings. Later, area residents found tracks and droppings and
called the LDWF, but officials didn’t return to investigate further.
“We have 70 acres of mostly cattle pasture,” said Mary Ann Loupe of
Cutoff at the time. “My son has a crawfish pond and saw the tracks and
droppings on the levee. In May 2002, my son-in-law saw it running across
the levee. My daughter-in-law saw a big tan cat on the porch. It was going
after my cats. In July 2002, my neighbor saw it running across the road.”
One cat could possibly account for both the Lake Fausse Pointe and
Cutoff sightings. An adult male cougar may roam over many miles looking
for food and a mate. With few other adult cougars in the area, it might
wander a long distance looking for love.
In 2008, the LDWF announced confirmation of three cougar
occurrences. Trail cameras caught two images of cats positively identified
as cougars. One photo was taken in Natchitoches Parish on Sept. 4. The
second was taken in Allen Parish about 100 miles away on Sept. 29. State
officials could not determine if the two images were of the same cat or two
animals.
Tragically, law enforcement officials shot and killed a cougar found
sitting in a tree in a suburban area of Bossier City on Nov. 30, 2008.
Officials darted the cat with a tranquilizer twice, but then shot it as it made
aggressive moves after falling out of the tree. This was the first recovered
cougar corpse in Louisiana since 1965. Officials don't know whether the
three occurrences in 2008 constituted one cat or multiple cats.
In August 2011, a trail camera caught an image of a cougar in Vernon
Parish, as confirmed by the LDWF. Louisiana may or may not harbor a
permanent breeding population, but animals could certainly pass through
the state on occasion.
Hunters in Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas report seeing big cats
each year. More than 30 people reported seeing a cougar near Gulfport,
Miss., on Sept. 3, 2004. Cougars live in both Arkansas and East Texas.
Texas holds a hunting season in the western part of the state with about
190 animals harvested legally each year.
“At one time, mountain lions occurred everywhere in Texas,” said John
Young, a Texas Parks & Wildlife Department biologist. “We have cougar
populations in southern and western Texas. We’ve had reports and road
kills in central and East Texas. In East Texas, they are very uncommon.
The breeding population extends from about Corpus Christi to Austin to
Dallas and westward and southward.”
From 1983 to 2001, Texas officials recovered seven dead cougars in
East Texas. In 1990, people found a dead cougar near Texarkana, Texas,
only a few miles from the Louisiana and Arkansas state lines. In November
1991, a hunter shot an adult male cougar weighing 125 pounds in Newton
County just west of the Sabine River and south of the Toledo Bend Dam,
Young said. A big cat could easily cross the Sabine River into Louisiana.
“It’s highly possible that cats from Texas cross into Louisiana,” Young
said. “I’d say the mountain lion population in Texas is stable.”
In Arkansas, cougars remain mostly in the Ouachita or Ozark
mountains in the western part of the state. However, a few cats
occasionally stray into southern Arkansas, said Blake Sasse, the non-game
mammal program coordinator for the Arkansas Game and Fish
Commission. Individuals also own about 150 pet mountain lions in
Arkansas.
“I think it’s likely that a few mountain lions, probably less than 10, roam
Arkansas,” Sasse said in 2004. “In the 1940s, two mountain lions were shot
in Arkansas. In about 1974, another mountain lion was shot. The ones
from the 1940s could have been a remnant from the original Florida
panther population, but the one in the 1970s was probably a pet. At least
eight times in the past several years, pet lions escaped. All eight that we
know about were either shot or recaptured.”
In June 1996, people videotaped an adult cougar about two miles
south of Amity in Hot Springs County, Ark. In October 1998, researchers
found scat in Hot Springs County. In January 1999, an Arkansas Game
and Fish Commission wildlife officer reported seeing an adult female cougar
with two kittens south of Lake Winona on the Saline/Grand County line. In
November 1999, a U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service biologist
reported seeing a cougar along a highway in Garland County, Ark.,
according to Cougar Network officials.
Each year, biologists in many states receive reports about “black
panthers.” “Panthers” do not exist as distinct animals, but people often call
mountain lions “panthers.” No documented cougar in history ever had
black fur, although bobcats sometimes occur in black or melanistic phases.
In fact, the scientific name for cougar, Felis concolor, means “cat of one
color,” Young said.
In Africa and Asia, people sometimes call tigers, leopards and a few
other cat species “panthers.” These animals occasionally occur in
melanistic phases. In North and South America, rare black jaguars and
jaguarundis may occur. Jaguarundis, small long-tailed South American cats
resemble miniature cougars and range to south Texas, perhaps farther,
and have been released in Florida. Ocelots, another spotted South
American cat species sometimes called a panther, can look dark when
viewed in the shadows or at a distance.
“We don’t answer reports of black panthers,” Maxit said. “Someone
could possibly see a long-tailed cat at a distance and report a cougar that’s
really a jaguarundi, but to my knowledge, there has never been a confirmed
jaguarundi sighting in Louisiana.”
People would not likely see jaguars, jaguarundis or ocelots in
Louisiana today. Jaguars and ocelots once ranged into southwestern
Louisiana, but disappeared in the 19th century. Newspapers reported a
200-pound jaguar shot on June 1, 1886, in Ascension Parish. Arizona
officials reported 64 jaguars killed since 1900, the last one in 1986, but
jaguar reports have increased in recent years.
Texas historical records indicate jaguars killed as far east as
Beaumont. The last confirmed Texas jaguar death occurred in the 1940s.
Never very common, jaguarundis probably reached their northern limit in
extreme southern Texas. In 1986, a car hit a jaguarundi in Texas.
“We estimate about 100 to 120 ocelots live in extreme southern
Texas,” Young said. “At one time, ocelots roamed throughout Texas and
into Louisiana. Today, the primary population is on Laguna Atascosa
National Wildlife Refuge. In the last 20 years, ocelots have been seen as
far north as Kingsville, Texas.”
People reporting “black panthers” may actually see Labrador
retrievers, raccoons, small bears, big house cats, feral pigs, foxes, coyotes,
otters or maybe even rare melanistic-phase bobcats. They could possibly
see a genuine cougar in silhouette or in shadows so that it looks black or
might see a cat caked in mud. Many big cat reports occur at night or during
low-light conditions when distinguishing colors becomes extremely difficult
and everything looks black. Even brightly colored animals at a distance
often appear black. Sometimes, a person seeing a genuine tawny cougar
might simply remember it as black because that’s what he or she wants to
believe. Reported “panther screams” usually come from screech owls or
barn owls.
As an endangered species, eastern cougars fall under federal
protection with stiff penalties for anyone who shoots one. In areas with
hunting seasons, they fall under the game laws of that state. Anyone in the
eastern United States who spots a cougar should call the state wildlife
department.