During the most recent legislative session a law was passed that permits the release of pen-reared quail on private land for the purposes of training pointing, flushing and retrieving dogs. Invasive species found in product Learn more. Adventure Together How to enjoy the hunt. View Our Preparedness Plan. Mountain Lion Information The closest population of mountain lions to Georgia is the Florida panther with a population located southwest of Lake Okeechobee in South Florida.
Here are some additional facts: If viewing tracks, claw marks are not typically visible in the tracks of large cats since their claws are retractable.
Any large print that contains claw marks were likely made by dogs, coyotes, or bears. Mountain lions are solitary animals and are rarely seen by people, even in areas where they are known to exist.
In the last 25 years, there have been only three 3 credible mountain lion sightings in Georgia. These animals were all related to the Florida panther.
The most recent and well-known situation involved a hunter in LaGrange, GA Troup County in who shot and killed a mountain lion while deer hunting. The large cat was later genetically shown to be a federally endangered Florida panther. Other personal safety precautions include: Make yourself appear as large as possible. Raise your arms and wave them slowly. But definitely wasn't just a regular domestic cat.
Two biologists reviewed the videos and they determined the species in the video is a domestic cat. You don't have a size reference so maybe, then I look at the sign on the tree," said biologist Chuck Waters. The DNR gets videos and pictures all of the time on cats. The plan worked. Panthers sometimes appear in central Florida. These are primarily dispersing males from the core breeding population in south Florida. In the spring of , Florida wildlife officials verified the existence of two cougar kittens northeast of Fort Myers.
Females seldom roam as much as males and typically require about 48, acres for a home range compared to more than , acres for an adult male. Two adult females, one with kittens, were documented in Charlotte and Highlands counties in March , the first time since that females have been confirmed north of the Caloosahatchee River.
Natural repopulation out of Florida is not impossible, but it will likely be a very slow process that could take many decades. A few big cats did roam Georgia less than three decades ago. The 19 cats included six raised in captivity and 13 wild ones captured in Texas.
Apparently, one vasectomy failed because a male sired litters with three females. All 19 cats in the study were subsequently killed or recaptured and removed.
One female cougar released in February went to the St. Marys River, headed south along the Suwannee River and turned back north to Valdosta before being captured in June near Sylvania.
A male cat also released in February visited Fort Stewart. Then it wandered toward Fitzgerald before turning north toward Washington, where it was recaptured in January A 3-year-old male released in August walked east along Interstate 10 toward Macclenny, Fla. It was captured between Lumpkin and Blakely in June Project officials wanted to test the feasibility of restoring cougars to part of their historic range, but the cats suffered a high mortality rate. Two cats were shot and three others, including a kitten, were killed on highways.
The person may have seen an actual cougar or perhaps misidentified a bobcat, coyote, otter, domestic cat or another animal. To document the presence of a cougar in an area, biologists need physical evidence such as a track, scat, clear photograph or a body. Many people also claim to see not just large cats, but black cats. Bobcats, leopards and jaguars sometimes occur in melanistic or black phases, but rarely. Native to Mexico, Central and South America, jaguars once strayed as far north as Colorado and Tennessee, but were never common north of the Rio Grande.
Currently, a few jaguars live in extreme southern Arizona, possibly in southern New Mexico and Texas. No documented cougar in history ever had black fur. No one ever got an indisputable photo of a black cougar, produced a positive DNA sample or a body.
Even then, the black phase in those animals is very rare. Cougars sometimes grow darker-than-usual brown coats, but never black. Could mountain lions repopulate parts of their old range in Georgia and other eastern states? Is that likely to happen?
Not anytime soon. Besides traveling hundreds of miles and crossing major obstacles like the Mississippi River and busy highways, eastbound or northbound cougars would not find enough unbroken suitable habitat. Some suitable habitat that could support lion populations exists in eastern states, but most wild land east of the Mississippi River could barely support one cat because of habitat fragmentation.
To re-establish cougars in suitable habitat in eastern states would require human intervention to capture, transport and release them as in the experiment. For cougars to disperse from where they were born and actually make it to suitable habitat in eastern states would be very difficult. The primary factor impeding mountain lions from repopulating eastern states is people. When possible, try to preserve any evidence by putting a bucket or something over it.
For a map of where cougars have been confirmed, see www. I just read the article about the cougars moving east. John Jensen, Wildlife Biologist. It has been an entertaining read, but I doubt I stand alone in saying that the bickering is getting a bit tiresome.
Do wild populations of big cats still roam the wilds of Georgia? There is no doubt that bobcat populations are found throughout our state, most populations being quite healthy and large. Hunters kill them, photographers snap pictures of them, and vehicles crash into them.
Proof abounds. However, proof is very scant, nearly non-existent, for the panthers, cougars, mountain lions, and pumas all common names for the same species that are commonly reported from Georgia. The eastern cougar and the Florida panther are two different subspecies of the same species, and taken together, this species historically roamed our entire state.
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