Project Jaguarundi: Cougars in Alabama? Don't hold your breath...

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Cougars in Alabama? Don't hold your breath...

This news item just came out about the possibility of Puma concolor in Alabama. The reporting leaves something to be desired and the comments section, as expected, is interesting. Apparently everyone has seen one and it's a government conspiracy that the state won't admit they are here. No, the truth is there are no confirmed sightings of a known wild cougar (panther, etc.) in the state for a half century. It is possible that they are in the state, of course. At least one seems to be in Tennessee. Over time it seems to be increasingly likely that the cats will be in Alabama, but probably coming from the west/northwest as the western population is clearly expanding eastward.

1 comment:

AnonymousApril 11, 2018 at 4:16 AM
I saw 1 in ranburne, al about 3 years ago & believe i saw it again night before last closer to home, in micaville,al. In ranburne, i have no doubt it was absolutely a black panther. It was 30 feet from the back patio doors & my brother in law managed to run out thru the barn by the "chute" they catch cattle in & snapped a blurry but informative photo. It had a 3 foot tail & its jawbone was huge & squareish & it had tufts of fur as though it were shedding...and all the cattle in the pasture had scattered to 2 seperate corners & my bro in law had noticed that as he & his uncle had driven over to help me get his grandfather up from the floor where he had fallen (i was his 1 of his caregivers at the time) i had heard thru the years about a black panther in cleburne count but who believes that stuff? Well, i do now. Beyond a shadow of a doubt & i believe night before last was likely the same one. I have heard that there was a mother & cub sighted just below my house several years ago--they were brown. And i have heard of skeletal remains in a nearby cave....believe it if ya want to, or not....but u wont get me in these woods alone much in the daylight & not a chance after dusk, alone or not! That one i saw was mozeying along in broad daylight like he owned the place. Heck once i even came back inside from dustin rugs on the front porch (both mobile home doors open) to find a full grown bobcat sittin on my stove! And yes i know a bobcat when i see one, we raised one when i was growin up that we had bought in Texas at an Exotic Pet Store for $500 & this one here was plenty healthy & quite large. I couldnt even make my legs move, thank God he went out the way he mustve came in--the back door,
cuz i was standin in the front one & there wasnt room enough for both of us...
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The Jaguarundi in Alabama

The jaguarundi is larger than a domestic cat and a little smaller than a bobcat. Color ranges from rusty brown to almost black. These cats are most active in the early morning and evening, and prefer densely vegetated areas. The known range is from Argentina to Texas, but there have been several eyewitness accounts from south Alabama and northwest Florida. If jaguarundis do exist in the region, they could represent an introduced population, a pioneer population (think coyote, armadillo), or even the remnant of a native population. Although they have received relatively little attention in recent years, the following reports were summarized for Alabama's First Nongame Symposium (1982) by the late Dr. Dan Holliman, mammalogist at Birmingham-Southern College:
August 1974: Dr. Holliman and Dr. Thomas Nieson observed a single adult near Bayou la Batre, Mobile County.
January 1975: An adult jaguarundi was captured alive in a Clay County, Alabama farmyard, and was confirmed by James Peavey.
August 1980: Dr. Holliman observed an adult and two young at a garbage dump just outside Bayou la Batre, Mobile County.
April 1981: Dr. Holliman and Hugh Dowling observed one jaguarundi in Baldwin County crossing the road near the Gulf State Park water tower.

In the 30 years since these reports, many other reports from competent observers, plus a few recent highly suggestive trail cam images, lend further plausibility to the existence of a viable, reproducing population of this secretive cat in the region.

How You Can Contribute

Our goals are to document the existence of this secretive wild cat in the Southeast by:

A.) Soliciting eyewitness reports from the public, and

B.) Gathering photographic evidence through a volunteer-operated network of "camera traps" in areas of potential occurrence.

If you have seen a jaguarundi in Alabama or northwest Florida, please share it with us at jaguarundi.alabama@gmail.com. Please provide the date, time, and exact location. Even better, use Google Earth to create and send a .kmz file placemark or else provide the latitude and longitude from the bottom of the screen. Attach a photo if you have one. All submissions will remain confidential and not made public without your permission.

If you would like to set up and operate a trail camera, go ahead. Also, watch this space for tips, as we are currently testing "camera trap" methods.