Comments on: Patio Puma

By: Broon Ward

Broon Ward — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 23:07:56 +0000

Hey everyone,
I live in north East TN. and my family has lived in this area for over 100 years. In the early 60’s my Dad had a face to face encounter with a puma,
near Hampton TN. in the wilderness area called Dennis Cove. He was cooking bacon and biscuits about 5 a.m. one morning when a Puma came out of the brush. He threw his bacon at it and it grabbed the meat and left! No lie! my Dad is the most honest man I have ever met, and would never fabricate a tale like this. It is TRUTH! Oh and the old folks call them “painters” here too!

By: Absentia

Absentia — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:33:42 +0000

I agree that internet scams lessen peoples real interest in things. Any kind of scam always makes people a lot less ready to believe when the real thing comes along, but I do believe that anything is possible. I live in the middle of Washington, DC, nearly light years away from any sort of ‘real’ wildlife, yet on several occations I have seen raccoons, and even once a deer. How it managed to make it unnoticed into the heart of the city I will never understand. Also even on one or two occations I have seen large white winged roaches not unlike ones that are only found in madagasgar (sp?) and tropical places, and being where I was and knowing the area and people I can nearly be 100% sure it was noone’s pet roach making a dash for freedom.

My point in short is that nothing should ever truely be discredited until all the evidence and proof possible can be gathered. The world is a HUGE place and noone has yet, or probably will ever see and know everything there is to discover. New speices are born everyday and ones that have yet to be discovered are already going extinct, someone might just see some unknown animal and it may very well be the last of its kind, never to be seen again. Such people are blessed and I would be happy to be one of those few, wether anyone beleived me or not in the end.

By: helgarde

helgarde — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 05:21:45 +0000

Kittenz, I used to live in Huntington, and wandered around the tri-state area a lot in my youth. I grew up half in Charleston, West Virginia, and half on a farm in Putnam county, so I know what you mean about the habitat in the hills and hollows around your area.

My ex-husband and I had a puma dash in front of our car in SE Ohio, near Ironton, at about two am as we were driving home to Huntington from Columbus one night about, oh, nineteen years ago. We both saw him in our headlights as plain as day, because he stopped in front of us and my ex had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting him. The big cat laid his ears back, lashed his tail, snarled and then dashed off in a great bound–a beautiful, if terrifying sight. Terrifying mostly because we could have hit and killed such a lovely beast.

Now I live in Athens, Ohio, but when we lived in a rural area just east of Columbus, when my daughter and I were walking in the woods, in the snow a few days before Christmas we found a pair of huge cat pawprints. The day previously, I had noticed clawmarks, like a cat had stood up on her hind paws to scratch at the bark–just like a housecat would do, but the marks were much farther apart and wider than either a bobcat or a housecat would do, and they were higher off the ground. But, after I saw the pawprints, I took my daughter to look at those claw marks and we got my husband to show him. And we all agreed it looked more like a puma than a bobcat was there.

A few nights later we heard a puma scream. A very, very distinctive sound, louder than a bobcat.

So, yeah, I figure there are a few of them around here, and when I see photos like the above I get really cranky, because when I have told folks what I have found or experienced, they always think I am nuts. But, you know–I have seen bobcats and I know what they look like, and I have had cats in my house all my life and I know how big they get, and I can certainly tell the difference between cat and dog prints. So when hoaxes like this go out and about it ticks me off.

By: kittenz

kittenz — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 23:45:30 +0000

LOL, “paint-ther” is what my grandmother and all the older folks around here say when they mean “panther”. Mostly they pronounce it just like that, but sometimes they say “painter” without pronouncing the “th”.

Yes it’s a small world – hi y’all ! I guess you guys know what I mean when I say that eastern Kentucky has some ideal puma habitat and lots of natural prey now that deer, elk, and turkeys have become abundant again!

I didn’t misunderstand your post, mystery_man. We’ve often discussed eastern pumas before and I know that you don’t discount the possibility that they exist. I agree with you wholeheartedly. That’s what I meant when I said it’s important not to throw the baby out with the bathwater: hoaxes like the one exposed in this post, that circulate over and over, cause genuine sightings to be taken less seriously. Many people, who otherwise might be willing to consider some sightings credible, view all evidence of eastern pumas as fake because so many hoaxes are floating around the internet.

By: Saint Vitus

Saint Vitus — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:14:29 +0000

I have heard the term “painters”, I can’t remember where though.

By: DARHOP

DARHOP — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 17:24:35 +0000

My dad was born and raised in Hellier Kentucky. I remember him talking about what he called Panters. I said dad, don’t you mean Panthers. He said where I grew up we called em Panters. ( pronounced painters )
Anybody else ever hear of em called Panters?

By: Alligator

Alligator — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 14:21:20 +0000

Hello folks. There is another photo that frequently makes the email rounds of a huge mountain lion. You can find the picture at Snopes.com
http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/mountainlion.asp

The article says a deer hunter in Kansas shot it, but when I got the email, it said it was shot near Versailles, Missouri which down the road from us a piece. Since it is illegal to shoot lions in Missouri (except for defense of life or property) this was investigated but quickly dispelled. The photo is genuine, but it turns up in about every state of the union as having been shot there. As it has been pointed out, doing these kinds of things only hinders the ability to determine if a sighting is legitimate or not. Because of the hoaxes, the initial tendency of authorities is to be overly skeptical unless there is hard, physical evidence to go with the sighting. Thanks to Photoshop, even photographic “evidence” now has to undergo a level of scrutiny not necessary 15 or 20 years ago.

If you want to keep track of the population rebound of the cougar into the Midwest and Eastern states, check out “Breaking News” and the “Confirmations Page” at the the Eastern Cougar Network:
http://easterncougarnet.org/

By the way, a wild cougar has just been confirmed in southern Wisconsin, the first confirmation for that state since around 1920. Eastern Canadian provinces now have several confirmations. Another ten years and we’ll be able to determine with certainty if these are becoming breeding populations (which I think they are).

By: Saint Vitus

Saint Vitus — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 03:36:16 +0000

Every once in a while, I hear reports of cougars in Alabama. Maybe these are intergrades between the Eastern Cougar and the Florida Panther?

By: olejason

olejason — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 01:05:01 +0000

kittenz – I grew up in Knott Co so we’re not so far from each other. Small crypto-world eh?

By: mystery_man

mystery_man — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 22:44:44 +0000

Kittenz- I think the Eastern puma exists too. My post might not have been clear, and I might have misunderstood what you were saying. I was addressing people’s refusal to accept that a piece of evidence is false, NOT people’s refusal to accept that the Eastern puma exists, which is what I now realize was what you were talking about. I in no way meant to say that it was maddening that people think the puma exists, but rather that it is maddening that people sometimes embrace faulty evidence no matter what. What I was saying was that some people will not accept evidence that some reports and some photos like the ones here are not real and may go on convinced that they are, as I’m sure there are people who still think these photos are genuine. I think this is dangerous to the credibility of real photos and reports, and directs us away from the investigation of legitimate evidence. I did not mean to discount the existence of the Eastern puma. I’m sorry if it seemed like I was, and I apologize for misreading your post.