Mystery animal???

[dacjohns]

Quote:
Bobcats have a short stubby tail. Mountain lions have a long slender tail. Mountain lions are a tawny color. I think this eliminates any of the big North American cats that would be found in North Carolina.

My initial thought was fox or coyote. If wolves are being reintroduced in NC it could be a wolf. It doesn't really fit the description of the Carolina Dog.

Red Wolf recovery in NC:
http://www.fws.gov/nc-es/mammal/redwolf.html

http://www.wolfsource.org/?page_id=114

 

[lleighmay]

My thought would be coyote- we have them all over the place here in every color from reddish/tan through dark greyish brown (with lots of black in their mantles/ruffs). We see them crossing the road and fields all the time and most of the time when they run they carry their (thick bushy) tail straight out behind them. Some of the ones killed have been in the 50 lb range and there is at least one over at my Dad's which is bigger than his 65 lb. G. Shepherd.

 

[crtrlovr]

My parents live in SE Missouri. They and their neighbors have seen cougars (yes, more than one at a time) for a few years now, and the Fish & Game Dept. says "You must be mistaken. We don't have cougars here".

After numerous reports having been dismissed as "you're mistaken" (even after one farmer saw a cougar take down his full grown cow and kill it before he could get out of his truck and get to it) a local business owner finally got videotape of a HUGE cougar walking the top of his 8' privacy fence like a tightrope

. When they took the tape to F&G, they scratched their heads and said, "gee. Looks like we've got a cougar here. It must have gotten loose from a circus or something..."

My dad has seen a female with her FOUR cubs (2 springs ago; this last spring she had at least 2) and has seen some young adults. Two years ago he was out just touring around on their place back on one of the firebreaks when a deer came running past him about 100' away, running for its life, panting and desperate. Less than 100 yards behind it were TWO BLACK cougars hot on its trail

. They have gray wolves and black bears on their property also. After seeing the craziness that took place in Arkansas over the discovery of the ivory billed woodpeckers, he has made it a point NOT to mention to the fish & game folks that there are some on their place...

 

[shay20]

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[Buckguy20]

Anyone ever watch Monsterquest? I think it is on the history channel. It is very interesting as they try and verify everything from Big Foot to a Chupacabra.

 

[deb1]

Quote:
Bobcats have a short stubby tail. Mountain lions have a long slender tail. Mountain lions are a tawny color. I think this eliminates any of the big North American cats that would be found in North Carolina.

My initial thought was fox or coyote. If wolves are being reintroduced in NC it could be a wolf. It doesn't really fit the description of the Carolina Dog.

Red Wolf recovery in NC:
http://www.fws.gov/nc-es/mammal/redwolf.html

http://www.wolfsource.org/?page_id=114

I missed the part about the big, bushy tail. That would probably rule out a cougar.

We have coyotes in every county in NC. I had heard that the Red Wolves were having difficulty here but maybe that was wrong. Would be sort of interesting if the wolves were making inroads into my state.

 

[deb1]

Quote:
I like the show but I don't take it seriously. Although I admit, the show on cougars in NC was interesting to me. But then again, I live in NC

I do like how the show tries to show a alternate, more scientific view of what people might have seen.

 

[Buckguy20]

I was watching one day and they were doing a story about black panther sightings. Lo and behold they had a man on that lives less than a mile from me as the crow flies. He swears he has seen a black panther in the area. We are just east of Oklahoma City.
He has lost several llamas and goats as well as a lot of poultry.
I haven't seen any but it makes me think when I go down to the chicken pen at night to check on things.
I like the scientific parts of the show as well.
I do wish that just once they would actually prove they have found what they are looking for.

 

[moenmitz]

Quote:
It's more of a curiosity thing for me. I got a good enough look that I would have been able to identify almost any other animal easily. It is usually easy to say, oh that was a coon or opposum, or a turkey. I have never seen a coyote other than from a good distance in Montana. I have never seen and hope like heck never to see a wolf or mountian lion here. I asked about coyote in this area a while back and was told there are coyote and red wolf around for sure. I never asked about mountian lion though. I did see a special about them on the show monster quest but that's it. I agree with the thought of maybe getting overly excited about it being so unfamiliar to me and that clouding my thought on it. Maybe it was a coyote or coydog that looked bigger with the hair ??? I think I will try to swap something on CL for a game cam and give it a go. Can you do that on land that you don't own?

Thanks for all of the responses.

Chupacabra!!! lol. I figured that one would be mentioned too. lol

I saw the cougar episode of Monster Quest also! Very interesting, especially considering that cougars used to exist in NC before the twentieth century!

When I lived in Iowa there was a few newspaper stories about a woman that hit a large cougar with her car. They showed the dead animal on the news. If I remember correctly the authorities claimed that it was roaming from another state or that it must have been someone's pet.

http://www.ketv.com/news/935809/detail.html

I found the above article on line. Its about the Mountain Lion in Iowa. The authorities were very hesitant in this article about claiming that the Mountain Lion is making inroads in Iowa but I read some other articles, at the time, that claimed that it was.

I am in Central Iowa, and we have had several confirmed Mountain Lion sightings within a few miles of our place-usually one or two every year. Always along the river and woods-where we have tons of deer. Civilization is driving the dear out of the mountains, and so their predators must go where there is prey, even if that means schleppping halfway across the country...

 

[MagsC]

I am in southeastern MN and close to use, recently, there was a sighting of a cougar with three little ones. They are definitely around. What you described didnt sound like a cougar to me though, more canine. But who knows,lol, I am NOT an expert!