Oh good grief! Glad you were fast on that one! I live in town, but we still get snakes around here. Now I'm gonna be on my guard BIG TIME.

We also go out and hunt for arrowheads... YIKES. My husband is gonna have to take his gun with him now...

Beth

EEEEK. I don't miss living in the country. Fortunately where I came from all we had were rattlers.

Knock on wood, I've never even seen a garter snake in my yard. Seedmama assures me though that snakes are alive and well in OKC.

Lisa

The odd thing is I live in town' albeit a small one, Hartshorne in eastern Pittsburg county and although I have some clutter I try not to have areas that a snake might feel at home in, although not everyone takes those precauions, and I to have been guilty of that in the past.

The thing is, I think we let our gaurd down in town and dont think that much about snakes and animals being a threat here, my daughter lives on the edge of town on a hill, and she can't have cats or dogs outside at night because the
Coyotes and/or bobcats will kill them, a month ago a mountian lion was seen in her driveway at night.
Critters are moving into towns more often these days as they expand their range and searh for food, so we all need to be aware of that fact
and learn to live with it the best we can, just be aware they are there.

I just remembered last summer a rattlesnake was found near my house... all the way up here in Northeastern Arkansas. They're sure traveling, aren't they?

GOSH, hope your daughter stays safe... that'd freak me out!

Beth

Okiehobo,

I am so used to snakes after living here for a decade that I almost never let my guard down. Had my first snake encounter weeks and weeks ago. It was the earliest in the year that I've ever had a rattler rattle at me. : )

Even when we are in a large city like Dallas, I find myself looking down at my feet as I walk outdoors. One day we were walking across a mall parking lot and my DH asked me what I was "looking for" and I told him I was "watching for snakes". LOL LOL LOL Well, it is a habit, you know, and it is hard to stop doing it even when we are in a "civilized" area.

Last year, our firefighter son was going through paramedic school and doing his clinical rotations at a hospital in Dallas. One of his patients was a 16-year-old girl from Garland who stepped on a copperhead in her yard. Garland, of course, is a large city, and I was a little surprised she had a copperhead in her yard--but we used to see them every now and then in Fort Worth too.

I don't pick up anything....hay, mulch, a plant in a large container, not anything....without checking for snakes first. It makes it hard to have a compost pile. I build a pile all throughout the growing season, but I don't even bother turning it because I know snakes will be in it. I only remove compost from the pile in winter when it is much too cold for snakes to be active.

We have massive wildlife issues here in southern OK....mostly bobcat, fox, coyote, skunk and racoon (and water moccasins, copperheads, and rattlesnakes) but occasionally a cougar, panther, etc. There's been greatly increased cougar activity along the Carter County/Love County line this year, especially in the rocky, hilly areas west of I-35. We've had a cougar on the property next door several years ago (it roared at me and scared me nearly to death) and a panther walking up our driveway a year or two after that (it snarled at our son and then turned and walked away swishing its tail). Occasionally I hear the scream of a cougar from some distance away. Of course, we hear coyotes almost every night. One year we had a breeding pair of cougars--and while they looked beautiful walking across a pasture side-by-side, we really didn't want them hanging around and raising their young here. Every now and then, and as recently as last year, one of our neighbors loses dogs or cats (and sometimes very large dogs) to either coyotes, bobcats, cougars or panthers. We've even had ringtail cats in our chicken coop and I'd never seen a ringtail cat until we moved here.

We have a lot of trouble with rat snakes and chicken snakes devouring our chicks and keats (baby guineas). I always insist we shoot any snake found in the henhouse because if we don't it will just come back and eat some more chicks and keats. We've had one snake take out six baby birds in one day.

I'm glad you were faster than this snake. Our neighbor was bitten by a copperhead a few years ago and it was a long and difficult recovery for her.

On our property, we have plenty of non-venomous snakes and we just ignore them as long as they aren't in the poultry coop. In the venomous class, we most often see copperheads, timber rattlers and water moccasins (although usually only in the ponds and creeks) and every now and then we see a western diamondback rattler or a pygmy rattler. I don't like any of them that much, although I kind of like the lime-green colored tree snakes.

If it wasn't for all the snake activity, living here would be a lot more pleasant. Some years the snakes are worse than others. The last "good" snake year was 2007 (I hardly saw any snakes that year), but last year was worse, and this year there seem to be a lot of them.

Dawn

La la la lalala laaaaaaa....

*fingers in my ears because I must continue to live in complete denial to go anywhere on our property without having a nervous breakdown*

Diane

So what's the difference between panthers and mountain lions/cougars? The way you mention it, it sounds as if you mean them to be two different types of critters.

It can get confusing, but here in Love County most people refer to the tawny, golden-brown ones as mountain lions or cougars and the refer to the black ones as panthers, or for some of the real old-timers, painters.

For the longest time, the only ones I ever saw and heard were the tawny golden mountain lion. I heard their very distinctive roar for a couple of years after we moved here. I kept telling DH I was hearing cougars while out working in the woods at the back of our property (about 1000' from the house) and he kept thinking I probably was hearing a bird or something. I knew it wasn't a bird.

One day the next spring or summer, we saw a pair of cougars crossing a field across the street from our house, and several other locals saw it in about the same spot several times that summer. About six months later, the one cougar roared at me from a fairly short distance--maybe 100' or so--one winter night when I was outside calling the cat, whose name was Emmitt Smith. Neighbors from over a mile away heard that roar and wondered if I was a "goner" that night. LOL Emmitt Smith (the cat) came home about 3 days later with most of his back ripped up and missing most of its hair. If he could speak, I bet he would have a tale to tell. Emmitt never has been able to regrow all the hair on his back.

I think it was two years after that when our then teen-aged son went out to his car to get something late one evening and encountered a big black panther in the driveway. He was behind it and thought it was a black lab but wasn't positive. He came in, got a flashlight, went out and shined that light on that "dog" and hollered at it, and it turned around, swung a paw towards him (he was a few yards from it), snarled and hissed at him, and then walked off into the darkness towards the river, with its tail swishing back and forth in that angry irritated way that cats have. He got quite a scare, but it never really attempted to come at him.

Over the years, many of our neighbors have described similar encounters, including one young man who described how a black panther paced back and forth outside their dining room's bay window and watched them eat dinner one night when he was about 13 years old. They were worried it would come crashing through that window, but it never did. Another neighbor, who was born her and has lived here for over 75 years, lost a large, male Australian Shepherd to something a few years ago. When he found the remains of his dog, it was clear that a larger animal than a coyote had killed it. That sort of thing is fairly common here.

Before we moved here, I knew there was bound to be a lot of wildlife. Even so, we have had far more close encounters than I'd ever imagined we would. One of my "old rancher" neighbors who is now about 88 years old and has lived here all his life has a lot of wildlife stories to tell. About 3 year ago he insisted to me repeatedly that he had encounterd a lynx on his property down on the river. I kept telling him that maybe it was a large bobcat, and he told me he'd been seeing bobcats all his life and that this animal definitely was not a bobcat and that it had a real tail. I doubt we'd have lynx here in our part of the country, but then it does make you wonder--if it was not a bobcat and it was not a lynx, then what was it?

Okay. That makes sense to me. A few months ago I saw an episode of Monster Quest on the History channel that basically denied the existence of wild black panthers or cougars/pumas/mountain lions/whatever in North America. I thought it was ridiculous. I've never paid much attention to cougar colors, but I know they sometimes come in black, or at least a large, black cat is out there that most folks call a panther. So when you mentioned a panther and a mountain lion as different beasts, I wanted to make sure you meant what I thought you meant, which you did.

The episode is here: http://www.history.com/video.do?name=monsterquest&bcpid=1541043115&bclid=9548353001&bctid=4671934001

It really bothered me, because they were airing that panthers didn't exist, which not only made liars of a lot of people I knew, but it was teaching all the non-rural folks who might watch it that panthers weren't out there. This is a show that covers bigfoot and the jersey devil. Putting black panthers in the same light is insulting.

For the longest time, even the game wardens here repeatedly denied that mountain lions exist in Oklahoma but they finally gave that up a couple of years ago.

There does seem to be a lot of confusion about big black cats in the scientific community. I don't really care if they are black cougars or jaguarundis or whatever. : ) We know they exist.

When it is standing there and growling at you, you really don't care what kind of animal it is in the scientific world--all you care about is getting into the house before it gets you.

"I don't really care if they are black cougars or jaguarundis or whatever. : ) We know they exist."

Ditto.

"When it is standing there and growling at you, you really don't care what kind of animal it is in the scientific world--all you care about is getting into the house before it gets you."

And double ditto.

We have both kinds here as well. Neighbor's two dogs (Rottweiler-types) had a run-in with one a couple years back. One was badly mauled and the other one killed.

I used to go for runs on our little dirt road but no more. I stick to the treadmill these days. Hubby and I, the neighbors, and friends have them too many times for me to be out there triggering their chase instinct.

Seldom post but read daily. Regarding the black panther post here. When my brother and I were kids growing up in the North Canadian river bottoms, we rode our horse every saturday morning and my brother walked to the back 40 acres to catch him. As he was going for him, he saw ahead of him a large black cat with a tail that drug the ground. He hid in the tall undergrowth and watched as it crossed over to the nearby treeline. He was so frightened that he ran all the way home to tell our parents. Of course, my dad just laughed it off as someone's large house cat. To this day, he swears it was a black cougar. In subsequent years, we did spot two tawny colored cougars in the field near our home. Dad couldn't laugh that one off.
Cooper

When I was a kid we lived in a little place called Yarnaby OK - several Mt. Lions there - some very aggressive... taking out calfs right near the homes. Later we moved to Racetrack - near Spiro- and the is a cliff face on the road from Sprio to Racetrack that often had a big black panther on sitting on the top ledge of it. One of those things..

I am always careful when I am digging sweet potatoes due to the garden we had at Yarnaby (1989). when digging out the Sweet potatoes my mothers hands went down in the earth to pull up the roots that my father had lifted with the fork... she screamed and pulled up her hands and was holding a baby water moccasin by the neck - we killed it but the local game warden said it was young - so the mama was really close - we left the rest of the sweet potatoes that year in the ground :-)

We had a neighbor who lived between us and the river in the same house he grew up in back when he was a kid in the 1940s. Sadly, he died of leukemia last year, but he told me he had a pretty close encounter with a mountain lion a few years ago--some time after we moved here.

He was out walking up the road about a half-mile from his house when he saw the cougar. At that time it was sitting and staring at him. He knew better than to turn his back on it, so he walked home backwards--that whole half-mile. At some point, he walked past a dead tree with a lot of deadfall beneath it, and picked up a dead tree limb in each hand to make himself look bigger and more threatening. The cougar would slowly move forward a few feet and then sit, and then move towards him again and then sit. He said he was really expecting it to run and leap at him and he felt like his life was in danger.

He told me he gave up walking "for his health" after that. Now, every time I walk by his now-empty house, I always remember that story and look off towards the pasture where that big cat had sat and stalked him. It sorta sends chills up my spine.

The other animal that really scares me here is the wild pig. (We called them javalina in Texas.) They will run you down and kill you, and almost got an elderly gentleman west of Marietta a couple of years ago. Luckily, he ran to his ATV and got on it and revved the engine, which caused them to turn and run. I've only run into wild pigs two or three times, and they never actually got close enough to me for me to feel I was truly in danger, but I was looking around to see if there was a nearby tree I could climb if I had to.

One thing about wild pigs....it is very hard to put up a fence that will keep them out, and if they ever get into your garden, you won't have a garden when they get finished with it.

If any of you ever see a mountain lion or see sign for one, please contact the cougarnet.org people or beg your game warden to come out and check for evidence. Evidence is relatively easy to find where there are resident ones.

Oklahoma has virtually no native breeding mountain lions, but a few that pass through and a few that live in the NW part of the state. Only in the last few years are verified ones showing up in other parts of the state regularly (with the exception of ones that have been let go or escaped from captivity which represent the vast majority). By regularly I mean about one per year.

Unfortunately, black mountain lions (cougars) have never existed. Also, unfortunately, the VAST majority of sightings are mistaken identity, but occasionally they are legit and can often be verified.

Not looking to open a can of worms, but it is a fascinating subject and I encourage everyone to research it. Here are two links.

http://www.easterncougar.org/pages/beyondsightings.htm

Here is a link that might be useful: Cougar Confirmations

Scott,

I don't know what the black cats are that roam here, but many people have seen them. It is easy to say that the vast majority of sightings are mistaken identity, but when you see one yourself, you know they are here.

There's a lot of wildlife here along the river. Once we had an alligator in a stock tank 1/4 mile from us, and I'd never seen a ringtailed cat (didn't even know such a creature existed) until one starting getting into our chicken coop and killing chicks.
People in Gainesville, TX, just across the river from us told me for years that they have the "black cats" there but I didn't really believe them until our son encountered the one in our driveway, and our neighbors had one outside their window.

There are a lot of people who have lived here a long time and they have a lot of tales to tell about the "long-tailed cats", which is what they often are called here (to distinguish them from the smaller bobcats). When they tell you about their encounter, they always seem a little hesitant--as if they think you won't belive them. I think that is because the wildlife people have said "they don't exist here" so, when people see them here, they often don't mention it because they don't want the rest of us to think they are "crazy".

Just because the scientists and wildlife people haven't seen them doesn't mean they aren't there. Why, before we know it, they'll be telling us that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny don't exist either. : )

Around here, the wildlife mangement people don't take sightings seriously and calling one of them to come look at evidence would be a waste of your time because they are terribly overworked as it is.

I am outside in the evening every night during good weather, but have only encountered one once "up close" and have seen cougars from 75 to 100 yards twice. So, I think the sightings are rare, and they usually occur near or after dark. I've heard them a lot more than I've seen them, though I haven't heard them recently.

I've linked a recent Ardmoreite article on cougar sightings along the Love County/Carter County line. This is the first article I've ever seen here that did not follow the "official party line" and say that cougars do not exist here. That change in attitude, I think, comes from the fact that the reports of them are widespread.

There also has been a lot of cougar activity reported around relatively new exurban communities in Collin County, TX, and areas just north of it near the towns of Frisco, Melissa and Anna, which are southeast of us. I think the cougars have probably always been there, but no one noticed them until builders started developing vast tracts of land out in the middle of nowhere.

Finally, the ranchers here have many tales to tell of calves lost and, believe me, they know the difference between animals killed by coyotes, feral dogs and "long-tailed cats".

If I had never seen a cougar here in the wild, if I had never had one roar at me, if I had never heard their roars off towards the river numerous times on fall and winter afternoon and evenings, maybe I'd be more skeptical. But they are here and I know they are here.

For many years, the wildlife people who are involved in repopulating parts of the USA with wolves have denied those wolves are killing the sheep and calves of local ranchers. They can't deny it any more, though, because too many ranchers have put up "security cameras" and caught the killings on video. So, now the wildlife people have had to admit their reintroduced wolves are killing ranch animals and have had to develop a system to deal with "killer" wolves and to reimburse ranchers for their losses. I think that the wolf situation just reinforces that the wildlife people don't want to admit large predators roam in some areas even though all the locals know they do.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Ardmoreite's Cougar Article

The only animal that scares me is the one that weighs over a ton, runs faster than a cheetah, kills many people and family pets and can be extremely aggressive.

The automobile which we are all very comfortable and familiar with fails to alarm us even as it is many times deadlier than animals that evoke our fears.

I'm guessing the human death toll in Oklahoma in an average year goes something like cars: several hundred, venomous snakes: 0, mountain lions: 0.

By the way I like cars. I'm just putting wild animals in perspective. They can be scary and ominous but when compared to much greater dangers to life and limb and pets that we take for granted every day they really aren't much of a threat.

Remembers years ago when Bears where first being sighted, wildlife officials said people where just making it up, or maybe seeing big dogs, and if it really was a bear well' it was just one that had wondered over from Arkansas, now their debating having a hunting season on them. LOL
A lie told once or a thousand times for whatever reason is still a lie,
Call me a cynic if you want, but any time someone starts spouting the official party line (From D.C. right down to the local level.) they have lost all creadibility with me, and anything they say from then on is suspect and has no merit,
I would go so far as to call it arrogance, they seem to feel that they are the only one who knows anything, and how dare we have the audacity to speak up and say we know something that they apparently dont. Just because something can't be proved doesn't it is not so.

OK,OK, I'll get of my box, Have a nice day in the garden.

This has nothing to do with a party line, it has to do with facts. It is a well-known fact that there are at least a few hundred black bears in the state, probably more like 1000. Their territory has expanded from Arkansas, as was expected. They are photographed by people and by game cameras on a regular basis, even in the remote eastern part of the state. Two have shown up near here in Muskogee in recent times and had to be killed. On the other hand, only one mountain lion photo has been produced and verified in Oklahoma (except the panhandle) in recent times. The good news is that it was last year, so there is a chance there will be a breeding population sometime soon. There have been a half dozen verifications recently, but all but two were in the far NW.

The Black Hills are very remote, but the mountain lion population there is well researched. As remote as it is, 20% of the mountain lions were killed by autos in a two to three year period. (One of the tagged ones from there was killed by a train in Northern Oklahoma after it journeyed here over a three month period.) When we get more than a handful in the state and more than just the occasional wondering male looking for a new home range, we will start seeing them being killed by autos and/or caught by game cameras on a regular basis.

There has never existed a black mountain lion or black cougar. None alive has ever been photographed or a dead body produced. Ever. There is just no such thing. People do import black jags occasionally though. Those are real.

Anyone who produces evidence of a mountain lion will end up being a minor celebrity in our state for a while. They leave a lot of sign anywhere they establish residence, and there are some organizations that exist just to show their expanding range. The one I linked is a good one. Some reports are accurate, but the vast majority of the reported ones that are researched turn out to be mistaken identity, and the rest almost all turn out to be ones that escaped or were released from captivity.

Ok, you can all hate me know if you want. Send me details of any evidence that you come across. I can get it into the hands of people who will attempt to verify it.

Back in eastern OK I grew up with both animals being seen once every so often. What the black cats in the US are is up for debate - yes - but the records of them go back to the Native Americans, first Europeans here, and have kept going even to today.

Once you see one, you just know.

I know that the game departments are hesitant to admit to any lions, wolves ect. I also know there is false sightings. That goes with anything. But I also know of a couple of lions being killed in our area and Kansas in the last few years. One person as I understand it asked for help with the lion due to his killing of livestock. And was told there wasn't any lions in Kansas and so what ever it was he could kill it. He did and then that is when they had to admit there was and then as I understand it the Federal people become involved. Any conversation you have with those people needs to be documented. I also have had ranchers in the Kenton,OK area tell me they have seen a lion a few times over the years. And in a recent article in a Kansas paper the wildlife does admit there has been and could still be a few in Kansas. They also have a map of confirmed sightings and it showed the Kenton area along with some other areas close to us. I do agree most in this area have been males I've heard about. Have only heard of one pair that has been sighted by what I call reputable sources. For other areas of OK I can't speak for. The wildlife people tried to ignore the wild hog problem till they couldn't any longer. They are making some effort now but think it is too late. They are established now. If they would of took action when they were first sighted instead of trying to deny it they possibly could of been controlled and even eradicated. Jay

Jay,

The wild hog problem is the same here as there. For a long time they said there were only a few and that the hog hunters would take care of them. Finally, they admitted there are a "lot" here. A few years ago, two of them were struck and killed in the roadway about a mile from our house. Last year, one was struck and killed by a train about 2 miles from our house.

I should point out we have lots of "enjoyable" wildlife too, including bald eagles and golden eagles, all kinds of birds, non-venomous snakes, rabbits, foxes, armadillos and possums (fun to watch if they aren't digging up your yard), deer and raccoons (cute except when they're getting into the corn patch), turtles, lizards, fish, skinks and newts, dragonflies and damselflies, butterflies and moths, etc. I like watching the wildlife as long as they are not watching me back with a hungry gleam in their eye.

Dawn

"There has never existed a black mountain lion or black cougar. None alive has ever been photographed or a dead body produced. Ever. There is just no such thing."

What I find hard to believe is that after thousands of documented independent sightings (maybe tens of thousands) over hundreds of years, the official position remains that they don't exist. A big black cat isn't unlikely, like aliens or bigfoot. No one is insisting it is a black mountain lion, as opposed to a black jaguar or jaguarundi or whatever. It's just that it *looks* like a black mountain lion or something like it.

They were saying mountain lions didn't exist in Minnesota either, and then a guy had a 2-3 minute clip of one on his game camera. They still said that wasn't a mountain lion, so he went out and got daytime film of the cat. (Might have been a different guy, or different cat, but it was in the same small town.) They still denied it, even though the news published both films and talked about it and talked about the continued denial. I believe the official position today remains that there are NO mountain lions in Minnesota. It's just mind-boggling.

Jaguarundis are not much larger than house cats so they don't seem a likely answer.

Whatever they are if they exist, the burden of proof necessarily has to be on proving the positive (since it is impossible to prove a negative).

If officials accepted all eyewitness accounts on face value without evidence, it would be very difficult to separate urban legend and myth from fact.

Bigfoot would have to be accepted as fact if eyewitness accounts are all that is required to establish fact.

The standard of proof that requires physical evidence may be frustrating, but it is necessary.

If something exists a dead specimen will eventually show up to prove its existence.

I do believe we are going to have to agree to disagree - once you have the experience you dont need the experts to tell you it is true, and experts are proven wrong all the time.

That said lets get back to gardening! it is spring in Oklahoma!

What was that huge cat that was killed on the road in Carter County last year?

----"The standard of proof that requires physical evidence may be frustrating, but it is necessary. If something exists a dead specimen will eventually show up to prove its existence."----

If it is standing in my driveway and growling at me, then I consider my life in danger. If I can get my hands on a gun I will happily produce a specimen for them to examine.

In essence everyone on this foum or any where else for that matter (Who have seen mountain lions or outher big cats especially black ones.) and couldn't prove it have been told they are either liers, or are just making up tall tales for the fun of it, because someones facts cleary show that we are wrong.
Oh well were just peons, we couldn't possibly know anything.

And by the way I dont think that ranchers and maybe outher people as well, are all that happy that we (according to the facts)in the near future may have a breeding population of montain lions, I think we have that now, but then I can't prove it.
I personally have not seen a large black cat, but you can bet your bottom dollar it would upsit me if I were told it was just a figment of my imagination, in outher words a lie.
Am I wrong in thinking someone like that could be called arrognant?

The problem with providing proof like the person I referred to above is then you can be in big trouble. I understand they finally made a plea agreement of some sort but he was concerned about what they were going to do to him for a while. There was evidence and they said that wasn't how a lion killed and devoured his prey. But when he killed it and it was a lion then he had broke the law although he was protecting his investment. I'm sure he had to pay all his legal costs. I can understand proof but being in denial when you see evidence and unwilling to help but then threaten to fine and punish when a livestock owner protects his investment is arrogant in my opinion.
Dawn I enjoy the wild life and one reason I don't hunt anymore. I respect those that do just not my cup of tea anymore. The only thing that dies around me no questions asked is a rattlesnake. Jay

I don't know anything about mountain lions or cougars or bears or snakes :) Hallelujah!!!

However, I do want to say that Wayne_MO is a long, long time poster. Maybe as long as I have been, and as a poster I predate the date on my profile by several years. He has always been helpful to id snakes for people. When I saw the post, I wondered if Wayne would show up...no matter where the post is, if it has a snake in it, there's Wayne. :)

I appreciate how much work he goes to to educate people.

I don't doubt what any of you say. I especially don't doubt Dawn....she's certainly deals with plenty of wildlife. Plus, I've met her :)

Lisa

Speaking of wildlife seldom seen and various penalties for proving them... Until last fall my father owned about 1000 acres in the North Canadian River Valley. He owned it for about 10 years. For the first several years while he was there, he knew a particular tree where a pair of ivory-billed woodpeckers nested. He decided not to report them when the media made so much noise about the birds being discovered in Arkansas because he hunted and fished on that land (in addition to having a house on it and living there sometimes) and didn't want limitations being put on how he could use his land.

As far as I know the birds still live in the area, yet before the media reported those in Arkansas, they were thought to be extinct. On that same land he had, he'd heard cougars and seen paw prints of an adult and a cub walking together on a dirt road, so he's certain there was a breeding population there.

It's only been in the last 10 years or so that we've achieved good survelliance in the quest for finding good deer territory. I'm sure we'll get adequate footage of breeding populations of cougars, as well as better film of the black cats. I say better, because the History channel show I linked HAD film of two black cats that looked very much like black mountain lions. They bent over backwards to try to show that the scale of the pictures was wrong and failed miserably on one. The other picture didn't have anything good in it for scale one way or the other - just the cat and tall grass, accompanied by claims about the height of the grass that were easily denied (and of course they were denied). Neither of these films were from Oklahoma. With all the game cameras out there, I'm sure we'll have footage soon for them to deny. :)

This is an interesting thread. If I can clarify my main point it is that officials err on the side of false negatives and are generally required to do so to avoid false positives. The consequence of this as many of you have noted is that when there is a true positive they are slower to adapt to that reality than folks who err on the side of positives. Nonetheless, I think their conservative approach to identifying positives is necessary because the alternative of false positives would open up official accounts to too many positives. An undercount of positives can be frustrating but is preferable to an overcount of positives. And the great thing about false negatives is that they can be disproven (as sometimes happens).

In any rate, I appreciate the interesting discussion. And thanks Lisa for the kind words about my snake identifications. And thanks all for the interesting discussion on a hot controversial topic.

Well, a power loss caused me to lose the post I was typing detailing the recent lions in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Anyone can read cougarnet.org to get the background behind them and the current situation.

The difficulty around making official statements about cats being here can be shown by looking at the one best-known confirmation here in Oklahoma. It was a tagged cat that was born in the Black Hills of S. Dakota and managed to travel here in a few months time looking for its own territory (young male). It was killed by a train in northern Oklahoma after it's location had been recently pinpointed in North Dakota. What are authorities supposed to say to accurately provide information to Oklahomans and Kansans after that. The official statement is that we have occasional ones pass through but no resident ones except some possibly starting to make permanent homes in the far NW.

There have been a few confirmation in other parts of the state that were not reported but they were more likely to be from the exotic pet trade than native, wild ones based on the evidence, so the wildlife people do not publicize them.

The guy that killed the one in Kansas last year did so illegally, but got in almost no trouble because he cooperated and provided the remains to the wildlife people who were so eager to confirm the first one proven there in many years that they didn't press the issue. In Oklahoma btw you can kill any lion that is posing a danger to you or any livestock you own. It is perfectly legal. In fact, if you call the game warden in my local area to say you have one posing a danger to you or your animals, you will be told to kill it if needed and then call them back after you have.

I'm sure there are many sightings in Oklahoma that are accurate and not mistaken identity, but the vast majority are incorrect. This is obvious by the fact that more black ones are reported than any other color, and there is no large black cat that exists anywhere near here except for the ones (not cougars) imported to this country as part of the exotic pet trade. That is absolute FACT. Even these are now heavily regulated so they are almost non-existent.

Sorry, I have been out of town and didn't get a chance to read this thread the last few days. No hard feelings from this end. I just want people to know the facts of the situation. There is a big difference between being mistaken and lying. I am mistaken a lot, but I don't lie. Nobody is saying that most people who say they have seen cougars are liars, it is just mistaken identity. The truth should not offend anyone, and eventually when we start seeing evidence of resident populations, I will as happy as anyone. I think it is starting, but I think our population density combined with their needed size of home range will make it almost impossible for them to increase in population very much in most of Oklahoma. After all, between 20% and 30% of all the highly studied cougars in the remote Black Hills area were killed by autos over a three year period.

BTW, I killed another pygmy rattlesnake last week!

No hard feelings here. I don't think all those people reporting black cats are wrong. There must be some reason why so many say they've seen black cats and I don't buy the superstition reasons or that it was dark, etc. Hopefully they'll find out sometime during my life so I'll know. Mysteries prey on my mind.

I didn't know the mountain lions moved around that much. If they do, then there's really no sense in telling people that they aren't in Oklahoma, because at any given time there may well be some in Oklahoma, just moving through. It's as if they said that Canadian geese were never in Oklahoma because they (until recently) nest elsewhere.

And if the movement patterns of other large cats are similar to those of mountain lions, then perhaps somewhere there's a breeding population of imported black jaguars/leopards/etc. and they're wandering through here now and then. Maybe even from the pet trade, which might explain how they're less cautious and shy than tawny (wild) cats. I dunno. It's a theory.

One of these days we're going to have tracking devices on every predatory individual of wildlife bigger than 50 lbs. in the USA - every mountain lion, every bear, every wolf and probably every pig we can get our hands on.

Hi all,

I've been to okie snake website and couldn't ID this one. DH says no fangs but he's dead anyway. Had a larger head and girth than usual (4-5' long) little garden snakes.

Thanks,
Laura

Laura,

Solid pattern phase of the Eastern Hognose Snake. They are harmless but their thick girth and triangular shaped head make them one of the harmless snakes frequently mistaken for a venomous snake.

Laura,

When I saw your photo, I was going to say "Go find Wayne in MO and he'll be able to tell you". Then, I read the next entry and there he was. : ) I also noticed the kitty was checking out the snake.

Dawn