I know someone very trustworthy, who, with his wife, said he saw one here in Alabama. Game wardens will scoff at that, but I tend to believe this person.
Oh - I’m slow on the uptake -=- not enough coffee yet... :-D
We have a friend that has a photo from his trail cam, but wildlife officers have cast doubt that the photo was taken here in Louisiana. During a muzzleloader hunt last year I personally saw a cat that I could not identify and it was much larger than a bobcat (of which we have many). Due to some brush, I didn't see the tail which would have helped in identification.
Since there was once a population of large cats, one of them being black panthers (as in animal, not thug), I do not doubt that the cats are here. There are numerous sightings of large black cats every year, but wildlife officials scoff and say that they were bears, not cats.
We do not understand why the department of wildlife and fisheries is so set on denying that there may be large cats in the state.