Outside of the Florida panther I’ve always thought the big cats were only located in the far West states. Pretty wild if they’ve made it to the East coast now. Upstate NY has a huge number of forested areas where a mountain lion could live undetected. Just one more thing to worry about when camping. I sure hope the grizzle’s don’t migrate this way, black bears are enough lol.
And as development encroaches on their habitat, we have many more sightings in Lee and Collier counties. Someone caught a mom and two cubs on their swamp cam in 2019. In march 2025 one was struck by a car here in Lee county. 1.5 yr old female, at the age when mom turns them loose to establish their own territory. be careful driving back roads at night, we have panthers and gators using the highways. I’m been waiting to run across a gator at night in the road to see if my tesla has a gator symbol on the driving display.