Bummer, this is not what I want to see right now....
5:30 a.m. last Thursday our dog started barking. We shushed her and then, since one of our windows was open, I asked Mr G what was the sound we were hearing. It went on for quite a while and then I opened a window on the other side of the room to listen. What I heard was about 300 feet away, right behind our office. (confirmed by the dog’s hackles going straight up when she and Mr G walked up there later)
There were 2 parts to the sound, one of which I recognized....
you got it, it was a cougar. We have a friend who used to raise them, so I have heard them make a “chuff” sound in greeting. I got on line and searched cougar sounds and found one very like what we heard, combined with the “chuff”.
The next part of the puzzle is that our neighbor down the hill saw one last year in the tall grass next to his house. He was too busy shooing his grandkids into the house to take a picture of it with the camera that was hanging around his neck.
Add to that another neighbor who listened to the sound I sent him and said “Oh yeah, I have heard that before, but it sounded a ways south of us.”
As I said, bummer.
bummer.
Be careful
Dang Grammy,
You all be careful. Several months ago I received an email alert from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service asking anyone with cougar sightings to report these, in fact the USFWS put up a special page online for these reports, since they are receiving so many sightings.
The news release stated the USFWS (and most state wildlife agencies) still don’t believe there are cougars present in the southeastern U.S., except for perhaps some domesticated and released cats.
However, I thought it was odd they went to all that trouble and fanfare to ask folks to report sightings.A few years ago they just ignored them. A state wildlife biologist did find a track (and preserved it) in the Tullahoma/Sewannee area in middle Tennessee several years ago, and he was certain it was a large cat, not a bobcat.
Wayne and I heard a big cat in our woods once. I heard it first, then he said he also heard what was definitely a big cat. I am assuming mine was a bobcat, we have a lot of these on public lands and they are legal to hunt in this state.
On Tndeer.com they have a lot of discussion on this. There are several hunters, who spend a lot of time in large tracts of woods, that claim to have seen them. These are folks who know what a bobcat looks like, and most have harvested bobcats. Some even have trail camera shots that do appear to be big yellow cats.
Keep me informed about your visitor, and be cautious.
“Bummer” h*ll!
Leave some anti-freeze out and the problem will be solved.
Since the cat belongs to the state, afterwards, make ‘the bureaucratic bachelors children replace the antifreeze their pampered panther stole.
;-)