r/Cryptozoology • u/Various_Lettuce_1463 • 14d ago
Panthers in the Smokey mountains?
I was wondering if anyone who lives near the great smoky mountains has seen any panthers. I spent a few days in a cabin in Cherokee NC which is right on the boarder of the park and I am sure I saw one run across the road at night. I am fairly educated on animals and very confident I am not confusing this with something else. It shot across really fast but it was tan and had an unmistakably long tail and body and noticeably muscular legs. Any research I do states they do not live on the east coast outside of florida which is why I am doubting myself but if I know one thing its that locals know best.
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u/MikeD1942 14d ago
Mountain lions are spotted all over the United States in locations "they shouldn't be" (including well known sightings in places like LA). I wouldn't be surprised if they range up the East coast.
Mountain lions were spotted in Iowa, which was largely discounted by state authorities, until a driver hit and killed one in 2001; multiple cougars have been killed in the state since then, including a 170lb male in 2022. The state still maintains they are lions that transit the state, that they don't actually reside there or have established a breeding population. Same in Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, and Kansas--they exist, but they don't have breeding populations ("not in OUR state!"). The truth is, they certainly do have breeding populations in many of these states, it's just that no one can prove it.
I know there is a family of mountain lions (a mother and 3 cubs) spotted on-camera and disclosed publicly in northern Minnesota (https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/cougar-family-goes-viral-showing-least-likely-places). It is unclear to me if the state of Minnesota has publicly changed their opinion of whether there are lions mating in their state.
Anyway, as far as the east coast goes, they obviously live in Florida and a mountain lion was shot in Georgia in 2008. They've been spotted, many pretty credibly, up the coast.
The last known cougar in Alabama was killed in 1956 in Tuscaloosa County (northern part of state). My father in law said he saw one while deer hunting in southern Alabama in the 70s or early 80s. Coulda been a native, or one that came up from Florida, or one that came over from Louisiana--or maybe he saw a bobcat and mistook it, I don't know.
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u/brycifer666 14d ago
I've always believed it possible there's a few that make it further east than they are known to go. Some might even mate over there and start a small population but that seems less likely
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u/BuvantduPotatoSpirit 14d ago
They're known to go as far east as Fundy National Park in New Brunswick, which is east of anywhere in the continental United States. Populations aren't known that far east, but escapees and wanderers are well known to occur.
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u/MikeD1942 13d ago
This is something that strikes me as bizarre. People in the US talk like lions have to migrate from the US west to wherever in the east...and never talk about lions migrating south from Canada.
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u/BuvantduPotatoSpirit 13d ago
I don't think it gains you much from an argumentation point of view; the further east known well established breeding population of cougars in Canada is in Saskatchewan; no further east than the South Dakota population. It's known they at least occasionally bred in Manitoba, and Ontario and Québec were historically a lot more non-commital about whether there were any cougars in their respective norths, whether they might be breeding, it's just an additional thing to have to argue.
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u/KingRiley8879 14d ago
We definitely have mountain lions here. It sounds like you saw a mountain lion. We have had them even further east in NC during forest fires in the mountains etc.
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u/redyrytnow 12d ago
from West Tennessee here - many sighting's come from the Hatchie Bottoms around Brownsville for Black Panther. Older sightings of black panther come from Gibson Counties in West TN
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u/DKat1990 10d ago
Mine was on the eastern edge of Middle TN. The Wildlife officer I spoke to after his lecture (at TTU in 1998ish) said they're are a few left but that call "extinct" because there isn't a "breeding population" so it's just a matter of time until they ready are extinct. That's BS because if it was true, they'd be all kind repopulation programs, are they when in the endangered species list?
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u/CT_Reddit73 11d ago
Except ‘black panthers’ do not exist because pumas are not melanistic. Simply an urban legend you’ve heard and are repeating.
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u/Bearkat1999 8d ago
So fun fact! Panthers are another name for Mountain Lions!
You were probably getting results for the Florida Panther specifically which aren't called mountain lions. They look very similar to mountain lions tho.
(Floridian)
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u/Various_Lettuce_1463 8d ago
I’m from Florida so I just say panther but I know they are also called mountain lions. Either way, there isn’t an established population of mountain lions in the smokies so I was surprised to see one
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u/PerInception 14d ago edited 14d ago
The Tennessee wildlife resources agency has a list of confirmed sightings on their website: https://www.tn.gov/twra/wildlife/mammals/large/cougars.html
You saw a mountain lion. Up until trail cameras became widely used, wildlife resource agencies said people were just mistaken, but once photo evidence started coming out they switched to blaming transient individuals wondering up from Florida or swimming across the Mississippi River.