Mountain Lion Struck by Vehicle in Longview

[BabaYaga 15538]

We had one picked off by a truck near our place in Coleman.  Old, old girl.  Teeth were worn down, emaciated, living off the excessive road kill in the area.  Our warden was telling us.  Happens more than you think.  You just don't see them because if you hit one, you are calling the police who come out and take the carcass.  

[BabaYaga 15538]

Amazing animals.  Insanely efficient hunters.  When they operate in wolf country, there are sightings of packs following lions, then running them off their kill.  

Never seen one in the wild.  We did have one years back, as we found the carcass, semi-buried in dirt/brush as the warden indicated they are prone to do.  And as mentioned, they can range hundreds of miles.  Surprised all these small, high-fenced game "ranches" don't have a bigger problem with them as the animals have nowhere to go.  

[ABZ 71]

My mother, father, and I saw one slowly cross in front of us at about 75 yards while driving down a logging road towards our old deer lease on paper land. It happened on a bright, sunny day during the summer of 1997, west/northwest of Moscow, TX. Never will forget it. I reported it to TPWD, but they never followed up.

[CHIEF 5220]

We have a huge deer population and multiple mountain lions in our neighborhood. 
 

CHIEF

[crash_davis 23467]

Not Texas but maybe cool story, bro.

2 years ago Memorial Day weekend, we were staying in a remote cabin in Twin Lakes, CO. Just 15 miles south, Buena Vista, CO has the highest concentration of mountain lions in Colorado.

2nd day there, at sunset my daughter and her friend went for a hike around the "neighborhood". About 200 yards away they see a deer. Then about 100 yards away, they see a mountain lion shoot out of the tree line hauling ass after the deer. Both haul ass over a hill and down the valley.

No more sunset hikes around the neighborhood.

 

[Bozo_Casanova 26814]

This was taken yesterday morning near Ray White Road in Keller.

[Post Oak 20554]

Bad ass. Hope they didn't kill it 

[BabaYaga 15538]

29 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

This was taken yesterday morning near Ray White Road in Keller.

They're smart and amazingly adaptive.  Wonder if it's learned the routine for a homeowner to let their dogs out?  If so, please come to Frisco and murder my neighbors little yappy ass wiener dogs.  

[baboso 6104]

Is that a mountain lion or a rangy bobcat?  

[hookemATL 12229]

Clearly a bobcat. Ears and tail. 

[Orange&White 5572]

There was one on the north side of sun city in Georgetown a few months back, but construction in the area caused it to move.

We had a bobcat in our backyard about 3 weeks ago.

[Bozo_Casanova 26814]

28 minutes ago, baboso said:

Is that a mountain lion or a rangy bobcat?  

 

16 minutes ago, hookemATL said:

Clearly a bobcat. Ears and tail. 

 I thought so too but supposedly it was a puma and the tail was just curled towards the camera. 
 

Pretty cool either way. 

Edited December 13 by Bozo_Casanova

[hookemATL 12229]

Definitely a bobcat. The bend of the back legs, the pointed ears/tufts, and bobbed tail. Also has spots which only shows on cougar cubs. And too small

[baboso 6104]

We had a neighborhood bobcat when I lived in Plano.  Used to see him regularly on people's roofs hunting squirrels.  My Golden actually treed it in a live oak in our neighbor's front yard one evening.

[Ghost of LL 15679]

30 minutes ago, hookemATL said:

Clearly a bobcat. Ears and tail. 

I can't really tell.  The ears look awfully rounded when you zoom in.

Edited December 13 by Ghost of LL

[GreenspointTexas 9938]

2 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

Nah, man--zoom in on that shit.  The ears aren't pointed at all.  They're rounded.

And the tail is hiding from you behind that branch.  If you zoom in, you can see how it's curled.

Lol is this serious? Its clearly a bobcat

[Ghost of LL 15679]

6 minutes ago, GreenspointTexas said:

Lol is this serious? Its clearly a bobcat

Which is why I edited.  

I can't tell with the tail.  It could be bobbed.  But it could be curled toward the camera.

The coloring and the hind legs look like a bobcat.  But the ears look like a puma.

They're making coywolves now, maybe this is a buma.  Or a pumacat.  Or a bobgar.

[hookemATL 12229]

[Brisketexan 106839]

1 hour ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

This was taken yesterday morning near Ray White Road in Keller.

 I know bitch “I'M THE ONE THAT FUCKING PUT HIS FAT ASS UP THERE LAST WEEK"

[dcbc 14644]

4 hours ago, MissingInAction said:

One time hunting white tail in junction, we were stalking a herd down a creek. Following their tracks in the mud. 

We weren't the only ones. 

Came across big ass cougar tracks following the same herd. 

Hunted from a blind from then on.

When I was a kid, my dad and I went out one night to see if we could send a message to the wolves that were getting after some of the cattle.  We were in a makeshift brush-blind on one side of a fence.  As it got later and later, and no wolves showed up to argue their side of things, I started getting restless, and either a bobcat or a mountain lion let out an ear-piercing growl, roar, general expression of irritation from behind us.  I don't know how close it was.  Suffice it to say it was close enough and we made tracks back to the truck and called it a draw.

 

/I'll never put on a life jacket again

[CHIEF 5220]

When I and Mrs. CHIEF first met, we still owned the ranch in Bosque county. It was Angora goat country, so there were plenty of mountain lions. We went to go sit in a blind for an evening hunt. As we got close to the blind I could smell a goat carcass across the fence. We hoped over the fence to inspect it. It was about half eaten and had cat prints all around it, and the tracks were huge. The neighbor had Commodore dogs and some donkeys for guarding the goats. But cougars are smart, they appear in the front of the goat herd, and when the dogs and donkeys run up to protect the front of the herd, they will sneak around to the back of the herd and pick off a goat.

Mrs. CHIEF was a young, naive, city girl, and had never much heard a donkey bray, so when one of the donkeys went off about a hundred yards away, I had her convinced that it was the mountain lion upset that we were near his kill. She was absolutely mortified. She was in tears thinking we were gonna get attacked on the way back to the truck. I felt so bad, I finally fessed up that it was a donkey. Still cannot, to this day, believe that she didn't know what the sound was.

CHIEF

[Brisketexan 106839]

2 minutes ago, CHIEF said:

Still cannot, to this day, believe that she didn't know what the sound was.

I know.  She'd been dating you for a while, you'd expect she knew well what a jackass sounded like.

[Jkwellborn 7023]

I know several people that have seen them over the years in North East Texas.

There's been one running around the north Dallas burbs getting spotted on ring cameras. TPWD kept saying it was just passing thru. Wonder if that was this one. Can't imagine there's a whole whole lot of them up there.

That’s a little far. It’s like 140 miles from there.

[Jkwellborn 7023]

Just noticed broad daylight is a popular phrase today.

My stepdad saw one in the 90s in Cass County in the middle of the day.

[hookemATL 12229]

1 hour ago, CHIEF said:

When I and Mrs. CHIEF first met, we still owned the ranch in Bosque county. It was Angora goat country, so there were plenty of mountain lions. We went to go sit in a blind for an evening hunt. As we got close to the blind I could smell a goat carcass across the fence. We hoped over the fence to inspect it. It was about half eaten and had cat prints all around it, and the tracks were huge. The neighbor had Commodore dogs and some donkeys for guarding the goats. But cougars are smart, they appear in the front of the goat herd, and when the dogs and donkeys run up to protect the front of the herd, they will sneak around to the back of the herd and pick off a goat.

Mrs. CHIEF was a young, naive, city girl, and had never much heard a donkey bray, so when one of the donkeys went off about a hundred yards away, I had her convinced that it was the mountain lion upset that we were near his kill. She was absolutely mortified. She was in tears thinking we were gonna get attacked on the way back to the truck. I felt so bad, I finally fessed up that it was a donkey. Still cannot, to this day, believe that she didn't know what the sound was.

CHIEF

This is EXCELLENT husbanding. 10/10

[Handcruser 2814]

There is a black one that roams our property every four to five months in Yorktown.

I was sitting in the mule one night and heard this incredibly deep growl. I thought for a second “I wonder what that is”? Then I remembered and got the fuck out of there.

He roams our property for a few months, then is gone for a while, then back.

[jkates 336]

4 hours ago, baboso said:

Is that a mountain lion or a rangy bobcat?  

Over the years, our Game Wardens and TXPWD biologists have told us that most "mountain lion" sightings are sightings of bobcats. This is in both Austin and Edwards County.

[Ollie Slatt 295]

35 minutes ago, Handcruser said:

There is a black one that roams our property every four to five months in Yorktown.
 

There is a fun debate about whether those actually exist. Scientists say mountain lions cannot be melanistic . . . but a ton of people claim to see them.  Part of our collective subconscious (like bigfoot).  

[Jkwellborn 7023]

This was taken yesterday morning near Ray White Road in Keller.

That’s a big ass bobcat.

[Jkwellborn 7023]

There is a fun debate about whether those actually exist. Scientists say mountain lions cannot be melanistic . . . but a ton of people claim to see them.  Part of our collective subconscious (like bigfoot).  

Is it that they can’t be, or have never seen one? I remember reading that what most people called black panthers were jaguarinis or something.

[Handcruser 2814]

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name="Ollie Slatt" userid="[emoji[emoji[emoji6][emoji6]][emoji[emoji[emoji6]][emoji[emoji6]]]][emoji[emoji[emoji6]][emoji[emoji6]]][emoji[emoji[emoji[emoji6][emoji6]][emoji[emoji[emoji6]][emoji[emoji6]]]][emoji[emoji[emoji[emoji6][emoji6]][emoji[emoji[emoji6]][emoji[emoji6]]]][emoji[emoji6][emoji6]][emoji[emoji[emoji6]][emoji[emoji6][emoji6]]]][emoji[emoji6][emoji6]][emoji[emoji[emoji[emoji6][emoji6]][emoji[emoji[emoji6]][emoji[emoji6]]]][emoji[emoji6][emoji6]][emoji[emoji[emoji6]][emoji[emoji6][emoji6]]]]][emoji[emoji[emoji[emoji6][emoji6]][emoji[emoji[emoji6]][emoji[emoji6]]]][emoji[emoji[emoji[emoji6][emoji6]][emoji[emoji[emoji6]][emoji[emoji6]]]][emoji[emoji6][emoji6]][emoji[emoji[emoji6]][emoji[emoji6][emoji6]]]][emoji[emoji6][emoji6]][emoji[emoji[emoji6][emoji6]][emoji[emoji[emoji6]][emoji[emoji6]]]]]"] There is a fun debate about whether those actually exist. Scientists say mountain lions cannot be melanistic . . . but a ton of people claim to see them.  Part of our collective subconscious (like bigfoot).  

Our foreman saw it and then the oil gauger saw it another time. Both reports of a black cat.

[Ollie Slatt 295]

4 minutes ago, Jkwellborn said:

Is it that they can’t be, or have never seen one? I remember reading that what most people called black panthers were jaguarinis or something.

Fair point. I think its that none have ever been confirmed to exist.  Some other cats (like bobcats) are known to be capable of melanism, but it occurs so infrequently that only a few have ever been observed. 

 

[956 Worldwide 35586]

5 minutes ago, Jkwellborn said:

Is it that they can’t be, or have never seen one? I remember reading that what most people called black panthers were jaguarinis or something.

There has never been a melanistic mountain lion confirmed, alive or dead. Other species that have melanistic variants are pretty common.  
 

“Black panthers” are either a melanistic jaguar or leopard.  The only confirmed 21st century U.S. sightings of jaguars of any type are small, potentially transitory in AZ and New Mexico. Jagarundis are a different species that do not range into the U.S. and are much smaller species, maybe the size of a small bobcat at most. 
 

The black panther is a cryptid and every sighting has been something else in the U.S. 

[Ollie Slatt 295]

2 minutes ago, Handcruser said:

Our foreman saw it and then the oil gauger saw it another time. Both reports of a black cat.

There is a known problem with thousands of idiots owning big cats in Texas. If you really have a large black cat, it could be an escaped leopard or jaguar.  

[baboso 6104]

Sorry I ruined your black panther party.

[956 Worldwide 35586]

3 minutes ago, Ollie Slatt said:

There is a known problem with thousands of idiots owning big cats in Texas. If you really have a large black cat, it could be an escaped leopard or jaguar.  

It’s really hard for megafauna and especially apex predators to hide.  If there were melanistic mountain lions or a similar species in North America one would have been shot, captured, or photographed.  In some places “black panther” sightings are more frequent than regular mountain lion sightings!  They are also often sighted on ranches, farms, smaller state parks, and backroads— all places where other big carnivores are regularly run over or shot or photographed. There’s no disputing that bears and mountain lions or coyotes or wolves or bobcats or wolves exist.  
 

If it did exist it would just be a different colored big cat and there’s no reason for it to be so much more elusive for the past centuries than its tawny cousin or sibling.

[Bozo_Casanova 26814]

2 hours ago, CHIEF said:

The neighbor had Commodore dogs and some donkeys for guarding the goats

Your neighbor had a Komondor guarding their goats? Those things are seriously badass livestock guards. 

[Bozo_Casanova 26814]

46 minutes ago, Ollie Slatt said:

There is a known problem with thousands of idiots owning big cats in Texas. If you really have a large black cat, it could be an escaped leopard or jaguar.  

The home of a girl I knew in Garland in the mid 80’s backed up to property owned by a trashy divorced man with money who drove a corvette and owned a tiger. IIRC she got pregnant when she was 16-17.
Nice girl. Not shy. 

[CHIEF 5220]

28 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Your neighbor had a Komondor guarding their goats? Those things are seriously badass livestock guards. 

Yes, he was the first to use them, here, in Texas, and was credited with introducing them to the state. He had kennels and about 40 dogs for sale all the time. He never had problems with coyotes but every few years, he would lose a dog or two when they got in a scrape with a mountain lion.

As far as melanistic mountain lions, they do exist, I watched one for about 15 minutes walk up our driveway at the ranch. The local game biologist for TPWD told me "black panthers" don't exist, but I know what I saw. It wasn't huge, but probably still weighed 60 pounds. That was about 35 years ago.

CHIEF

Edited December 13 by CHIEF

[hookemATL 12229]

It’s a lifelong dream of mine to see one in the wild. From a decent distance I suppose. 

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4999]

Saw one on the side of Will Smith Road outside Longview about fifteen years ago. 

 

As far as black panthers or melanistic mountain lions or whatever, the historical record shouldn't be so easily dismissed. There are many claims of them being shot or people seeing the skins of ones that others shot. 

[956 Worldwide 35586]

Big cats are very elusive to spot for amateurs but not for biologists, they leave plenty of evidence of their existence.  Field biologists manage to capture images and get a good count of incredibly secretive animals like snow leopards in some of the most remote and hostile terrain on earth. Texas and the southeast are highly populated, every country has game wardens, there are tons of biologists tracking what’s out there because it is there job, with game cameras all over the place.  Most alleged sightings are not coming in the places a large predator can hide for long. 

 

If black panthers existed aside from maybe an isolated escaped exotic, there’d be one mounted, hit by a car, or on a game trail cam right now. And even most escaped exotics are found. 

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4999]

Yeah, you are clearly just talking out of your ass. But what does a person who actually went to school to be a wildlife biologist know?

Anyhow, I'm not saying there are currently any, but we shouldn't dismiss the historical record so easily. For instance, the Mexican Jaguar is known to have a melanistic morph, and we really don't have a ton of information on their historical range.

[hookem2010 2700]

It seems unlikely in the late 20th and early 21st century that a jaguar, much less a melanistic one is wandering through Texas. And if melananistic mountain lions existed, I would think there would be some photographic evidence of that. 

I believe that's what 956W is stating, and I tend to agree. Also, people are really dumb when it comes to wildlife sightings.

[Biff Tannen 46122]

Whole discussion is racist, imo. 

[Izhmash 577]

Wrong fucking day to read this thread. I'm headed to Longview to go hunting this week....and now I'm not feeling too confident in being the "hunter". Fuck me...this is shit of nightmares. Will definitely be carrying a high capacity magazine, lol.

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4999]

There wasn't documentation of a melanistic morph of a lynx until 2020. It is quite possible that there existed once for the mountain lion in the south where it would be advantageous. But those populations were estimated for the most part. 

[UTexasFight 9792]

6 hours ago, Jkwellborn said:

That’s a big ass bobcat.

Maybe it’s just a tiny ass house 

[UTexasFight 9792]

Hiked the South Rim trail at Big Bend a couple of years ago.

when we got to the rim, we were chatting with a guy and his son who were camping at the Chisos Basin. Said that morning they were finishing breakfast when a deer bolted through the campground followed immediately by a mountain lion.  
I’m betting there were plenty of good campsites available that night.

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4999]

13 minutes ago, UTexasFight said:

Maybe it’s just a tiny ass house 

We need roflbox or someone experienced in roofing to compare the width of a shingle to the length of the cat.