Just so you know in SC

Harry_Butt

Harry_Butt

New member
I had to travel I-95 on Sunday, 12, November from NC to FL. As I crossed the Great Pee Dee River in SC on the highway bridge at roughly 8:30 am there was a dead puma(mountain lion) laying on its right side, head to the south, on the bridge on the right side of the lanes. It was swollen up but not greatly bloated and there is no doubt im my mind it was a panther, puma, mtn. lion. Looked like a 3 day dead deer in terms of decomposition. I just want to be on record about this. Harry
 
Did you actually stop and take a good look?

I can't believe that the SC Wildlife people haven't picked it up for research? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused1.gif
 
Are you sure it was'nt a Bobcat? Just kidding, it's an inside joke for all of us folks in PA. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinning-smiley-006.gif
 
No I could not stop. Yes I can identify a panther at 30 feet at 65 mph. I'm sure SC is like NC with 3 or less real wardens per county all busy as heck. If no one called it in it still existed there, dead on the bridge. How about the Iowa and Arkansas game comissions denying panthers, when lots of people see and report them? Anyway I know what I saw. I just wanted to advise SC callers and predator hunters. I'm sure you see the forum posts everywhere about guys being amazed about calling up these big predators really unexpectedly, some in Tennessee. Good hunting to all, Harry
 
Quote:
No I could not stop. Yes I can identify a panther at 30 feet at 65 mph.



Sorry Harry, I didn't mean to question your ability to recognize the cat, or insinuate that you were mistaken. I just couldn't believe that it had lay there on THAT bridge for that long without SOMEONE reporting it. (I lived In Charleston SC for a long time. I know the bridge you are referring to)

Thanks for the info. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinning-smiley-003.gif
 
As big as the Pee Dee is you would be surprised as to what is living in there. I work with some folks that go down to that area to hog hunt and they have told me about some of the sounds that they heard. As much land that is open and free i would not doudt it. Now if you think about it that area is part of the Great Dismal Swamp that streches from NC all the way to FL.
 
I have a good friend who I went through high school with who is also a retired NC game warden (great guy). I discussed a cougar sighting I experienced with, it cracked him up. However I know for a fact my brother in law was a dog handler at a not to distant military installation with large acreage and they were fore warned not to shoot cougars in the late 50's & early 60's . The area I saw it is tied to the drainage basen of the military installation a good many miles futher inland. I have no doubt what you saw or what I saw.
 
I myself was in a deer hunting club in Chesapeake Va. and Camden County, N.C. in the late 60s, early 70s and we hunted the fringes of the Great dismal swamp bordering Northwest Radio Station that the USN had. The bear tracks started where the bean/corn fields ended. 6-foot rattlers, too. There was so much wild land there it was hard to believe. If bobcats survived, why not panthers? They push out the younger animals to find new territory.
 
I have been in conversation with another member on this site about big cat's in SC. I have pictures of Mountain Lion tracks and a drag where something (a deer maybe), was drug by the lion. My girlfriend and I were in McCormick County SC, right by Clarks Hill Lake walking down a dirt road on my hunting club, when we came across the smell of something dead. This was in the off season, so no one had been down there to kill anything. There had not been anybody on the club in weeks. After the smell, we both noticed where somehting had been drug down the dirt road about 100 ft. On either side of the drag mark was a pair of tracks, like the cat had it straddled inbetween its legs. We had her camera and made several pictures of the tracks and I took them to the DNR office in Clemson SC. The tracks were looked at and confirmed to be that of a large cat. I have the pictures and the email from the DNR confriming them. Of course, they gave the same old story that it was someone's pet that was turned loose because of it being too expensive to feed, but it seems to me that there are an aweful lot of the unclaimed pets running around. Me and a friend of mine had also seen a brown one, up around the Pendleton Area about 8 years ago and reported it to the DNR, and it was the same story. A let loose pet. I have taken a personal interest in finding out as much about cats in SC as I can, and in doing research in the area where me and my girlfriend found the tracks, I have talked to two other men whom have seen a mountain lion within 1/2 mile of where we found the tracks on a different hunting club. I have also made contact with a woman in Estill SC who had found a doe wedged in the limbs of a pine tree on her property in Estill. She had the DNR come out and set up cameras to try and get photos, with no success. She sent me a photo of the deer in the tree and a copy of an article in the Charleston Newspaper concerning the deer she found and other cougar sightings in the low country. I have the picture she made of the deer in thetree and the pictures I made of the tracks, and the letter from the DNR about my tracks if anyone is interested, I can email you a copy of them. I am sure that you could also call the Charleston newspaper and get a copy of the article that I mentioned.
 
A friend of mine took a picture of a huge panther track he found in the Pee Dee. There was another panther found that was thought to be hit by a car but was later found to have been shot. The bullet went just inside the eye. It was thought to have been shot from someone spotlighting.
 
It seems to me that if the wildlife commission people officially admit to panthers, they would have to call them endangered, the feds would get involved more in state business, funding would have to be found, programs would have to be started, crow would be on the menu, just a whole lot of hassle. If there are some where you hunt keep an eye out for tracks. I spotted coyote tracks and scat here in Halifax county east of I-95 5 years ago at my club's lease. and I know there still not abundant, for that is when they really stary howling at night. Harry
 
The DNR knows they are here. In the rules and regulations book there is a line in there about not shooting cougars, that they are a federally protected species, but then the DNR's stance, from the one's I've talked to is that the one's in South Carolina are not true wild cougars. They say the same thing over and over, that they are someone's pet that got to big to feed so they released it into the wild. In the letter I got from the DNR, it went on to describe how that half wild cougars, raised by man were more dangerous than wild cougars due to their lack of fear of man. I just think the DNR doesn't want to put up with the outcry from the public knowing that there are wild cougars roaming around, so they come up with the abandoned pet theory. I just can't believe that there are the numbers of ranches somewhere out west that are raising up federally protected cats for sale to individuals elsewhere in the country. How many people do you know that have a pet cougar? I think it is bad how the DNR handles it. Another point, if the DNR says that they are not wild, just abandoned pets, wouldn't shooting one be the same as shooting a wild dog or a ferral cat? If it is a released pet and is more dangerous than a true wild cougar, isn't a problem animal that should be removed? I think the DNR's stance sets them up for not being able to make charges stick on someone who finally ends up shooting one and getting caught in this state, all he'd have to do is argue that their are no wild one's in SC. I know I guy personally, who called the DNR about a bear that he'd been seeing around his house multiple times. Every time the wardon would show up, he'd say there were no bears in that area, that the homeowner must be mistaken it for a big black dog. Well it rocked on and the homeowner shot the bear, here in Anderson county. He took it to the local check station and was having pictures taken all showing it off. A few days later here come the DNR wanting to fine the *&^$ out of him, it went to court and he told the judge about how many times he had called about the bear and about how the wardon had informed him that there were no bears in that area of the state, that what he was seeing was nothing more than a big black dog of which he shot. From my understanding, the charges got throwed out.
 
On some Bowater land in upstate sc a cousin of mine saw a "big black cat" with a "long tail" walking along a ridge. This was probably 5 years ago, maybe 6... pretty cool description he painted. Mentioned something about a panther running around... this was on a new land lease he and some friends went in on. Im interested in all the sightings too.
 
You can bet there are cougars in the SC swamps!!!! Hunted the Blackwater Swamps and have found scat, tracks and seen them from time to time (I'm 62yrs. old)and they've been there since I was a teenager chasing deer and turkey.
Small tawny colored "SwampCats"....
 
I don't know a whole lot about how to differentiate cat tracks from dog tracks, so the tracks don't do a whole lot for me...BUT that deer in the tree is downright spooky! Unless the deer died as the result of a skydiving accident, I don't see how else it could get up there but by a large cat.
 
The difference in cat and dog tracks is in the lack of claws and the number of lobes on the rear of the track. A cat will have 3 lobes, as pointed out in one of the pictures, while a dog will have 2. A cat track is more round than a dog. I will try to get the drag mark picture to work, it didn't work in my previous picture. This is a copy of the email that I got back from Rob Harrison, SCDNR about the pictures of the tracks.

Chad,
I got your disk and have gone through the pictures. From what I can tell and
other biologists here in the office they were made by a big cat, what species
we can't tell. There is no confirmation of wild cougars in our state but that
does not mean that someone didn't release a pet cougar that they got tired of
feeding. You must understand that a tame/half tame cat will be more dangerous
than a wild one due to loss of fear of humans. I'm going to contact the
biologist that works that area and see if there is anyone down there that has
big cats and if they still have it/them. Thanks for the info.
Rob Harrison

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q153/hootiewho6933/drag2a.jpg
 
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