Bowsite.com

Pretty cool. Video at Link.

"For the first time in over a century, Tennessee officials say that mountain lions may be returning to the state. In October, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) confirmed that a hunter in Obion County discovered pictures of a mountain lion on his trail camera. The agency determined that photo was legitimate, making it the first cougar sighting in the state in over 100 years.

Other counties have also reported sightings. The most recent confirmed discovery of a mountain lion came from Humphreys County, near the center of the state and about 30 miles from Nashville. According to WSMV, Austin Burton found footage of the animal while checking up on his trail cam two days after Thanksgiving. The cougar appeared to be investigating a deer scrape."

The presence of one or a few does not equal a breeding population.

They are pretty clearly expanding their range, and confirmed sightings in places where they haven't been for many years and evidence like that Trail Can video is pretty hard for authorities to argue with.

Here in CT there have been occasional reports of cats for many years, including from some very credible people. Our DEP always said "no mountain lions here", and "if you do see one it was an escaped pet". Then that one got hit, and was a confirmed wild lion. And t had been spotted and left DNA in several states on its trip East.

I always wondered why our Hunting Regs mentioned them several times. Other animals we're not supposed to have here aren't mentioned. You see no reference made to Wolves, Badgers, Armadillos etc.

Please show me the data that supports this statement.

In all my travels around the world, I never heard of mammals not breeding just because they were out of their home turf.

It is also been my experience with mammals, that if you have a healthy male and female, you have a breeding pair.

I'd guess like with most any cats.... opportunity is all they really need.... "Tom cattin' around..." is a fairly accurate description....

Due to the nature of their large territories, the females and the males can overlap some.

I doubt this tom has a territory that spans several states. Sounds like he's cruisin for chicks cause he'd have found plenty of places with deer between where he started and where he ended up.

--Bill

This one, assuming a tom by the nature and size, was likely run out of where he was born by the dominant tom. Not finding any real home turf with a new girlfriend he just kept on roaming.... I'd guess he didn't run into too many girls.... looks like he was pretty good at hunting though....

"Papa was a rollin' stone...."