# Once again, a new panther thread.



## redneck_billcollector

http://www.newschannel5.com/news/local-news/twra-cougars-are-back-in-tennessee-to-stay

I always assumed when these cats recolonized Georgia it would be from the South up with panthers from Florida. It looks like we might get colonized from the North down with cats from out west.  What the article linked leaves out is that the DNA evidence was from a female from South Dakota.  If, in fact, there is a female in Western Tennessee it will not be long before North West GA starts to get recolonized.  There have been a flurry of unconfirmed reports of cats in that part of the state this year already.  Two things work in favor of the colonization from north to south. One, western female cougars will disperse further than Florida Panthers will.  Two, there are not as many obstacles as there are for the Florida cats, namely the Caloosahatchee and the I-4 corridor to hinder the dispersal.  In the past it was thought that the Mississippi river would prove to be an obstacle for eastern expansion, it appears they just crossed up north at some point in time during the winter when the river was frozen and followed the river corridor south.  I guess the Mississippi barrier theory was based on Texas cats as opposed to the relatively new Black Hill population of cats that has proven to be a rather wander lustful group. A young Black Hills male was hit by a car a few years ago in Connecticut.  And NO, these are normal colored cats and not black.


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## Sandhills Hunter

I lived on the Caloosahatchee up until 4 years ago. There are plenty of cats north of the river and probably quite a few in North Florida. The population in South Florida was supplemented with cougars from out west several years ago. I saw one cross US 27 north of Moore Haven back in 2010.


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## Sandhills Hunter

Come to think of it, I saw one in Washington County Florida a few years ago but the Game and Fish Commission biologist said I was mistaken. There wasn't any in the panhandle.


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## redneck_billcollector

Sandhills Hunter said:


> I lived on the Caloosahatchee up until 4 years ago. There are plenty of cats north of the river and probably quite a few in North Florida. The population in South Florida was supplemented with cougars from out west several years ago. I saw one cross US 27 north of Moore Haven back in 2010.



Yeah, those texas cats helped out a lot.  I know of males making it north of the Caloosahatchee, one got killed in West GA a few years back,  there hasn't been a female confirmed north of there for a goodly number of years though. All the ones found north have been young males that apparently found a spot on the north bank of the river they could navigate.  If it was back in the 90s when you saw the cat up in Washington Co. it could have been a number of Texas cats they were experimenting with in the big bend area, a few of the males explored a goodly bit of GA. with one being captured just south of Columbus GA.


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## swamp hunter

Friend of mine Roy McBride was one of the folks that helped catch and release the Texas cats in Florida.
He has a Ranch near Chanidi  (spl?) Peak in far West Texas, bet that's where a lot of them came from.
He's also the Hounds man that catches all the cats down here in the Glades for radio collars ect.
We got Hundreds of them , not many deer and no hogs..but lot's of cats.


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## Gary Mercer

You got a bunch of big snakes down there too!!!


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## redneck_billcollector

swamp hunter said:


> Friend of mine Roy McBride was one of the folks that helped catch and release the Texas cats in Florida.
> He has a Ranch near Chanidi  (spl?) Peak in far West Texas, bet that's where a lot of them came from.
> He's also the Hounds man that catches all the cats down here in the Glades for radio collars ect.
> We got Hundreds of them , not many deer and no hogs..but lot's of cats.



If they are getting rid of the hogs...bring them on.  The hogs are ruining our habitat....


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## swamp hunter

Once your Hogs are gone they ain't gonna start climbing trees for  squirrels.....
You got a deer Feeder...


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## redneck_billcollector

Actually we have too many deer in areas....you can go into the woods and literally see the browse line in places.  From what I have read about how many deer they take a year to the size of their territory, taking of deer would not bother me at all.  I see as many dead deer on the road a year on one four mile stretch of Philema Rd. in Dougherty and Lee Co. than the number every study I have read says they take in a year.  I see an average of almost one hit every week. We actually have some areas in the State where not so long ago the population was estimated at almost 100 per square mile....that is absurd. The habitat in Southwest Florida is not prime deer habitat, saw grass and piney flatwoods are not the best habitat for deer. I imagine the carrying capacity has never been real high there.  Of course I might be wrong...but oak filled river bottoms abound throughout south GA. mixed with agriculture is prime deer habitat. Having hunted deer out west in cougar territory I did not see any problem, actually the deer population is growing. The whitetail population is actually expanding rapidly into western cougar territory and it could cause problems with the elk population due to that brain parasite   that whitetails carry.  The problem in Florida with deer isn't panthers, it is land practices, development and water management problems.....From what I hear, once again, no first hand experience, the private ranches in panther country have abundant deer on them or at least populations that warrant people paying big dollars for hunting rights. I remember hunting deer in the early and mid 70s and it was a big deal to see a deer track, let alone harvest a deer, and this was in places that are known for quality and numerous deer now.


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## Nicodemus

Jay, there`s plenty around here to support a big predator. Heckfire, those tagged cats that came up here out of the Osceola National Forest ate more dillers than anything. It would be a big help just to thin the hogs out some. 

I`d love to see it, but then, I`m a Disciple of Leopold. I suspect you are too. I know Ben is as well.


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## redneck_billcollector

Nicodemus said:


> Jay, there`s plenty around here to support a big predator. Heckfire, those tagged cats that came up here out of the Osceola National Forest ate more dillers than anything. It would be a big help just to thin the hogs out some.
> 
> I`d love to see it, but then, I`m a Disciple of Leopold. I suspect you are too. I know Ben is as well.



I too am a disciple of Leopold as you well know.  Every study, from Florida to Colorado has them at the most taking around 23 deer a year in a territory that ranges from 50 to 150 square miles....as you know Philema Rd. takes more deer a year than that within 1/2 mile on either side of the county line. On the subject of the cougar populations that developed around 2000 in N. Dakota, Nebraska and S. Dakota....I was thinking that it might be the wolves pushing them out of their established territory...especially the females which are not known to really disperse far from their natal homes.  It was within 10 years of the wolves taking up residence just west of all three of these breeding populations of lions.  Studies are showing that wolves will hunt down and kill lion cubs...whereas lions will kill solitary wolves, especially female mountain lions.  I just wonder....the time frame makes me think.


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## swamp hunter

1.4 deer per square Mile pre Cat...most likely .4 deer now.
Hogs are slap gone. Deer are scared. Radio collars show the deer have become more Daylight orientated because Cats feed at night.
Interesting experiment the NPS Ect..al..have did here.
I think it would not hurt your Georgia herd at all but we've got them basically trapped below the Caloosahatchee river...Hundreds of them.
Like Brim in a Farm pond..


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## redneck_billcollector

swamp hunter said:


> 1.4 deer per square Mile pre Cat...most likely .4 deer now.
> Hogs are slap gone. Deer are scared. Radio collars show the deer have become more Daylight orientated because Cats feed at night.
> Interesting experiment the NPS Ect..al..have did here.
> I think it would not hurt your Georgia herd at all but we've got them basically trapped below the Caloosahatchee river...Hundreds of them.
> Like Brim in a Farm pond..



I actually think it would help our herd. With our milder winters, the ticks seem to be worst than I can remember.  White tailed deer evolved with cougars, sadly most haven't been exposed and humans are the ones that drive deer behavior now.  You are right, deer would move more during the day, and probably they wouldn't use food plots as much or feeders....which I have a problem with them anyhow....the numbers you used for deer predation is about right, works out to around 23 a year if you are looking at a 50 square mile territory . There are plenty of areas, if not most of the areas, in central and south GA that have populations of deer >23 per mile squared.....I wish a few females would make it above the Caloosahatchee...there are a number of old woodsmen on this board that would love nothing more than to see a panther track in the wet mud.  I can remember coming across a panther track on the banks of the Flint years ago...at the time I did not know about the texas cats...sure enough a texas cat followed the flint river according to the tracking studies I have seen....that was a huge thrill to me and when I found out why, I must say, I was a little disappointed.  I would happily trade you a hundred deer per pregnant female panther to let loose in my river swamps and long leaf pine woods....We are getting bear more often now, and in south east Worth Co, I believe some have actually taken up residence now, if the verified sightings are to be believed.  I think you are lucky for the cats you have...strange one man's curse is another man's blessing. To me, it has always been about the hunt, not the harvest...I only will kill a deer so that I may hunt a deer. And apex predators make my wild spaces just that much wilder.....and to me, once again, that is worth much more than just picking out the deer I want to take home for the freezer or the wall. On a side note, I get very disappointed when I do not see diamond back rattlers every now and then....I miss them, and no, I have never killed one, nor will I even though I like eating them, I just think there are not enough to harvest.


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## redneck_billcollector

I misread your numbers on deer harvest by cats....I would agree with the .4  at least most of the studies I have seen say that.  One of the reasons it might be higher is because of the pythons. I remember reading years ago, the number one food for panthers was raccoons...I just read that the pythons have about wiped out the raccoons in the Everglades and other smaller prey that the panthers actually fed a lot on.  I imagine the nonpalatable invasive plants and the extremes in water in the region also has an effect on the deer.  My understanding was that a few years ago there was too much water in the Everglades and huge numbers of deer drowned because they couldn't find dry land.  Even with all the advances in recent years in trying to rehabilitate the everglades you have to admit, southwest Florida wild lands are out of balance, due to many reasons....not panthers.  I read the tales of the old Gladesmen from 100 or more years ago, I get the impression that there were not many deer at all.....my understanding is the late 60s and the early to mid 70s were the heyday for deer down there, at least in the old magazines I have (I collect old outdoors magazines from the 30s onward) .  That was when Naples was much smaller than it is now....the decline in deer, which I understand were artificially high, due to lack of water in the everglades, is now getting back into balance.  There is more water going south now than there was back in the 70s, I remember riding through the everglades in the late 70s and exploring, and it was not anything like it is now or at least the last time I was there about a year ago.


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## Last Minute

UGA is conducting a 5 year study down here in South Florida on these cougars. They started out collaring 100 deer and in the first month or so 38 were killed due to predation. Of the 38 only 2 were confirmed bobcat kills the other 36 were from the cougars. Every time a deer is killed they track it and determine the cause of death then collar another deer. They are estimating to be somewhere in the neighborhood of around 180 cougars south of the Caloosahatchee and claim that a solo cougar needs a deer sized animal a week to survive. Well that explains why we went from having a hog problem to none. There are management areas down here that just a couple of years ago you could drive through and never get out of the truck and see 100 or more deer and 200- 300 hogs. This year 1 hog was taken off said area and the deer numbers are plummeting as well. The harvest reports for the Big Cypress this year are sickening. There are a lot of clubs down here pushing for a cougar season..hopefully it happens.


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## Last Minute

I read the tales of the old Gladesmen from 100 or more years ago said:
			
		

> In the 70's South Florida had one of the largest deer herds in the nation. The everglades were busting at the seems with deer. During hunting season they would have refrigerated tractor trailers to hang all the deer in and opening week looked like Ft.Lauderdale beach on spring break. Fulltracks would come in with bucks piled high..the most I remember seeing on one buggy from one hunt was 14 bucks. It was nothing to see herds of deer. I remember one day having a herd of over 70 does walk by my stand but those days are long gone. Water Management and the Army corps came and flooded them out and lots of deer drowned or got hoof rot and just laid down and starved. If you're interested you can look up some interesting videos from the airboat club on youtube..search OPERATION DEER SAVE also if you have facebook look up the gladesman cypress page and look through the hay day albums there...


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## fish hawk

Interesting  reading


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## Last Minute




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## Gary Mercer

This morning Fox News had an article on their on-line website that might give you another thing to think about in your search for why the deer are gone.
It has a Burmese Python that had been killed in the Glades this week that had the undigested remains of three deer in its gullet.
Two fawns and a small doe.  They estimated that  these deer had been killed and consumed over a three week time period.  (Appears like it must take a while for the python to completely digest a large meal.)
How many of those suckers are there out in the Glades??
They may be the real enemy to the deer herd.
Maybe one of you "techie" Guys can put a link to that article on this site.
Thanks,
Gary


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## westcobbdog

Gary Mercer said:


> This morning Fox News had an article on their on-line website that might give you another thing to think about in your search for why the deer are gone.
> It has a Burmese Python that had been killed in the Glades this week that had the undigested remains of three deer in its gullet.
> Two fawns and a small doe.  They estimated that  these deer had been killed and consumed over a three week time period.  (Appears like it must take a while for the python to completely digest a large meal.)
> How many of those suckers are there out in the Glades??
> They may be the real enemy to the deer herd.
> Maybe one of you "techie" Guys can put a link to that article on this site.
> Thanks,
> Gary



I read that same article. Lets hope those Cougars and Pythons don't eventually move northward into Ga some day.


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## redneck_billcollector

westcobbdog said:


> I read that same article. Lets hope those Cougars and Pythons don't eventually move northward into Ga some day.



I happen to be one person who wants panthers here.


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## redneck_billcollector

Last Minute said:


> In the 70's South Florida had one of the largest deer herds in the nation. The everglades were busting at the seems with deer. During hunting season they would have refrigerated tractor trailers to hang all the deer in and opening week looked like Ft.Lauderdale beach on spring break. Fulltracks would come in with bucks piled high..the most I remember seeing on one buggy from one hunt was 14 bucks. It was nothing to see herds of deer. I remember one day having a herd of over 70 does walk by my stand but those days are long gone. Water Management and the Army corps came and flooded them out and lots of deer drowned or got hoof rot and just laid down and starved. If you're interested you can look up some interesting videos from the airboat club on youtube..search OPERATION DEER SAVE also if you have facebook look up the gladesman cypress page and look through the hay day albums there...



I have read numerous stories about deer hunting in the glades during that time. My understanding was that the panther population in the late 60s was about what it was now, if not actually a little higher.  So logic would tell you it is not the panthers that are suppressing the deer population now.  My understanding was that there was no where near the water in the glades that there is now even with all the problems about not enough water now.  I would also imagine the invasive plants which are out competing the native plants in a lot of areas would have something to do with the lower deer populations now.  Predators alone, if they are native to the area, will seldom suppress the prey population below the ideal carrying capacity of an area.  I take a holistic approach to wild spaces...they are not truly wild unless the apex predators are present.


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## rydert

I would love to see one in the wild...


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## Miguel Cervantes

I watched a full grown Panther with a bunny in it's mouth for about five minutes about 15 years ago just north of Eatonton, across from Rock Eagle during bow season. 

Talk about uncomfortable. It was a very big cat.


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## NCHillbilly

redneck_billcollector said:


> I have read numerous stories about deer hunting in the glades during that time. My understanding was that the panther population in the late 60s was about what it was now, if not actually a little higher.  So logic would tell you it is not the panthers that are suppressing the deer population now.  My understanding was that there was no where near the water in the glades that there is now even with all the problems about not enough water now.  I would also imagine the invasive plants which are out competing the native plants in a lot of areas would have something to do with the lower deer populations now.  Predators alone, if they are native to the area, will seldom suppress the prey population below the ideal carrying capacity of an area.  I take a holistic approach to wild spaces...they are not truly wild unless the apex predators are present.



Deer and panthers have co-existed here for at least a couple hundred thousand years. We are the fly in the ointment, not the panthers.


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## Last Minute

The Florida Panther is no more.. These cats were brought in from Texas and are decimating our wildlife. Its a fact. Look it up for yourselves. We went from having a hog problem to none.You could ride Dinner Island Ranch without getting out of your truck and see over 100 deer and 200-300 hogs just 3 years ago, this hunting season 1 hog was killed. Everyone around here will tell you the same. I was on a lease that was the same way..once littered in hogs and in the 5 years there are none. Now the deer populations are going to the toilet. There are way more of these cats roaming our woods than the state will admit.


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## Miguel Cervantes

Last Minute said:


> The Florida Panther is no more.. These cats were brought in from Texas and are decimating our wildlife. Its a fact. Look it up for yourselves. We went from having a hog problem to none.You could ride Dinner Island Ranch without getting out of your truck and see over 100 deer and 200-300 hogs just 3 years ago, this hunting season 1 hog was killed. Everyone around here will tell you the same. I was on a lease that was the same way..once littered in hogs and in the 5 years there are none. Now the deer populations are going to the toilet. There are way more of these cats roaming our woods than the state will admit.



I'd have to request scientific data to bolster those claims. Heck, most here in Ga would love to see the hog problem cured that quick.


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## Last Minute

redneck_billcollector said:


> I have read numerous stories about deer hunting in the glades during that time. My understanding was that the panther population in the late 60s was about what it was now, if not actually a little higher.  So logic would tell you it is not the panthers that are suppressing the deer population now.  My understanding was that there was no where near the water in the glades that there is now even with all the problems about not enough water now.  I would also imagine the invasive plants which are out competing the native plants in a lot of areas would have something to do with the lower deer populations now.  Predators alone, if they are native to the area, will seldom suppress the prey population below the ideal carrying capacity of an area.  I take a holistic approach to wild spaces...they are not truly wild unless the apex predators are present.




High water has plagued the glades for decades. The deer heard in the 60's took a hard hit due to high water. If you watched the videos i posted you'd see just how high it gets. The population made an amazing recovery and was growing rapidly throughout most of the 70's. Then towards the late 70's and early 80's came extreme water conditions. The glades got flooded real bad in the 80's twice and had the "mercy hunts" because there was no dry ground and all the animals were starving to death or drowning. The state opened the glades with no limit..go put them out of misery and eat them. Lots of deer went to waste and the everglades haven't been the same since nor will it ever. And in those days we had the native Florida Panther...Now we have a non native Texas cougar who's numbers are way stronger than what the state is fessing up to and its all for monetary gain. They get lots of money to "protect" the Panther...Its a farse


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## Ruger#3

Kid brother was leaned back against a tree turkey hunting in the Ozarks when a big cat decided to come off a limb above him. The cougar landed about 20 yards away and left in  hurry.

My brother was so impressed with the cat he can tell that story today with equal enthusiasm years later. He always remarks on the beauty of the cat and it's graceful movement in a dead run. This occurred during the time AGFC was insisting there was no cats in the state.

I like seeing reminders of what the wilderness was before we had a "better idea."


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## Last Minute

Check this out. Here's a link to the harvest report for the last 10 years at Dinner Island Ranch wma. Keep in mind this place is quota hunt only and only issue 40 permits per hunt. Hogs seem to have just disappeared.  

http://myfwc.com/hunting/harvest-reports/by-season-years/


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## Miguel Cervantes

Last Minute said:


> Check this out. Here's a link to the harvest report for the last 10 years at Dinner Island Ranch wma. Keep in mind this place is quota hunt only and only issue 40 permits per hunt. Hogs seem to have just disappeared.
> 
> http://myfwc.com/hunting/harvest-reports/by-season-years/



I did a 10 year range, 2006-07 year to 2016-17 range. 

In 2006 there were a total of 33 Bucks killed @ Dinner Island

In 2016 it is showing 45, with very little variance over the ten years except for the increase in harvest.

Are you saying Panthers like hogs but not deer? 

Seems from everything I've read the Burmese Python and the Hogs are the two most concerning non-native invasives in South Florida, so if one is gone, one only has to worry about the other.


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## NCHillbilly

I wonder why there are still plenty of deer and hogs in Texas, then?


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## Last Minute

The deer numbers across all of South Florida are way down. Dinner Island has the most deer acre for acre out of any of our wma's but it won't be that way for long. Since you looked at the harvest record you probably noticed many years with hog harvest in the hundreds as high as almost 500 and now this year just 1. From hundreds to 1. They didn't just pack up and leave that's for sure. The deer harvest numbers for the big cypress have plummeted and is the reason for UGA's current deer predation study. They collared 100 deer and in the first month or so 38 were killed and 36 were confirmed panther kills..the other 2 were bobcats.


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## Last Minute

NCHillbilly said:


> I wonder why there are still plenty of deer and hogs in Texas, then?



Maybe because they're not protected and are legal to harvest .


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## redneck_billcollector

Last Minute said:


> The deer numbers across all of South Florida are way down. Dinner Island has the most deer acre for acre out of any of our wma's but it won't be that way for long. Since you looked at the harvest record you probably noticed many years with hog harvest in the hundreds as high as almost 500 and now this year just 1. From hundreds to 1. They didn't just pack up and leave that's for sure. The deer harvest numbers for the big cypress have plummeted and is the reason for UGA's current deer predation study. They collared 100 deer and in the first month or so 38 were killed and 36 were confirmed panther kills..the other 2 were bobcats.


  The deer population was artificially high in the area in the 60s and 70s...in the videos you posted the gentleman was talking about how they had to transplant hogs to the Everglades.  Plus, and this is a big one, there were more cats in the Everglades when the deer population was rising.  It is never correct to blame a population crash of one prey species that is native to the area.  There are a multiple of reasons for the deer crash, more water, less space, invasive plants and apparently invasive species.  Quiet frankly the transplanting of wild hogs in the 50s or when ever it was would have helped hurt the deer population.  Hogs out compete deer.


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## Miguel Cervantes

redneck_billcollector said:


> The deer population was artificially high in the area in the 60s and 70s...in the videos you posted the gentleman was talking about how they had to transplant hogs to the Everglades.  Plus, and this is a big one, there were more cats in the Everglades when the deer population was rising.  It is never correct to blame a population crash of one prey species that is native to the area.  There are a multiple of reasons for the deer crash, more water, less space, invasive plants and apparently invasive species.  Quiet frankly the transplanting of wild hogs in the 50s or when ever it was would have helped hurt the deer population.  Hogs out compete deer.


Yep, and there are more predators down in that swamp than just cats. Gators and pythons eat their fair share I'm sure. 

Sounds like another hog hunter sore that his invasive species isn't there to make a living on anymore. 

They can have every Python and Hog that ever existed where they weren't suppose to as far as I'm concerned.


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## redneck_billcollector

As for the Texas cats, there were 8 females transplanted. That is it. They were of a subspecies closest genetically to the Florida panther.  There was always genetic interchange between the Florida panther and the Eastern cougar until the eastern cougar was extinct.  You read the old writings from back in the early 20th century about the gladesmen, there just were not many deer there...before the ditching and draining and canals and the diking of the bit O, there just were not many deer....that was not prime habitat, deer can not live off of saw grass, wire grass and the subtropical forbs.  The growth of agriculture and drying of much of the everglades out is what led to there being a decent deer population.  Keep in mind, this deer population started to explode while there were still plenty of panthers in the area.  They were responding to the changing environment.  Ecosystems are delicate and the slightest little change has a ripple effect that can at times seem astronomical.  We know cats eat deer, we also know from the study of the cats they tested in north Florida that they ate more raccoons, possums and smaller game than they did deer.  We know the pythons have pretty much wiped out that population in the everglades, we also know that pythons eat deer....Well, we also know that panthers have a rather large home range, with a males well exceeding 100 square miles.  We know that panthers do not allow competing panthers in their home range.  We know that panthers kill trespassing panthers.  Now here is the clincher.  We know you can find more large pythons in one male panther's home range than there are panthers in Florida.  And we also know due to a recent publication that one python was found with 3 deer in its stomach.....so, we know that a python can eat a number of south Florida deer a year.  What does this tell me....if any one animal is driving the crash in south Florida deer, it is the python....even when it is not eating deer, why? Because it is wiping out all other primary components of the panther's diet.  If that is all they were doing....eating all the meso-prey....that would be enough to increase predation on deer...but, they are ALSO eating deer.  You want to help the deer? Hunt down and kill every python you can find.  There is a small market for python hides...grow that market.  You could create a whole new generation of gladesmen who make their living off of python hides.  Oh yeah, one last thing.....the higher water, concentrates the deer on the hammocks...which also makes them easier prey for the pythons.  The pythons do not have natural predators in South Florida to limit  their growth, sure some birds will eat juvenile pythons, and gators will eat a medium sized python...maybe even a large one...but we also know the pythons prey on gators too....you have an environment in South Florida that is in stress due to its alterations over the last 100 or so years. It is in stress due to unregulated urban and suburban sprawl. It is in stress due to lacks of water at time and exclusion of fire at times.  It is in stress due to nitrates and phosphates being feed into the system disrupting the aquatic plant diversity.  You have a system that is in stress due to invasive plants that out compete the native plants and you are creating monocultures of Australian pines, Brazilian pepper, etc...and they you throw in invasive super predators, the pythons.  It is a wonder you have any deer left quiet frankly.  They are putting more water into the everglades, more annually than has been there for decades, this is good, but it is also effecting the deer, it is limiting their population, bringing it back to its levels of old....plus all the other problems discussed above. The flood, drought and fire cycle is what is natural for the everglades...it has been altered too much.  Maybe it is getting restored little by little, it needs to be, Florida Bay is shot out....That area was home to the panther long before any humans moved there....hopefully it will be home for them for ever....and hopefully they will expand their territory.


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## Last Minute

redneck_billcollector said:


> The deer population was artificially high in the area in the 60s and 70s



Artificially high? Seriously?? What magazine did you get that from? At one time the everglades had one of the largest deer heards in the nation, and they were thriving. Man and high water changed that. The panther/cougar problem doesn't much concern the everglades as it is to wet to hold them as there is really not much for dry ground.. Now the rest of South Florida is a different story. These cats are solid down here and their numbers are steadily growing and the areas with an abundance of them has seen a drastic decrease in wildlife. Look at the Big Cypress.. the deer heard is going to the toilet and nobody seems to know why. The cypress has plenty of dry ground when the water comes up and aside from that nothing has changed. The state upped the size for deer to be legally harvested yet the numbers are less and less. Again there is a reason the state and UGA are conducting this predation survey. The deer harvest used to always be between 200 and 300 and the last few years hasn't seen 100. The addition lands has produced 1 deer this year and Bear Island only 5. So far this year we've had 40 cougars hit by cars and they are now stalking hunters and even attacking our turkey decoys. Never ever has there ever been this amount of encounters with these critters. You talk to all the gladesman you want and you'll hear the same thing.."hunted out there my whole life and never saw one till recently". Now they're everywhere.


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## Last Minute

For the last few years, I am becoming more and more interested in the Florida Panther. Florida Wildlife Commission states that there are about 180 in the state, but, I believe this number is being purposefully understated. 
In my small business, I have the ability to talk to many people who spend time in the woods, and the stories are very consistent; local fauna populations are plummeting as the Florida panther population expands. Yet the FWC continues to claim that there are only 180.
Recently, a gentleman came to my shop, and the discussion led to panthers. He claims that he has a friend that was contracted by the state to insert GPS chips into panthers from I-4 south, and this project stopped after his friend "chipped" 240!!!
I was shocked at this, however, how true is this claim? So I submitted a public records rquest to FWC for any information on financing GPS chips into cats. The response is shocking.
I was shocked at this, however, how true is this claim? So I submitted a public records request to FWC for any information on financing GPS chips into cats. The response is shocking.
I am urging anyone interested in the local ecosystem to urge your state legislatures and the Governor to immediately STOP all further funding any projects to expand the size of the panther herd. This animal is decimating the local wildlife populations, and the ecosystem cannot sustain such an apex predator. For example, did you know a mature tom cat can kill a deer every four days? Furthermore, did you know that cougars were imported from Texas to breed with the Florida cats? How is it that wild hogs can be considered 'pests' because they are 'non-native', yet these cats from Texas are protected?
Additionally, when I ask the question: what happens when the cats eat all the local fauna, the response is: nature will balance itself out, which translates into, the cats will starve themselves out of existence. So why spend the money, and sacrifice the ecosystem, when the endgame is the same as it would have been when there were only 24 Florida panthers???
Below is the response to my request from FWC. It leads to tons of more questions, towhich I have yet gotten answers to. Please act now, before its too late.

Thank you for contacting the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) regarding the Florida panther. In response to your question we do not use any such implantable GPS chips on panthers. We do use transponder chips in all live panthers that we handle but those chips only allow us to identify a specific panther, not track it. This transponder chips are the same kind of chips used in veterinarian offices to help identify pets if they get lost. We pay for it out of our allocation from the FL Panther Trust Fund. We have no easy way to tabulate how many we have used but it is likely around 500 or so. They cost about $1 each because we buy needles that have a chip inside and each needle is in a sterilized wrapping.

Sincerely,

Ashley Scruggs
Division of Habitat and Species Conservation


----------



## redneck_billcollector

I am basing my statements about deer in the glades on a number of books....Gladesmen by Glenn Simmons and Laura Ogden which is a collection of stories and recollections of Gladesmen who made their living in the Swamp before it was made a national park...going back to the late 19th century.  Florida Enchantments by A W Dimock, who was a wealthy sportsman who hunted and fished in late 19th century south Fla and early 20th century. To include crocodile and manatee hunting for zoos up north.  Those are just a couple.  I also have a large collection of journals from various indian agents in Florida who kept track of the deer hide trade right after the first Seminole war and where the hides came from.  There is also an interesting account by William H. Simmons who traveled through all of Florida and is considered one of the best accounts of the natives of Florida during the early 19th century.  He talked about there being very few if any natives south of the Kissimmee basin because there was nothing for them to eat...there was a lack of deer and bear...not enough to sustain the natives.  The account was published in 1822.  Game was so limited in the area, the Seminoles did not even move into south florida until the end of the second Seminole war and then the only reason they moved there was because of the removal act and nobody could find them.  (same with the Miccosukee).  The deer started to increase in the everglades after the Labor day Hurricane of 1935 when the Government implemented the water management plans that started draining the everglades.   The deer population started to rise with that and reached its peak in the 60s. All accounts about the early gladesmen talk about the same thing....they ate gators, cooters, fish....and birds along with coons possums, and squirrels...venison was seldom on their menu.  Also many of the early calusa  sites in south Fla. did not have much deer remains...ie bones in the trash middens compared to other game, fish and manatees.   Many archeologist reasoned there were many reasons for the Calusa to rely on the sea for food, but felt the lack of large game was one simply because the evidence of deer consumption was lower in Calusa sites than any other natives of the costal southeast.  But none of that is either here nor there.  When we know the deer population was growing we also know that there was a healthy panther population.  As for the state understating the numbers...that is counter intuitive.  Here is why.  They are federally listed.  Under federal law it is harder to get waivers to develop land if there is a protected population.  Developed land is worth more to the state government than the federal government for tax reasons, especially in Fla, where there is no state income tax.  The state government has been pushing for the delisting of panthers since it has been in Republican hands...so why would a government who wants to get rid of the listing...lie about the numbers being lower than they really are? They wouldn't.  There are huge tracts of land, really influential people want developed...but the panthers listing is keeping that from happening.  Believe me, it there were more panthers than the states says, they would be screaming that fact from Tallahassee.  It is republican law makers, who control the government, who are saying the florida panther is not a separate species...they have lost that debate, so don't you would think they would say they are doing alright if they had the evidence to back it?


----------



## swamp hunter

redneck_billcollector said:


> As for the Texas cats, there were 8 females transplanted. That is it. They were of a subspecies closest genetically to the Florida panther.  There was always genetic interchange between the Florida panther and the Eastern cougar until the eastern cougar was extinct.  You read the old writings from back in the early 20th century about the gladesmen, there just were not many deer there...before the ditching and draining and canals and the diking of the bit O, there just were not many deer....that was not prime habitat, deer can not live off of saw grass, wire grass and the subtropical forbs.  The growth of agriculture and drying of much of the everglades out is what led to there being a decent deer population.  Keep in mind, this deer population started to explode while there were still plenty of panthers in the area.  They were responding to the changing environment.  Ecosystems are delicate and the slightest little change has a ripple effect that can at times seem astronomical.  We know cats eat deer, we also know from the study of the cats they tested in north Florida that they ate more raccoons, possums and smaller game than they did deer.  We know the pythons have pretty much wiped out that population in the everglades, we also know that pythons eat deer....Well, we also know that panthers have a rather large home range, with a males well exceeding 100 square miles.  We know that panthers do not allow competing panthers in their home range.  We know that panthers kill trespassing panthers.  Now here is the clincher.  We know you can find more large pythons in one male panther's home range than there are panthers in Florida.  And we also know due to a recent publication that one python was found with 3 deer in its stomach.....so, we know that a python can eat a number of south Florida deer a year.  What does this tell me....if any one animal is driving the crash in south Florida deer, it is the python....even when it is not eating deer, why? Because it is wiping out all other primary components of the panther's diet.  If that is all they were doing....eating all the meso-prey....that would be enough to increase predation on deer...but, they are ALSO eating deer.  You want to help the deer? Hunt down and kill every python you can find.  There is a small market for python hides...grow that market.  You could create a whole new generation of gladesmen who make their living off of python hides.  Oh yeah, one last thing.....the higher water, concentrates the deer on the hammocks...which also makes them easier prey for the pythons.  The pythons do not have natural predators in South Florida to limit  their growth, sure some birds will eat juvenile pythons, and gators will eat a medium sized python...maybe even a large one...but we also know the pythons prey on gators too....you have an environment in South Florida that is in stress due to its alterations over the last 100 or so years. It is in stress due to unregulated urban and suburban sprawl. It is in stress due to lacks of water at time and exclusion of fire at times.  It is in stress due to nitrates and phosphates being feed into the system disrupting the aquatic plant diversity.  You have a system that is in stress due to invasive plants that out compete the native plants and you are creating monocultures of Australian pines, Brazilian pepper, etc...and they you throw in invasive super predators, the pythons.  It is a wonder you have any deer left quiet frankly.  They are putting more water into the everglades, more annually than has been there for decades, this is good, but it is also effecting the deer, it is limiting their population, bringing it back to its levels of old....plus all the other problems discussed above. The flood, drought and fire cycle is what is natural for the everglades...it has been altered too much.  Maybe it is getting restored little by little, it needs to be, Florida Bay is shot out....That area was home to the panther long before any humans moved there....hopefully it will be home for them for ever....and hopefully they will expand their territory.



Well Said Billcollector...Well said.


----------



## swamp hunter

I recently heard about a DNA test USFW did on our Panthers   and I quote..There is no significant difference DNA wise between the Texas Cougars and the SF Panthers.
That would mean they are not some side throwback and undeserving of special considerations....
Haven't heard a peep about this for months . Lot's of Funds at stake here


----------



## redneck_billcollector

swamp hunter said:


> Well Said Billcollector...Well said.


 Thank you. I am a student of Aldo Leopold and am of a firm belief that all ecosystems are complicated to the extent that it is hard for humans to easily understand them fully.  My true passion are the longleaf / wire grass savannas of both the upper and lower coastal plains of the deep South.  The interaction of the animals and plants along with the fungi and bacteria are truly astounding.  The whole nitrification of the soil along with the interaction of periods of drought, fire and flood just fascinate me with ever single life form having a role to play.  It is that way with all ecosystems and our wet soil systems are so important and yet so ignored by everyone.  You all have been seeing the effects of mismanagement on a grand scale this year in south Florida.  I look at each ecosystem as a complicated tapestry and when you start removing threads randomly and adding threads randomly you are bound to destroy the tapestry and its pattern.  Just look no further than our eastern hardwood forests with the removal of the American Chestnut.  The crash of deer and all other animals that relied on that one tree to make it through the winter.  The fertility of the streams were altered, the whole forest changed in nature with oaks and sweetgums becoming some of the more dominate trees...oaks are good, we all know that, but we all know they are not reliable for mast every year and on bust years we see the effects....chestnuts on the other hand always had bountiful mast crops and they drove the forest cycles.  The forests and wetlands of south Florida will never be the same, but we should not just say "oh well" and go on about our business.  Predators are always the best indicator of a system, the proverbial canary in the mine, and if you create a healthy ecosystem predators will not have that huge effect on the prey base....at first it always seems that it does, but in reality it does not.  When the sportsman is used to an artificially high game base, they naturally do not like predators being reintroduced...but in the long term it helps, just look at the changes in Yellowstone and the natural return of the beaver since the wolves have returned.  A true sportsman realizes this. I hunt to be part of the environment, the success of my hunts are never measured by how much game I harvest...it is measured by the whole experience....the birds and animals I see...the flowers....the sounds and yes, it would be so much more if in fact I saw a panther track a bear track or a wolf track...just knowing I am not the only creature looking for prey.


----------



## Last Minute

So, since cougars from Texas were brought to Florida to help increase the Florida panther population, then why aren't deer from Texas also brought over to increase the herd of Key deer?
Also, hogs are classified a 'non-native' species as they were introduced.  Ditto pythons.  So then, how aren't these cross bred Texas/Florida cats also considered non-native?  
The time has come for the panthers to be taken off of the Endangered Species list, and all public funding needs to cease immediately.  The day is coming in which we won't see anymore fauna in our woods, all in the name of saving the panther.  Then what happens, the panther dies of starvation....


----------



## Big7

westcobbdog said:


> I read that same article. Lets hope those Cougars and Pythons don't eventually move northward into Ga some day.



That would be bad. Just look at the so called "reintroduction" of the coyote has done to fawn size animals as well as calves. Not to mention quail, rabbit and other GAME animals.



redneck_billcollector said:


> I happen to be one person who wants panthers here.



Not me. Ask the people out west that have to hire hunters with dogs to get rid of them.

There is a TV show about that. Mountain Men.. I think.

We don't need any invasive species here. 2, 4 legged finned or snakes or nothing else!


----------



## Nicodemus

redneck_billcollector said:


> Thank you. I am a student of Aldo Leopold and am of a firm belief that all ecosystems are complicated to the extent that it is hard for humans to easily understand them fully.  My true passion are the longleaf / wire grass savannas of both the upper and lower coastal plains of the deep South.  The interaction of the animals and plants along with the fungi and bacteria are truly astounding.  The whole nitrification of the soil along with the interaction of periods of drought, fire and flood just fascinate me with ever single life form having a role to play.  It is that way with all ecosystems and our wet soil systems are so important and yet so ignored by everyone.  You all have been seeing the effects of mismanagement on a grand scale this year in south Florida.  I look at each ecosystem as a complicated tapestry and when you start removing threads randomly and adding threads randomly you are bound to destroy the tapestry and its pattern.  Just look no further than our eastern hardwood forests with the removal of the American Chestnut.  The crash of deer and all other animals that relied on that one tree to make it through the winter.  The fertility of the streams were altered, the whole forest changed in nature with oaks and sweetgums becoming some of the more dominate trees...oaks are good, we all know that, but we all know they are not reliable for mast every year and on bust years we see the effects....chestnuts on the other hand always had bountiful mast crops and they drove the forest cycles.  The forests and wetlands of south Florida will never be the same, but we should not just say "oh well" and go on about our business.  Predators are always the best indicator of a system, the proverbial canary in the mine, and if you create a healthy ecosystem predators will not have that huge effect on the prey base....at first it always seems that it does, but in reality it does not.  When the sportsman is used to an artificially high game base, they naturally do not like predators being reintroduced...but in the long term it helps, just look at the changes in Yellowstone and the natural return of the beaver since the wolves have returned.  A true sportsman realizes this. I hunt to be part of the environment, the success of my hunts are never measured by how much game I harvest...it is measured by the whole experience....the birds and animals I see...the flowers....the sounds and yes, it would be so much more if in fact I saw a panther track a bear track or a wolf track...just knowing I am not the only creature looking for prey.





Yep.  Well spoken, Brother Jay.


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## redneck_billcollector

Big7 said:


> That would be bad. Just look at the so called "reintroduction" of the coyote has done to fawn size animals as well as calves. Not to mention quail, rabbit and other GAME animals.
> 
> 
> 
> Not me. Ask the people out west that have to hire hunters with dogs to get rid of them.
> 
> There is a TV show about that. Mountain Men.. I think.
> 
> We don't need any invasive species here. 2, 4 legged finned or snakes or nothing else!


We did not "reintroduce" the coyote in GA.  It came here on its own...if you consider it a coyote.  As for its impact on deer, I wish they would take more.  We have too many deer as it is.  As for quail...interesting fact. The Albany Quail Project originally started by Auburn and now under the guidance of Tall Timbers would disagree with you.  It is the most extensive study on wild quail ever done....anywhere, with thousands of quail with radio transmitters and hundreds of nest cams, their conclusion is that our "coyotes" have a positive impact on quail populations.  Coons and possums are the number one and number  two culprits on raiding nests, up to 80% of the nests being destroyed in some areas of the study by those two animals.  The study found that the higher the number of "Coyotes" and bobcats the more successful hatches, why you ask, the nominal predation on birds by these two animals were outweighed by their preying upon the coons and possums and with more coyotes and cats, you had more quail.  Back to the deer. You must not have been deer hunting very long in GA.  When I started deer hunting, there were no coyotes here...but, there were also very few deer.  If you saw a doe, which you couldn't shoot by the way, it was the talk of the deer camp, and I am talking about in SOWEGA, which is the best area to hunt deer now.  The deer population grew, with these wild canines  whose populations grew at the same time, quiet frankly, beyond the carrying capacity.  If you ever see a browse line in the woods, there are way too many deer.  I have lots of wild canines on the land I own, and I have lots of deer.  The problem comes with objects that concentrate deer, feeders, food plots, etc.  These concentrate deer predators.  I have seen our deer season go from ...not being able to harvest deer in certain counties, and a one buck limit in the others....to now where the limits are more than the majority of hunters can take in a year.  At one time or other every state in the union had bounties on cougars...that is not the case any more.  I have hunted them....I was not paid to do so, I paid a lot to do so, they are really good eating (many mountain men of old preferred its meat to all others...it is just like veal) .  He does it on the show because it is legal and I imagine he likes the meat.  As for houndsmen being hired to hunt them, yeah, just as they are in Fla. it is to put collars on them and study them. I know a few houndsmen that make some good money doing it, the guide I hired did that during the off season.  Panthers would not be an invasive species here, they were here originally, GA had a bounty on them.  They were extirpated, so if they show back up, they are a natural part of our environment.  The whole state of GA is considered part of the historic and natural range of the Florida subspecies of Felis concolor. By definition, invasive species is something that did not occur naturally or evolve in a certain local.  Panthers were here before we were and they were here until the last century.....on a regular basis, not the rare young male looking for females. Interesting you would say 2 legs in talking about invasive species....all white people would fall in that category, and arguably so would all natives, they did not evolve here.


----------



## redneck_billcollector

Last Minute said:


> So, since cougars from Texas were brought to Florida to help increase the Florida panther population, then why aren't deer from Texas also brought over to increase the herd of Key deer?
> Also, hogs are classified a 'non-native' species as they were introduced.  Ditto pythons.  So then, how aren't these cross bred Texas/Florida cats also considered non-native?
> The time has come for the panthers to be taken off of the Endangered Species list, and all public funding needs to cease immediately.  The day is coming in which we won't see anymore fauna in our woods, all in the name of saving the panther.  Then what happens, the panther dies of starvation....



You do that, and every little piece of property in SWFLA that is not owned by the state will be subdivided, with the exception of some of the older ranches.  Also a decent chunk of the land owned by the state and the feds down there that is not being subdivided is there only for the panthers.  The texas cougars are closest genetically with the eastern cougar....which always had a genetic interchange with the Fla. panther.  Strange though. I understand that on the ranches in the area there is still a decent deer population.  I only see this on another forum I am on with a number of deer hunters who hunt ranches in panther areas.  I also see some decent deer harvested on them.  But then again, the ranches are on the only decent deer habitat down there and are burned on a regular basis for stimulating grass growth, and this also stimulates forbs and legume growth.  The ranches tend to be more xeric in nature which is better for the deer.....


----------



## redneck_billcollector

After double checking on the Seminole subspecies of deer a few moments ago, I think I am going to book a hunt on a ranch south of Ft. Meyers with an outfitter for next year.  No high fence, and some really nice Seminole whitetails harvested this year.  I actually think it is a couple of ranches that this outfitter leases hunting rights on.  They even say if you are lucky you can see a panther.  They have a decent harvest rate.  Combo deer hunting and canal tarpon fly fishing trip in the near future...


----------



## Big7

*That would make YOU RONG. redneck_billcollector*

1st paragraph 
Among the non-native wildlife found throughout the southeast, coyotes are unique in their ability to rapidly acclimate to a variety of habitats. With the extirpation of the red wolf in the last century across Georgia, the coyote (Canis latrans) has been able to fill a once occupied void and now can be found statewide.

Last paragraph under NUISANCE
second sentence: 
Trapping and/or hunting are additional solutions against nuisance coyotes. Because coyotes are a non-native species in Georgia.
That would either make YOU or GDNR wrong.

I’ll go with GDNR. 

And I have been hunting Georgia over 40 years.
Pretty sure I know the drill.

Read more here:
http://www.georgiawildlife.com/node/1391

No, we don’t need big cats either.

Bout’ half-way down the page. Note the date.

Although coyote populations are increasing in Georgia, and studies show they kill and eat newborn fawns each spring, Whitney said studies are still under way to get a more precise picture of their impact on whitetail deer numbers.

More on that here.
http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/metro/2011-01-05/hunters-offer-solutions-states-deer-decline
 They are NOTHING compared to what big cats would be.

If you need more, maybe you can disagree with UGA.
http://athenaeum.libs.uga.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10724/31060/WDS No 10 - Coyote.pdf;sequence=1

STATUS........ on down the page a little.
In Georgia, coyotes are non-native and there is no closed season for harvest. Coyotes can be
captured with foothold traps and live traps. Hunting can also be effective using distress calls to lure in
the animal. Their fur is still valued and coyotes may be seasonally hunted for commercial pelts.

They are NOTHING compared to what big cats would be.

One way to find out for sure if Cats make it this far north
would be for one to step in my cross hairs. Then we would know.


----------



## Nicodemus

What we have sure doesn`t fit the description of a coyote. It does fit the description of a red wolf though. To a T.

7, would you shoot one of those panthers? And if so, why?


----------



## Big7

Nicodemus said:


> What we have sure doesn`t fit the description of a coyote. It does fit the description of a red wolf though. To a T.
> 
> 7, would you shoot one of those panthers? And if so, why?



Not around Waycross where they are suposed to be, unless there was a season.
Not just for fun anyway. If I need it to eat (as in survival) or was threatened by one probably would.

I'm sure I don't want them around here and would if
I wouldnt go to prison or something like that. Small Florida would be iffy.
Big 150# Western would get the hit for sure.

I don't kill for fun. Just to eat or protection of game animals, smaller livestock, pets, chillens, etc..

AND they will do a BUNCH of damage in Ga., where they have no predator except maybe man.

I'm not a fair weather friend either. Same reason(s) I don't like bluebacks, flatheads and land-locked linesides.. Except they are good to eat and I won't put one back.


----------



## Nicodemus

What type damage do you think they would do? 

In a healthy ecosystem I feel that they would fit in just as they did for thousands of years, along with the red wolf and bear.


----------



## Big7

Nicodemus said:


> What type damage do you think they would do?
> 
> In a healthy ecosystem I feel that they would fit in just as they did for thousands of years, along with the red wolf and bear.



You would be right back then.

Man has taken a lot of creature habitat and domesticated 
many animals for food.

I understand predation, taking out the weak and diseased
and all that.
 It's a crowded field now and I just don't think introduction of top 
of the chian predators would help man, domesticated animals
 (as in food) or other game animals. They would be forced to hunt not 
only the weak and diseased, but the healthy too.

I, like I'm thinking you feel the same, was born 100 or so years to late. Maybe longer than that.


----------



## redneck_billcollector

Big7 said:


> 1st paragraph
> Among the non-native wildlife found throughout the southeast, coyotes are unique in their ability to rapidly acclimate to a variety of habitats. With the extirpation of the red wolf in the last century across Georgia, the coyote (Canis latrans) has been able to fill a once occupied void and now can be found statewide.
> 
> Last paragraph under NUISANCE
> second sentence:
> Trapping and/or hunting are additional solutions against nuisance coyotes. Because coyotes are a non-native species in Georgia.
> That would either make YOU or GDNR wrong.
> 
> I’ll go with GDNR.
> 
> And I have been hunting Georgia over 40 years.
> Pretty sure I know the drill.
> 
> Read more here:
> http://www.georgiawildlife.com/node/1391
> 
> No, we don’t need big cats either.
> 
> Bout’ half-way down the page. Note the date.
> 
> Although coyote populations are increasing in Georgia, and studies show they kill and eat newborn fawns each spring, Whitney said studies are still under way to get a more precise picture of their impact on whitetail deer numbers.
> 
> More on that here.
> http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/metro/2011-01-05/hunters-offer-solutions-states-deer-decline
> They are NOTHING compared to what big cats would be.
> 
> If you need more, maybe you can disagree with UGA.
> http://athenaeum.libs.uga.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10724/31060/WDS No 10 - Coyote.pdf;sequence=1
> 
> STATUS........ on down the page a little.
> In Georgia, coyotes are non-native and there is no closed season for harvest. Coyotes can be
> captured with foothold traps and live traps. Hunting can also be effective using distress calls to lure in
> the animal. Their fur is still valued and coyotes may be seasonally hunted for commercial pelts.
> 
> They are NOTHING compared to what big cats would be.
> 
> One way to find out for sure if Cats make it this far north
> would be for one to step in my cross hairs. Then we would know.



I never said they were not non-native if they are coyotes....I said we did not "reintroduce" them and that they came here on their own.  However, there is a growing number of biologist and naturalist that are disagreeing on whether they are coyotes, and the dna studies are bearing that out.  There are a number of threads on here with regards to that issue.  As for doing a number on the deer, I would not mind seeing the statewide population at about 1/4 of what it is now.  Sure they are impacting the population, the population needs to be impacted, drastically.  I have a question, how do you feel about the expanding population of Black Bears in GA?  We know they prey heavily on fawns and in areas where they are, they can take a large percentage of the population. Today I drove from Albany GA, the Newton GA, (one county over) then up to Leesburg Ga (one county north of Albany) I saw 5 deer dead on the side of the road and signs of numerous other deer / car collisions ie  large blood patches on the highway.  That is traveling roughly 40 miles through rural southwest GA. This is not counting the two on a one mile stretch of Philema Road right outside of Albany.  When I was trapping coyotes for pay back in the late 70s I would drive those same roads daily and would maybe see 1 or 2 deer a year and yet I was trapping numerous coyotes or as I call them brush wolves a day, year round.  I do know this, small black wolf like animals were present here in Bartram's day ( late 18th century) its scientific name was lupus niger and I do know that is a common color phase, growing more common amongst our wild canines, and you will never find that out west where the coyotes roam, I trapped western coyotes too.  You will also see that wolf dna is in every sample tested from the southeast, where domestic dog dna is much less.  Why is this interesting to me?  Red wolves are genetically gray wolves and coyotes that cross bred at the end of the last ice age.  Also our coyotes will form packs, they never do that out west.  Red wolves do.  UF (all with decent percentages of wolf dna and very little dog dna and none in most of the samples)  did an interesting dna study, basically the only one on southern coyotes, and the link is posted in a couple of the threads in this forum and others on this board. Those of us who have trapped "coyotes" and were around when they first started showing up....know that these animals are not the same as the western coyote...which is where these are supposedly from. As for a panther stepping in your crosshairs, a gentleman did that in west GA a few years back.  We know what happened to him.  That my friend is a felony and your days of hunting would be over.  A couple of test cats were killed by GA hunters in the 90s, they also got in some rather deep trouble.  Back to the canines, I never said they did not take deer, they not only take fawns but grown deer who are weak...I said I wish they would take more.


----------



## redneck_billcollector

Big7 said:


> You would be right back then.
> 
> Man has taken a lot of creature habitat and domesticated
> many animals for food.
> 
> I understand predation, taking out the weak and diseased
> and all that.
> It's a crowded field now and I just don't think introduction of top
> of the chian predators would help man, domesticated animals
> (as in food) or other game animals. They would be forced to hunt not
> only the weak and diseased, but the healthy too.
> 
> I, like I'm thinking you feel the same, was born 100 or so years to late. Maybe longer than that.



I agree about the 100 years thing...except I would rather have been here 250 years ago, in the southeast, not to speak for Nic, but I know he likes the long hunter period too.  The debate on predators is an ongoing one, I see their benefits having hunted out west before the wolves, and since the wolves...and seeing Yellowstone before wolves and since wolves.  The elk are not as docile as they used to be. You have to work a little harder...but so what, hearing wolves howl while you are sitting around the fire is more than worth it.  Read Aldo Leopold, a life long hunter and he used to be a government trapper, he became the apex predator's number one champion and started the movement. He is one of the many fathers of modern wildlife conservation.  He will open your eyes if you are willing ......I have traveled pretty much all over the western hemisphere hunting and fishing....I know, when there are numerous apex predators...it is just that much more fun for me. Those mountains in the background of my Avatar are teaming with mountain lions and the occasional jaguar, there are also plenty of deer, sheep and peccaries.  Those are some of my favorite hills to explore. As for Florida, 150 years ago the largest percentage of bio-mass would have been cracker cows, the wild cattle of Florida that help create the American cowboy...yes, Florida beat them all with that amerian classic. Estimates are that the herds of wild cows were in the 100s of thousands if not over a million at one time. Little know fact, Florida was the last free range state in the lower 48....


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## Nicodemus

I saw 5 different ones this week, and one was black with full coat that was prime.  That was one purty critter.


100 years ain`t far enough back for me. Early 1700s would be more like it.


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## redneck_billcollector

Big7 said:


> Not around Waycross where they are suposed to be, unless there was a season.
> Not just for fun anyway. If I need it to eat (as in survival) or was threatened by one probably would.
> 
> I'm sure I don't want them around here and would if
> I wouldnt go to prison or something like that. Small Florida would be iffy.
> Big 150# Western would get the hit for sure.
> 
> I don't kill for fun. Just to eat or protection of game animals, smaller livestock, pets, chillens, etc..
> 
> AND they will do a BUNCH of damage in Ga., where they have no predator except maybe man.
> 
> I'm not a fair weather friend either. Same reason(s) I don't like bluebacks, flatheads and land-locked linesides.. Except they are good to eat and I won't put one back.



The Waycross area is an area that has been designated as panther habitat and one of the best areas to establish another population of them in the recovery plan.  A few of the test cats took up residence in that area in the 90s.  Two were killed, one in a snare and another one shot with a bow if my memory serves me.  Your bears over there put a hurting on the fawn population, and it is not one of the better areas in the state for growing deer, the soil is not too productive and the browse in pine plantations just is not that good.  Beautiful country though and would be much more productive if it was open longleaf / slash and wiregrass savannas of days gone by.  They had a goodly number of red wolves that way with the black ones having white chest patches on the females being rather common back in the late 18th century...at least according to William Bartram who explored a goodly bit over there. If you see a "black coyote" and harvest it, donate the carcass for a dna test.  I will pay for the test, you might be surprised at what you find out. I do not lay steel anymore, simply because there is no firm market for the fur, back in the day though..but dna tests were not an option then.  I trapped some land down around Fargo for St. Joe if I recall correctly in the late 70s.  Picked up a few "black yotes". P.S. Nic, is that the long tined deer you got the other week in your avatar?


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## Capt Quirk

Sandhills Hunter said:


> Come to think of it, I saw one in Washington County Florida a few years ago but the Game and Fish Commission biologist said I was mistaken. There wasn't any in the panhandle.



I'm in Washington Cty, and I saw a cougar/puma/whatever you want to call it, and it was only a couple miles away from our property. Not a panther, black or otherwise. And, like you, I was told it wasn't possible by Fish and Game. When we were moving up here from Florida almost 8 years ago, I saw on lying dead on the side of I-95, at about 11 miles this side of the state line.


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## redneck_billcollector

Capt Quirk said:


> I'm in Washington Cty, and I saw a cougar/puma/whatever you want to call it, and it was only a couple miles away from our property. Not a panther, black or otherwise. And, like you, I was told it wasn't possible by Fish and Game. When we were moving up here from Florida almost 8 years ago, I saw on lying dead on the side of I-95, at about 11 miles this side of the state line.



Panther is the name most commonly used when talking about the cougar that is native to Florida....and it is never black.  That is even what the state government and the Feds refer to it as, "Florida Panther".


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## redneck_billcollector

Nicodemus said:


> I saw 5 different ones this week, and one was black with full coat that was prime.  That was one purty critter.
> 
> 
> 100 years ain`t far enough back for me. Early 1700s would be more like it.



Nic, I can loan you a dozen really nice offset jaw canine traps and a choke stick if you want to try to catch that black one.  I would like one alive, maybe get Ben to find a place for it at Chehaw.....way back when, we donated a couple of canines to the park when it first got its zoo.


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## NCHillbilly

redneck_billcollector said:


> Thank you. I am a student of Aldo Leopold and am of a firm belief that all ecosystems are complicated to the extent that it is hard for humans to easily understand them fully.  My true passion are the longleaf / wire grass savannas of both the upper and lower coastal plains of the deep South.  The interaction of the animals and plants along with the fungi and bacteria are truly astounding.  The whole nitrification of the soil along with the interaction of periods of drought, fire and flood just fascinate me with ever single life form having a role to play.  It is that way with all ecosystems and our wet soil systems are so important and yet so ignored by everyone.  You all have been seeing the effects of mismanagement on a grand scale this year in south Florida.  I look at each ecosystem as a complicated tapestry and when you start removing threads randomly and adding threads randomly you are bound to destroy the tapestry and its pattern.  Just look no further than our eastern hardwood forests with the removal of the American Chestnut.  The crash of deer and all other animals that relied on that one tree to make it through the winter.  The fertility of the streams were altered, the whole forest changed in nature with oaks and sweetgums becoming some of the more dominate trees...oaks are good, we all know that, but we all know they are not reliable for mast every year and on bust years we see the effects....chestnuts on the other hand always had bountiful mast crops and they drove the forest cycles.  The forests and wetlands of south Florida will never be the same, but we should not just say "oh well" and go on about our business.  Predators are always the best indicator of a system, the proverbial canary in the mine, and if you create a healthy ecosystem predators will not have that huge effect on the prey base....at first it always seems that it does, but in reality it does not.  When the sportsman is used to an artificially high game base, they naturally do not like predators being reintroduced...but in the long term it helps, just look at the changes in Yellowstone and the natural return of the beaver since the wolves have returned.  A true sportsman realizes this. I hunt to be part of the environment, the success of my hunts are never measured by how much game I harvest...it is measured by the whole experience....the birds and animals I see...the flowers....the sounds and yes, it would be so much more if in fact I saw a panther track a bear track or a wolf track...just knowing I am not the only creature looking for prey.





redneck_billcollector said:


> We did not "reintroduce" the coyote in GA.  It came here on its own...if you consider it a coyote.  As for its impact on deer, I wish they would take more.  We have too many deer as it is.  As for quail...interesting fact. The Albany Quail Project originally started by Auburn and now under the guidance of Tall Timbers would disagree with you.  It is the most extensive study on wild quail ever done....anywhere, with thousands of quail with radio transmitters and hundreds of nest cams, their conclusion is that our "coyotes" have a positive impact on quail populations.  Coons and possums are the number one and number  two culprits on raiding nests, up to 80% of the nests being destroyed in some areas of the study by those two animals.  The study found that the higher the number of "Coyotes" and bobcats the more successful hatches, why you ask, the nominal predation on birds by these two animals were outweighed by their preying upon the coons and possums and with more coyotes and cats, you had more quail.  Back to the deer. You must not have been deer hunting very long in GA.  When I started deer hunting, there were no coyotes here...but, there were also very few deer.  If you saw a doe, which you couldn't shoot by the way, it was the talk of the deer camp, and I am talking about in SOWEGA, which is the best area to hunt deer now.  The deer population grew, with these wild canines  whose populations grew at the same time, quiet frankly, beyond the carrying capacity.  If you ever see a browse line in the woods, there are way too many deer.  I have lots of wild canines on the land I own, and I have lots of deer.  The problem comes with objects that concentrate deer, feeders, food plots, etc.  These concentrate deer predators.  I have seen our deer season go from ...not being able to harvest deer in certain counties, and a one buck limit in the others....to now where the limits are more than the majority of hunters can take in a year.  At one time or other every state in the union had bounties on cougars...that is not the case any more.  I have hunted them....I was not paid to do so, I paid a lot to do so, they are really good eating (many mountain men of old preferred its meat to all others...it is just like veal) .  He does it on the show because it is legal and I imagine he likes the meat.  As for houndsmen being hired to hunt them, yeah, just as they are in Fla. it is to put collars on them and study them. I know a few houndsmen that make some good money doing it, the guide I hired did that during the off season.  Panthers would not be an invasive species here, they were here originally, GA had a bounty on them.  They were extirpated, so if they show back up, they are a natural part of our environment.  The whole state of GA is considered part of the historic and natural range of the Florida subspecies of Felis concolor. By definition, invasive species is something that did not occur naturally or evolve in a certain local.  Panthers were here before we were and they were here until the last century.....on a regular basis, not the rare young male looking for females. Interesting you would say 2 legs in talking about invasive species....all white people would fall in that category, and arguably so would all natives, they did not evolve here.



Don't go interjecting logic up in here.  I have all the accounts on my bookshelf also from the first white explorers of the southeast. Back when the woods were absolutely full of panthers and wolves, not to mention hungry Indians, they were also slap full of deer, turkeys, elk, bison, and other game. I wonder how that could be?  I think some folks can't see that the wolves and panthers aren't the problem. We are. Panthers, wolves, "coyotes," and deer have lived together for hundreds of thousands of years. The balance didn't get out of whack until we arrived. If predators are decimating the deer in an area, it is because there is already a major problem of some kind in that area. People generally don't like competition.

*And I agree 100% that our "coyotes" are pretty much identical to the same _small variety of wolves _that Bartram, Lawson, and many others described being common in the southeast back in the 1700s. *


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## Capt Quirk

NCHillbilly said:


> Don't go interjecting logic up in here.  I have all the accounts on my bookshelf also from the first white explorers of the southeast. Back when the woods were absolutely full of panthers and wolves, not to mention hungry Indians, they were also slap full of deer, turkeys, elk, bison, and other game. I wonder how that could be?  I think some folks can't see that the wolves and panthers aren't the problem. We are. Panthers, wolves, "coyotes," and deer have lived together for hundreds of thousands of years. The balance didn't get out of whack until we arrived. If predators are decimating the deer in an area, it is because there is already a major problem of some kind in that area. People generally don't like competition.
> 
> *And I agree 100% that our "coyotes" are pretty much identical to the same _small variety of wolves _that Bartram, Lawson, and many others described being common in the southeast back in the 1700s. *



I agree, humans do way more damage. Hunters that take the backstraps and dump the carcass, poachers, and traffic, kill a good percentage of the population. Then you add the natural predators on top of that.


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## swamp hunter

redneck_billcollector said:


> You do that, and every little piece of property in SWFLA that is not owned by the state will be subdivided, with the exception of some of the older ranches.  Also a decent chunk of the land owned by the state and the feds down there that is not being subdivided is there only for the panthers.  The texas cougars are closest genetically with the eastern cougar....which always had a genetic interchange with the Fla. panther.  Strange though. I understand that on the ranches in the area there is still a decent deer population.  I only see this on another forum I am on with a number of deer hunters who hunt ranches in panther areas.  I also see some decent deer harvested on them.  But then again, the ranches are on the only decent deer habitat down there and are burned on a regular basis for stimulating grass growth, and this also stimulates forbs and legume growth.  The ranches tend to be more xeric in nature which is better for the deer.....





Umbrella Species....
Their presences protects everything from the Snipe to the Possums.Most of all High Dollar Real estate.
As far as Dinner Island...
I've hunted there a fair amount , I got rid of a lot of them Hogs, Me and my Pards.
First year of Small game and hogs , The Browning Auto 5 came out to play....



Bout 2 years later you could' nt buy a hog , same year I had a Panther at 15 ft, Shotgun , Sawgrass.
He thought he was hiding in the hog tunnels..He forgot about his long twitching tail sticking out.
Could have shot him 5 times.
I tried to take a picture instead.
Cats took some of them hogs , but Cubans in 4x4's took a bunch as well...Me too..


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## Nicodemus

redneck_billcollector said:


> Nic, I can loan you a dozen really nice offset jaw canine traps and a choke stick if you want to try to catch that black one.  I would like one alive, maybe get Ben to find a place for it at Chehaw.....way back when, we donated a couple of canines to the park when it first got its zoo.





Might take you up on that after deer season and the Frontier Festival. Thanks, Jay.


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## redneck_billcollector

swamp hunter said:


> Umbrella Species....
> Their presences protects everything from the Snipe to the Possums.Most of all High Dollar Real estate.
> As far as Dinner Island...
> I've hunted there a fair amount , I got rid of a lot of them Hogs, Me and my Pards.
> First year of Small game and hogs , The Browning Auto 5 came out to play....
> 
> 
> 
> Bout 2 years later you could' nt buy a hog , same year I had a Panther at 15 ft, Shotgun , Sawgrass.
> He thought he was hiding in the hog tunnels..He forgot about his long twitching tail sticking out.
> Could have shot him 5 times.
> I tried to take a picture instead.
> Cats took some of them hogs , but Cubans in 4x4's took a bunch as well...Me too..



If y'all want more you are more than welcome to ours. A while back some brain child got the idea of let loose some Russian boars, now a lot of our piglets are stripped like a Eurasian wild boar.  Makes for a meaner critter. Up near Macon, just about all of them are that way.  How is the deer hunting in Hendry Co. That is where the guide outfit I am looking at hunts, they have lots of pictures of Seminole subspecies whitetails.  They say no high fences all native deer.  I think they have access to 70 k acres of Ranch land for hunting.


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## redneck_billcollector

http://wildlife.org/good-news-for-florida-panther-conservation/   It looks like a female has taken up residence north of the Caloosahatchee River now.  If she has a litter this coming year that has some females...well, we have them coming from both north and south. Hopefully I will live long enough to see a  breeding population make it here.


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## 61BelAir

There have been panthers/cougars in Georgia all along.  I know people who are now in their 80's that confirm it.  I knew people that would now be over 110 years old that told me of first hand accounts.  I know people who have seen them within the last few years and many who have seen them over my 43 years.  I have seen them in Baldwin, Wilkinson, Washington, Jones, and Twiggs counties.  I have immediate family and friends who have seen them cross HWY 57 in the Balls Ferry area on more than one occassion.   (Laurens/Wilkinson/Johnson counties all converge there.)  
There are people in THIS thread who mentioned seeing them in both Putnam and Washington counties in GA.   (not just the one mentioned in Washington Co., FL)  

All of those sightings were in middle Georgia.  I can't personally speak for north or south Georgia, but I've heard reports and would bet they are statewide in underpopulated areas.  
I also just remembered them being mentioned in a video at the Okefenokee park in Folkston as living there.   That was probably 25 years ago....and my memory could be wrong, but I have never been to the Everglades so it couldn't have been there.   

I guess EVERYTHING I just said will be considered bologna since I also have personally seen them in all black and not just the usual tan.  Apparently that pigmentation is "impossible" and puts me in the same group as people that see little green men, the loch ness monster and bigfoot.   Oh...and the dead cotton mouth just outside of Cades Cove, TN.  
Whatever.....I'll believe my own eyes and first hand witnesses like my Grandmother, great-uncle, close family friends, and Nicodemus (above) over the so called experts.

On another topic mentioned in this thread:   I remember in the 80's GADNR releasing coyotes in Bartram Forest WMA in Baldwin county.  I knew people who worked there at the time and personally saw one.  It was small and quite pitiful looking compared to all the coyotes I see regularly these days.  I never heard where they "imported" them from, but they were brought in.  

Slightly off topic:  What about the Emus that were illegally released some years back?   I also saw one of those over 30 miles from where they were released.   I seriously doubt they were all captured or killed, but also doubt a breeding population survives.


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## redneck_billcollector

61BelAir said:


> There have been panthers/cougars in Georgia all along.  I know people who are now in their 80's that confirm it.  I knew people that would now be over 110 years old that told me of first hand accounts.  I know people who have seen them within the last few years and many who have seen them over my 43 years.  I have seen them in Baldwin, Wilkinson, Washington, Jones, and Twiggs counties.  I have immediate family and friends who have seen them cross HWY 57 in the Balls Ferry area on more than one occassion.   (Laurens/Wilkinson/Johnson counties all converge there.)
> There are people in THIS thread who mentioned seeing them in both Putnam and Washington counties in GA.   (not just the one mentioned in Washington Co., FL)
> 
> All of those sightings were in middle Georgia.  I can't personally speak for north or south Georgia, but I've heard reports and would bet they are statewide in underpopulated areas.
> I also just remembered them being mentioned in a video at the Okefenokee park in Folkston as living there.   That was probably 25 years ago....and my memory could be wrong, but I have never been to the Everglades so it couldn't have been there.
> 
> I guess EVERYTHING I just said will be considered bologna since I also have personally seen them in all black and not just the usual tan.  Apparently that pigmentation is "impossible" and puts me in the same group as people that see little green men, the loch ness monster and bigfoot.   Oh...and the dead cotton mouth just outside of Cades Cove, TN.
> Whatever.....I'll believe my own eyes and first hand witnesses like my Grandmother, great-uncle, close family friends, and Nicodemus (above) over the so called experts.
> 
> On another topic mentioned in this thread:   I remember in the 80's GADNR releasing coyotes in Bartram Forest WMA in Baldwin county.  I knew people who worked there at the time and personally saw one.  It was small and quite pitiful looking compared to all the coyotes I see regularly these days.  I never heard where they "imported" them from, but they were brought in.
> 
> Slightly off topic:  What about the Emus that were illegally released some years back?   I also saw one of those over 30 miles from where they were released.   I seriously doubt they were all captured or killed, but also doubt a breeding population survives.



I am confused, are you saying Nic believes there are black panthers in GA?  As for the canines in the thread, they were here in the late 70's was no reason for anyone to release them, I was making good money with people paying me to trap them all over GA.  In the 70s when they started showing up they were treated as invasive species and they were not protected in any way, no season nor limit, just like it is now. There was even talk for a short while about the state putting a bounty on them and beavers...it never happened though.   Some were released in fox pens....but I was being referred out by the DNR in the late 70s to trap them....they were everywhere outside of the mountains.  

Back to the cats....thousands have been killed in my life time in the US...not a single black one though, nor is there a single record of a black one EVER being killed, going back to colonial days, but wouldn't it stand to reason that if everyone that sees them all the time and they are black...why would there never have been a single verifiable one photographed, killed or captured in the whole of the western hemisphere? If you in fact saw a black big cat, it was an illegal pet leopard or jaguar which got loose...not a native cougar. We were talking about black canines when Nic said he saw one recently by the way, not panthers.


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## 61BelAir

redneck_billcollector said:


> I am confused, are you saying Nic believes there are black panthers in GA?  As for the canines in the thread, they were here in the late 70's was no reason for anyone to release them, I was making good money with people paying me to trap them all over GA.  In the 70s when they started showing up they were treated as invasive species and they were not protected in any way, no season nor limit, just like it is now. There was even talk for a short while about the state putting a bounty on them and beavers...it never happened though.   Some were released in fox pens....but I was being referred out by the DNR in the late 70s to trap them....they were everywhere outside of the mountains.
> 
> Back to the cats....thousands have been killed in my life time in the US...not a single black one though, nor is there a single record of a black one EVER being killed, going back to colonial days, but wouldn't it stand to reason that if everyone that sees them all the time and they are black...why would there never have been a single verifiable one photographed, killed or captured in the whole of the western hemisphere? If you in fact saw a black big cat, it was an illegal pet leopard or jaguar which got loose...not a native cougar.



If I read post #57 correctly he saw one.  Maybe it was sarcasm?  

About the coyotes - I'm not saying the ones that GADNR released at Bartram in the 80's were the first ones here.....just that it was the first I know of them in this area.  Heck maybe they had trapped them in other parts of the state and just released them onto the WMA.  I know that during the same time they did that with several alligators.  For years anytime someone reported a gator in the area it was trapped and released into the "state fish ponds" out there.
Panthers:  As far as records from colonial days...how many kept records then?  I have absolutely no good explanation for why there are no verifiable photos or carcasses.  The only thing I can think of is their limited number and reclusiveness.  
The only story I've heard of one being killed:  I was told of one that pulled a young man out of his tent in a saw-mill camp and drug him off screaming.  The other men grabbed lanterns and guns and gave chase.  They first found the man alive and not terribly injured....and then the cat up a nearby tree and shot it.  My great uncle was part of the group.  This would have been in the 20's or so.  I have absolutely no way to confirm his story, but he was not they type that is always telling some wild story.  He told this after my grandmother mentioned seeing one walk across the yard.....she was in her 70's at the time and had never seen one before.  No, neither of them drank....nor do I.
As for seeing them all the time - I have seen them more than once, but it was in the same general area and usually several years in between sightings.  The sightings I reported people seeing on HWY 57 near Balls Ferry were all the normal tan cats and all within the last few years.    
I know many people who have hunted and fished all their lives and never seen one and most never will I'm sure.  I also know people who are outdoors a lot and have never seen in the wild a bear, bobcat, bald eagle, skunk, a white or hi-ball deer, and even a few who've never seen a fox squirrel.  As for fishermen....I know some who have never seen a sturgeon.  You'd also be surprised how many people have fished in Georgia all their life and don't know what a bowfin or chain pickerel is.  It all depends on where you happen to be fishing or in the woods I guess.  
What I saw was not a leopard (the head is shaped noticeably different) or a jaguar which also has a differently shaped head and heavier body.  What I saw and what others have described to me had the body but appeared to be about 3/4 the size of a mountain lion.  Maybe there is a tiny population and they are a separate species and not just a color variation?  
Maybe SOME eyewitnesses are seeing tan panthers in low-light conditions and they looked black?   
I hinted at it in my other post, but I have seen several on here before about the range of cotton mouths not extending into North GA and above.  I, my father, and my son all saw one dead on the road to Cades Cove outside of Townsend, TN around 2008.  It wasn't a copperhead or water snake.  I showed pictures of it to a few rangers at Sugarlands and they were shocked and said it was the first they had seen.   
Again....I'll trust my own eyes and accounts of people I trust.  I wonder how many people don't tell anyone because they get stuck in the bigfoot/alien category??  Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned the black ones at all as it apparently discredits any other posts I'll ever make on here.


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## redneck_billcollector

61BelAir said:


> If I read post #57 correctly he saw one.  Maybe it was sarcasm?
> 
> About the coyotes - I'm not saying the ones that GADNR released at Bartram in the 80's were the first ones here.....just that it was the first I know of them in this area.  Heck maybe they had trapped them in other parts of the state and just released them onto the WMA.  I know that during the same time they did that with several alligators.  For years anytime someone reported a gator in the area it was trapped and released into the "state fish ponds" out there.
> Panthers:  As far as records from colonial days...how many kept records then?  I have absolutely no good explanation for why there are no verifiable photos or carcasses.  The only thing I can think of is their limited number and reclusiveness.
> The only story I've heard of one being killed:  I was told of one that pulled a young man out of his tent in a saw-mill camp and drug him off screaming.  The other men grabbed lanterns and guns and gave chase.  They first found the man alive and not terribly injured....and then the cat up a nearby tree and shot it.  My great uncle was part of the group.  This would have been in the 20's or so.  I have absolutely no way to confirm his story, but he was not they type that is always telling some wild story.  He told this after my grandmother mentioned seeing one walk across the yard.....she was in her 70's at the time and had never seen one before.  No, neither of them drank....nor do I.
> As for seeing them all the time - I have seen them more than once, but it was in the same general area and usually several years in between sightings.  The sightings I reported people seeing on HWY 57 near Balls Ferry were all the normal tan cats and all within the last few years.
> I know many people who have hunted and fished all their lives and never seen one and most never will I'm sure.  I also know people who are outdoors a lot and have never seen in the wild a bear, bobcat, bald eagle, skunk, a white or hi-ball deer, and even a few who've never seen a fox squirrel.  As for fishermen....I know some who have never seen a sturgeon.  You'd also be surprised how many people have fished in Georgia all their life and don't know what a bowfin or chain pickerel is.  It all depends on where you happen to be fishing or in the woods I guess.
> What I saw was not a leopard (the head is shaped noticeably different) or a jaguar which also has a differently shaped head and heavier body.  What I saw and what others have described to me had the body but appeared to be about 3/4 the size of a mountain lion.  Maybe there is a tiny population and they are a separate species and not just a color variation?
> Maybe SOME eyewitnesses are seeing tan panthers in low-light conditions and they looked black?
> I hinted at it in my other post, but I have seen several on here before about the range of cotton mouths not extending into North GA and above.  I, my father, and my son all saw one dead on the road to Cades Cove outside of Townsend, TN around 2008.  It wasn't a copperhead or water snake.  I showed pictures of it to a few rangers at Sugarlands and they were shocked and said it was the first they had seen.
> Again....I'll trust my own eyes and accounts of people I trust.  I wonder how many people don't tell anyone because they get stuck in the bigfoot/alien category??  Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned the black ones at all as it apparently discredits any other posts I'll ever make on here.



Read post 61 and then post 65 we were talking about canines. I offered him some traps to try to catch a black one, we both want one alive.  As for the records, you would be amazed at the records that were kept on hides collected and sold and the bounties paid out for panthers in the south during colonial times....They were very specific because the Colonial governors were penny pinchers and the hide trade was huge in the southeast.  The hides were sent back to England and ships masters also kept track.  Any unusual hide from any animal would bring top dollar and would be noted.  But with all that being said, there is one record of a melanistic phase jaguar killed in South West Louisiana in the early 19th century....that is all. Jaguars during historic times ranged as far east as extreme west LA. I know Nic's power has been out for the past few days, he lives down here where we had all the tornados and I know he has not had power...hopefully when he gets on he will clear it up for you. I still do not understand why the state would be releasing canines, by the end of the 70s they were encouraging everybody to kill everyone they saw.  There was even talk on putting bounties on them. At the time I spoke up on this at the public hearings back then.  Now I would be against it.


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## 61BelAir

redneck_billcollector said:


> Read post 61 and then post 65 we were talking about canines. I offered him some traps to try to catch a black one, we both want one alive.  As for the records, you would be amazed at the records that were kept on hides collected and sold and the bounties paid out for panthers in the south during colonial times....They were very specific because the Colonial governors were penny pinchers and the hide trade was huge in the southeast.  The hides were sent back to England and ships masters also kept track.  Any unusual hide from any animal would bring top dollar and would be noted.  But with all that being said, there is one record of a melanistic phase jaguar killed in South West Louisiana in the early 19th century....that is all. Jaguars during historic times ranged as far east as extreme west LA. I know Nic's power has been out for the past few days, he lives down here where we had all the tornados and I know he has not had power...hopefully when he gets on he will clear it up for you. I still do not understand why the state would be releasing canines, by the end of the 70s they were encouraging everybody to kill everyone they saw.  There was even talk on putting bounties on them. At the time I spoke up on this at the public hearings back then.  Now I would be against it.



I see that I was wrong about what Nic said after seeing some posts in other threads as well.  I hope that power outage is all he's having to go through after the storms.  We'll keep everyone down that way in our prayers.  

I can't say how many coyotes were released @ Bartram back then or why.  I do know that 3 people who worked there at the time told me they were being brought there.  My brother was one of them and I spent many hours out there over 2 summers as I was too young to stay home alone while my parents worked.  (Have you ever seen banded water snakes eat floating catfish food?  They did out there!)  All this time we thought the coyotes were brought from out west, but they could have been from other parts of the state or who knows where.  I did get to see one of them back then and it was much smaller and skinnier than what we see regularly now.  It looked quite sad with a dark brown scraggly coat and not much larger than a fox.  The workers said that all the ones they saw looked like that.  
I personally didn't start seeing coyotes in numbers until  around 1990, but that may be more about the woods I frequented compared to other places.  Now they look nearly as big as a German Shepherd and more wolf-like.  I guess a good diet of small animals, fawns, and the occasional calf helps.  State pastures border my hunting land and Bartrams is across from it.  I hear that they lose calves to coyotes from time to time along with some goats.


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## KLBTJTALLY1

After reading for a bit I thought I would chime in.

1st - There are big cats of all sorts in Florida, Georgia and many other states.
2nd - They contribute to the decline of native species e.g. deer, hogs and other mammals.
3rd - Whether brown, black or a pretty shade of pink it doesn't  really matter.
4th - How and when they arrived here doesn't really matter.

The fact is their here to stay and will continue to populate as long as the state government(s) protect the species like the bears in Florida.

The bears are overpopulated and have attributed to the decline of deer and hogs throughout Florida and will continue to do so as long as the state(s) listens and is in bed with PETA and other groups.  I've seen the hog and deer populations decline near the Wacissa River in North Florida over the years while the bear population explodes.

Like the cats & bears, the pythons in Southern Florida have decimated the local wildlife including deer & hog populations.

This is the same story with the yotes as well all over Florida and elsewhere.

In addition, to say that someone wants to control the deer population in Georgia is puzzling.  After reading threads on GON for the last 2 years it appears the deer numbers are down historically.  If deer numbers are up in your area then good for you but that is not the general consensus.

When it's all said and done, unless you live in the areas that have been affected by the cats, bears, and pythons you really can't identify with the people that have and to say you know more than them because of what you read that the state spews out is ludicrous.  Like Last Minute, I've lived in central Florida where years ago my dad would go to large cattle ranches and count 100 or more deer in one field at a time.  Now those numbers are drastically lower.  Not only because of predation but also human predation.

The fact is no one needs large predators as us humans generally control what's here already.

Be careful what you wish for...  Florida is an example.


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## redneck_billcollector

KLBTJTALLY1 said:


> After reading for a bit I thought I would chime in.
> 
> 1st - There are big cats of all sorts in Florida, Georgia and many other states.
> 2nd - They contribute to the decline of native species e.g. deer, hogs and other mammals.
> 3rd - Whether brown, black or a pretty shade of pink it doesn't  really matter.
> 4th - How and when they arrived here doesn't really matter.
> 
> The fact is their here to stay and will continue to populate as long as the state government(s) protect the species like the bears in Florida.
> 
> The bears are overpopulated and have attributed to the decline of deer and hogs throughout Florida and will continue to do so as long as the state(s) listens and is in bed with PETA and other groups.  I've seen the hog and deer populations decline near the Wacissa River in North Florida over the years while the bear population explodes.
> 
> Like the cats & bears, the pythons in Southern Florida have decimated the local wildlife including deer & hog populations.
> 
> This is the same story with the yotes as well all over Florida and elsewhere.
> 
> In addition, to say that someone wants to control the deer population in Georgia is puzzling.  After reading threads on GON for the last 2 years it appears the deer numbers are down historically.  If deer numbers are up in your area then good for you but that is not the general consensus.
> 
> When it's all said and done, unless you live in the areas that have been affected by the cats, bears, and pythons you really can't identify with the people that have and to say you know more than them because of what you read that the state spews out is ludicrous.  Like Last Minute, I've lived in central Florida where years ago my dad would go to large cattle ranches and count 100 or more deer in one field at a time.  Now those numbers are drastically lower.  Not only because of predation but also human predation.
> 
> The fact is no one needs large predators as us humans generally control what's here already.
> 
> Be careful what you wish for...  Florida is an example.



The deer population in GA is not down "historically" at all.  It is coming off an unsustainable high.  Deer hunters are complaining because they are not seeing dozens of deer a day and not the number of trophy bucks, which when I started deer hunting in GA before coyotes, and any other predator, you did not see a dozen in a whole season.  As for there being large cats of all sorts in GA, the evidence would tend to show otherwise,  there would be numerous trail cam photos of cats, and other photos and videos of cats for that matter, if that were the case.  But alas, the only photos one sees are ones posted where "my friend took it"...and the same photo is all over the web claiming to be from just about everywhere possible.  As for hogs....every single one of them needs to be killed. They do more harm to turkeys, deer, and all other native game than any of the "big" predators you apparently do not like.  They out compete deer for mast and just about every other way.  Hogs will destroy a ground nesting bird's nest also.  They are an invasive species.  As for being with PETA...most state agencies here in GA that deal with wild life are very much opposed to PETA and are not trying to further their agenda.


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## KLBTJTALLY1

redneck_billcollector said:


> The deer population in GA is not down "historically" at all.  It is coming off an unsustainable high.  Deer hunters are complaining because they are not seeing dozens of deer a day and not the number of trophy bucks, which when I started deer hunting in GA before coyotes, and any other predator, you did not see a dozen in a whole season.  As for there being large cats of all sorts in GA, the evidence would tend to show otherwise,  there would be numerous trail cam photos of cats, and other photos and videos of cats for that matter, if that were the case.  But alas, the only photos one sees are ones posted where "my friend took it"...and the same photo is all over the web claiming to be from just about everywhere possible.  As for hogs....every single one of them needs to be killed. They do more harm to turkeys, deer, and all other native game than any of the "big" predators you apparently do not like.  They out compete deer for mast and just about every other way.  Hogs will destroy a ground nesting bird's nest also.  They are an invasive species.  As for being with PETA...most state agencies here in GA that deal with wild life are very much opposed to PETA and are not trying to further their agenda.




Again; just going by posts on GON regarding deer numbers.  Secondly, my remarks were regarding Florida and everyone's doubt that South Florida has been hit hard by large predators.  

If DNR is not a friend of the environmentals then you're all lucky.  Florida sure is.  I've said in the past, I wish Florida was run half as good as Georgia.


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## swamp hunter

If you poured the money to Georgia DNR , They'd be waving the Panther Flag at the Court house in a day.Millions.
And don't forget about all the new Government jobs either.
Yes we are way over populated with Cats, and the Hogs are gone and the deer are way , way down.
When I first started paying attention we were harvesting over 600 deer a year in Big Cypress . Last years harvest was around 75 deer , and ONE Hog.
We're due for a Cat Crash soon. Kitten  survival rates are going to plummet until everything balances out.
I enjoy seeing the Cats..it's freakin cool, but when the Cats do make it up ya'lls way your deer are going to get whipped hard.
We call Feeders.Killling Fields, Food plots will get a bunch more interesting..
It will balance out up there as well...bout 2075.
 Bill Collector...Hendry County is nothing but High Dollar Leases..7 to 10 K a year. They take good care of their Herd and do have some decent Bucks. I grew up hunting there and use to know it well. Lykes Brothers is the name there.
If you ever are out in the Shipping Lanes pay attention as them 800 foot Freighters slip on by, lot's of them say Lykes on the side.


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## redneck_billcollector

KLBTJTALLY1 said:


> Again; just going by posts on GON regarding deer numbers.  Secondly, my remarks were regarding Florida and everyone's doubt that South Florida has been hit hard by large predators.
> 
> If DNR is not a friend of the environmentals then you're all lucky.  Florida sure is.  I've said in the past, I wish Florida was run half as good as Georgia.



I just noticed you live in Tallahassee.  I spent a good bit of the 70s in Wakulla Co. hunting bobcat with hounds in mainly Franklin Co. There were literally millions of acres from Perry Fla. to Panama City open to hunting for the public back then...Buckeye and St Joe land (5 dollars a year for a pass for each of those companies).   We hunted with hounds there year round, you could do that for cats.  We never once ran a panther...ran lots of bears but never a panther.  My grand daddy, who was a life long houndsman moved there in the late 50s but hunted that region since the 30s.  He said in all his years of cat hunting with hounds he only struck one panther and that was in the 40s during a field trial down around Orlando. Wakulla County was the least populated county in Fla. in the 70s and the area from Port St Joe on the coast over to Perry is still one of the least populated areas in Fla.  Wakulla Co., at least the northern part, is now largely a suburb of Tallahassee. I trapped bobcats and fox in that area too until they outlawed leg hold traps in Fla. in the mid-late 70s, much to my grand daddy's displeasure (me trapping, like I said he was a life long houndsman).  I never once saw any panther sign. I have seen panther sign in South West Fla. but not in N. Fla. In the 70s, if there was anywhere in Fla outside of SW Fla. that had a cat population, it would have been from Perry to Apalachicola.  Out of over 10 years of me hunting cats in that area regularly, year round with hounds, I never saw hide nor hair of a panther...nor any panther sign.  Must have run a hundred bears in that time...but no big cats. Even living in sowega I was still hunting Buckeye and St Joe land with hounds at least once a week.


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## redneck_billcollector

swamp hunter said:


> If you poured the money to Georgia DNR , They'd be waving the Panther Flag at the Court house in a day.Millions.
> And don't forget about all the new Government jobs either.
> Yes we are way over populated with Cats, and the Hogs are gone and the deer are way , way down.
> When I first started paying attention we were harvesting over 600 deer a year in Big Cypress . Last years harvest was around 75 deer , and ONE Hog.
> We're due for a Cat Crash soon. Kitten  survival rates are going to plummet until everything balances out.
> I enjoy seeing the Cats..it's freakin cool, but when the Cats do make it up ya'lls way your deer are going to get whipped hard.
> We call Feeders.Killling Fields, Food plots will get a bunch more interesting..
> It will balance out up there as well...bout 2075.
> Bill Collector...Hendry County is nothing but High Dollar Leases..7 to 10 K a year. They take good care of their Herd and do have some decent Bucks. I grew up hunting there and use to know it well. Lykes Brothers is the name there.
> If you ever are out in the Shipping Lanes pay attention as them 800 foot Freighters slip on by, lot's of them say Lykes on the side.



It has now been confirmed, the female panther north of the Caloosahatchee has had at least two kittens or cubs...or whatever you want to call them. They have them on a trail cam.


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## redneck_billcollector

http://myfwc.com/hunting/by-species/deer/project/ An interesting study which is on going with regards to the deer population and predation in the heart of florida panther country.  The level of predation does not seem as high as I would have thought.  Plus it seems after the panther, bobcats are the number two predator with bears and alligators lagging behind cats.  Since 2015 they keep around 100 plus deer collared with gps systems and study the mortality and its causes of the deer and publish the results each quarter.  The UGA is helping with this study.  They also have been running 180 trail cams and at present have over 30k images of deer in the two years of the study.


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## swamp hunter

I've seen the collared does and I think most of them got wiped out pretty quick. Harvest Data on Deer and Hog kills by hunters ahs pretty much reached rock bottom.600 Bucks and 2 to 300 hogs per year when I first started paying attention. Last years data , 93 Bucks and Zero hogs.
We only started with 1.2 deer per square mile before Cats ..
My local deer hunting is about gone. 
Taylor County Fla.  has 3 things..way more deer , Dry ground , and my Camp.
NPS , USFW ,and Eco groups have won. We're the Crash Test Dummy's on Panther reintroduction.


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