Cougar and bear populations rebounding in Texas

Vanesa Brashier, editor of the Cleveland Advocate, posted on Facebook that her brother in law and nephew saw a cougar in the pasture behind her house on Friday, March 23.

In past years, there have been numerous alleged sightings of cougars in areas of East Texas, most being unsubstantiated. Now what that means to me is that no official game warden or other Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) official saw it, so it is marked off many times as unfounded.

Cougars, also known as mountain lions, pumas, or panthers are efficient predators ranging throughout the Western states, and indications are their population is increasing.

The range of a cougar depends on the availability of food and their range varies from 10 to 370 square miles.

Deer and in some instances, feral hogs, and cattle make up the major diet of cougars. The increase of feral hogs across the southern states increases the possibility of cougars migrating to areas previously unpopulated by these large cats.

Male cougars can weigh up to 165 pounds and up to eight feet in length while the females weigh around 100 pounds.

They are solitary animals and live in remote country and are seldom seen by humans.

A few years back, a TPWD game warden here in Liberty County told me he had received reports of cougars and in one instance, he said he found the carcass of a deer up in the forks of a tree. He surmised that the carcass was carried up in the tree by a cougar.

Possibly the sightings of black panthers actually were dark colored cougars.

I saw my first cougar back in the early 1980s. Robert McWhorter, engineer at radio station KJCH here in Cleveland and I were on the way to Coldspring to set up some equipment for a broadcast of the San Jacinto County Fair. About five miles south of Double Lake, we both saw this brown cougar cross the highway in front of us at a distance of about a quarter mile.

In succeeding years in the same area, I saw a cougar on two other occasions along the same highway.

Cougars and Ra'Shede Hageman S Jersey bears have a great sense of smell, thus enabling them to smell a human long before the human can see them.

There also have been numerous sightings of black panthers. However, according to the TPWD, there are no black panthers in Texas.

Officially, the black panther is a large cat that resides in South and Southeast Asia, Central and South America rain forests and parts of Africa. Wildlife officials say that they are not found in the United States and the reported sightings are probably sightings of dark colored cougars

I talked with an old game warden friend, Billy Platt in Jasper. He told me over the years he had received reports of cougar sightings, several from reputable witnesses. As for black bears, Billy told me that he had seen a few in the bottom lands of Jake Matthews XXXL Jersey the Neches River and the Angelina.

Black bears are also reported increasing in population in East Texas. Since 1977, the TPWD has documented sightings in 24 counties in a region that includes the upper Post Oak Woodlands and Prairies and a portion of the Blackland Prairie. This area includes 22 counties.

There were eight sightings between 1977 and 1990, 13 sightings between 1991 and 2000 and there have been 57 sightings of bears documented from 1999 through 2009.

Black bears measure an average of 5 to 6 feet in length, 2 to 3 feet high at the shoulder and weight will vary on the food supply. Adult males weigh between 200 to 475 pounds while the female will weigh between 120 to 250 pounds.

The last reported killing of a black bear in Texas was on May 20, 1973 at a locality eight miles north of Silsbee.

Residents are asked to report any black bear sightings to the http://www.falconsauthenticofficial.com/Jake_Matthews_Jersey_Falcons TPWD at 1 800 792 1112.

Texas placed restrictions in 1973 regarding the hunting of black bears. By 1987, the falconsauthenticofficial.com/Rashede_Hageman_Jersey_Falcons bear hunting was prohibited state wide and the black bears were listed on the state endangered species list.

In 1992, bears in East Texas were placed under federal protection since they belong to the Louisiana black bear subspecies protected under the Endangered Species Act. Illegal killing of a bear in Texas carries a penalty up to $10,000 fine, jail time and lost of hunting privileges.