Mountain Lion in Oklahoma?

Saw this on another site:

NewsOK

Bout mid 1990's, I took the family camping at Porum Landing on Eufaula on an early spring trip, it was first week of April , IIRC .

We beached the boat on the large island where Duchess Creek meets the Eufaula main lake. It was on that long beach on the main lake side where wave action over the years has eroded and created the sandy beach.

Anyway, I found some huge cat tracks on that beach. Had to have been a mountain lion. I would guess the cat had been there over the winter when very few people went to the island.

A bunch of us were on the island one night last fall, when another boat pulled in with their docking lites on, what did we see, but the profile of a huge cat as the other boat aimed it's lites at the shore.
We found large cat tracks in the loose sand...!!!
I have also seen them crossint the dam road near Texanna road.
So there is more than pigs and ticks on the island for sure!!!

A friend took plaster casts of cat tracks from his duck lake near Bristow a couple years ago and they were verified by the state wildlife biologist.

Rumor has it in the game management world that the Feds released a few cats in Oklahoma a few years ago. Not sure why they did. SEems like there have been sightings every now and then ever since.

yep in the kiamichi mountains smoky

If you guys are ever in Atoka stop by Ritters Pharmacy just past sonic headed south it will be on the east side of the road. The guy that took that picture is a good friend of mine and he is an avid hunter. Him and his dad went to Alaska and harvested two world class grizzly bears in which Ryan has them in a glass case at the the Pharmacy. It is an awesome site. Ryan also killed a state record mountain lion in Chamma, New Mexico. Anyhow yeah there are big cats running around this state in where from mountain lions to black panthers. So tread lightly my friends you never know when your gonna be for supper!

A few years ago while on a training trip I was driving with my trainee between Pocola and Poteau when an animal crossed the road ahead of us. At first glance, we assumed it was a coyote, but as it emerged from the weeds onto the road, and as we got closer, it became obvious that it was a large cat. It had the low slung large head and a definite long heavy cat like tail. It was much larger than a bobcat, but not quite as large as the cougars I have seen. It wasn't black or tan like a panther or a cougar, but rather, it was kind of mottled brown and tan similar to coyote colors.

After it crossed the road and disappeared into the weeds again, we pulled over and just kinda looked at each other asking "What the hell was that?".

we made a sales call later that morning and the customer was an avid outdoorsman and hunter in the area so I told him what we had seen and asked if he had ever seen anything like it. He told me that he personally had not, but that he knew of several locals that had. He also said it was fairly common to hear them scream. He called them panthers.


Sorry for being so wordy, but just thought it might be interesting. Oh, and by the way, that would have been about 12 years ago.

About that time or maybe longer, we were camped at 40 foot hole, Upper Broken Bow lake where the Mountain Fork river comes into the lake. Got to be aquanted with a forestry local who was stationed at He mountain tower {Fire Spotter} and he told us about seeing a Panther that sunned itself every morning on a rock shelf and was black,....yeah right? Come up there tommorrow and I'll show you guy's, sure enough there it was and jet black.

I don't doubt it at all. Given the nocturnal secretive nature of wild cats, I would imagine that there a a lot more around than anyone realizes.

About 15 years ago I was night fishing on a pretty remote part of Putty Creek ( for those that know where it is) and we came across a few bear tracks. There is no mistaking a bear track. I would have taken a cast, but a big storm blew in later that night, muddied up the road, and then the lake came up.

No one ever believed me when I told them, but then a few years later, they caught a couple bears in Vian.

I was fishing in shell lake last spring and saw a tan one on the bank sunning in the creek area. When it saw me coming toward it on my boat it took off. It probably weighed around 60 pounds or so. It definitely wasnt a dog or a regular house cat. I started to take a shot at it with my pistol, but it's sand springs city ordinance. They're definitely in osage county too.