My friend and I heard an animal in the brush at dusk a couple of weeks ago that we could not identify. It definitely wasn't deer, hogs, or canine. I have no idea what it was, but it was probably within 200 yards of the sendero. Has anyone seen or heard of cougars or any other out of the ordinary animals in or around eastern Duval County? Close to Palito Blanco.

Thanks,
Captain Luke

Many yrs ago, my dad was a pumper/gauger for Humble (now Exxon) out on the King Ranch. He saw the cats several times on both the Santa Gertrudis division, which would be just east of you, and the Laureles division, which would be south of Corpus Christi and east of Kingsville. Do I think it possibly could be a lion? You bet!
I've been walking thru a wash over by Freer and heard an unnerving extended growling I couldn't locate the source of. The more I looked, the louder and more menacing it got. Always felt like a cat had been watching me. What kind of cat? I don't know, but he or she definitely did not want me there! When I couldn't locate the source, I went with my instincts and continued on my way.

Very interesting. Maybe someday I'll catch one on a camera.

Ask East about how he catches them on camera, great pic quality too

Can you explain the sound that you heard?

Man I catch one on camera and now yall got to be hatin on me....

... what gives. It was legit!!!!!

Well if it sounded like a womans scream it was probably illegals comming through the brush.

You gotta love these threads. We are in duval co., and the closest thing to a cougar we have seen was a house cat we caught in a live trap while trying to trap racoons.

oh yeah and ill take some too

matt

That's pretty far east for one. When I lived in Iraan we'd run em with dogs, but we had to go west to get on em. Around Marfa and alpine and that was along time ago. For anyone to believe it you have to have stone cold evidence. 3 or 4 years ago a guy killed a small Tom in fisher county. He called the warden and he didn't believe it. The warden lives next to me so he asked if I wanted to ride out and look. Sure enough it was a lion, we put him on the scale 105 lbs and change. So no where near mature, being a year old Tom we figured he was pushed out by the resident Tom and was a roamer searching for his own territory. So its possible but not likely.

He heard, but did not see, but he knows it wasn't a deer, hog, or yote, hmmmmm! Why is this thread in the deer section then?

It will probably be moved, last cougar post went like 200 comments,so we shall see.

Not out of the range for cats in that area. TPWD did a research project back in the late 80's to early 90's time frame where they radio collared cats along the Nueces River bottom in southeastern La Salle county not to far from the Duvall, Webb, McMullen and La Salle corner. I want to say it was around 20 different cats in the study, but not sure. They study home range size, diets, etc on the cats for a few years. Some had fairly large home ranges in that area. One left the area where it was caught and tagged going straight into Mexico where the signal on the collar stopped and over 70 miles straight line. They assumed it was killed across the Rio on a cattle ranch.

Definately not what I thought from the title...

You are talking about Mountain Lions..

I take it you have never been to Duvall County, if so you would know that the other "cougar" you reference would not even remotely figure into this conversation.

hehehe.. No sir, can't say I have ever been to Duval.. Something about Cougar just got me ancy I reckon!!

Just so you get a grasp of the older "cougars" for the area..just invision the emails with those women in Walmart....

We had reports on the local TV station in Lubbock sighting cats seen east of Lubbock, group of 5 cats together on a small bluff, never seen or heard of them running in a group that big, rancher south of us had 2 colts killed by cat, he hired someone to kill it but said there was another one there he didnt get, Tv station showed a picture of one in the town of Lorenzo which is about 18 miles east of Lubbock.
My FIL lives in central New Mexico and said the cats were so bad there he has no rabbits or deer left on his ranch, i dont think it will be to long before a human is attacked then maybe the non believers will start believing the sightings.

Seadog

Lots of em in NM, the large group could of been a female with half grown cubs I reckon.

8ptdrop, Ive spotted one twice this week. Im in Fisher County. Just got a call from a person saying that they have now seen it as well.