www.dadeinfo.com

http://naturalhistory.uga.edu/~GMNH/gawildlife/index.php?page=speciespages/species_page&key=fconcolor

Is it possible that we have a Moutain Lion in Dade County. I say sure. For years the DNR denide the existance of such animals. Here is a recent report from the AJC: http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2009/06/11/lion_north_georgia.html
Here is a report of one spotted in another area of the state.
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/sep/06/na-slain-panthers-ga-trip-a-rarity-officials-say/news-breaking/

It was reported last night that someone spotted a mountain lion in Middleton estates. Could this be possible? I say yes. First of all we have the habitat. Second if the dnr says it is possible in blue ridge than why not here? I have heard of to many sightings of this. First let me say I do know the difference between a bobcat and a panther or mountain lion. One would first have to ask how long its tail was to determine if it was a bobcat or not. Remember how people thought it was crazy when there were reports of bear sightings in South Dade. And then someone got a picture. I would love to take a picture of one.

Here is what I have heard:
One resident said he use to love and stare at one on the bluff above the Depot Diner and then one day it dissapeared.
One resident came to a County Commision Meeting and reported seeing a panther and asked the commisioners if they could put up lights around the walking tract up on sand mountain. This was about 5 or 6 years ago.
We were watching a youth and she walked up to our back pasture and came back to the house petrified and said it had a big tale.
A couple months later my neighbor reported to me that he was riding home one night on his bike and saw one on our dirt road. He said it was bigger than my chocalate lab who was long since deceased and he said it was a cougar or mountain line and that it had a long tale and that it definately wasn't a bobcat. He even told me he wasn't going to be riding his bike at night. This is a grown man.

So do I think it is possible? I say yes there are two many disconnected circamstances. Hopefully they took paw prints dnr could do a species determination off of that.

Here is some more info. There have been numerous spottings over the years in Marion County, TN. If fact near the base of Sand Mountain.
http://lal.sewanee.edu/herbarium/Plant_Press/archives/Vol.%2010,%20No.%203.pdf

a more detailed paper
http://scholar.simmons.edu/bitstream/handle/10090/8456/MoyeValerieHabitatSuitabilityMtnLion2007.pdf?sequence=1

It really blows my mind how skeptical people can be about the types of wildlife we have here. I personally knew we had bears because as a teenager, my father and a neighbor chased one out of our yard one evening. I went outside to get into my Mom's car to come down the mountain for play practice and it was wandering through our front yard. I rused back in to tell my parents who looked up to see it through the big bay window on the front of our house. One of the neighbors had seen it, too and he and my dad chased it back into the woods with a pickup and on foot. Are there wildcats? Sure, they have pictures of them in Alabama just over the line on Sand Mountain and in other areas. Just because the sightings are scarce, doesn't mean they don't exist.

Apparently we do have one that wonders through every once in a while because he/she wakes the household up when he/she screams in the middle of the night. I have not heard he/she this year. It is in the spring when he/she comes through our area.

Apparently we do have one that wonders through every once in a while because he/she wakes the household up when he/she screams in the middle of the night

Is that a sound or what? We too living at the foot of a mountain get a "Visit" from time to time.

Here's a quote from the page
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Return_of_the_Jaguar.html

here is an interesting story
http://www.easterncougarnet.org/Cougar-Alabama's%20Native%20Lion.htm

I saw what appeared to be a mountain lion run across Burkhalter Gap Road recently. And I've heard what sounded like it's errie cry on property in Head River a year ago. My dog came running out of the woods with his tail between his legs and stuck close to the side of my husband the rest of our time up there.

Back in the mid '70s my grandparents had a place in Mentone out past the Lookout Restaurant. My grandmother swore that a 'wild cat' was making her dahlia bed its bed. They thought she was crazy, but that summer we were walking in the woods and came upon it laying in a tree, just the other side of a ravine it had part of a deer carcass with it. We just walked slowly back to the house. The rest of the summer I was not allowed outside alone. They took pictures of the tree and what was left of the deer and showed them around town, most people just thought it was a big bobcat. Then in November, some hunters actually shot it. The theory was that it had actually came from a zoo in Ft Payne that had closed down -- apparently there were some wild monkeys in the area too.

I've never seen such thing, but I heard there was a bear at my friend's house once.