Alabama's Wildlife

[trailtigger]

First let me give some background info; I was born and raise in Bibb County,(Souteast of Tuscaloosa) spent most of my life running around in the woods. The first time I heard a mountain lion was when I was about 6 years old at my grandmothers house where it was common to sit out on the front porch in the swing at night and listen to it scream. Back in 99 I was serving in the Army at Ft. McClellan as an MP and was fortunate enough to serve as a Game Warden. One of the other GW's had removed a deer from someone's front yard that had been shot with a bow. He took the deer and dropped it out close to Riley Lake but later when I came on duty decided he wanted to go get the antlers from it(13-14 point). We went back to the spot but no deer, there was however some drag marks and I found the deer about 30 feet away under some shrubs. It had been partially eaten and there were as you may have geussed by now, mountain lion tracks. I was told that we didnt have the time to investigate this any further and so we never saw any more evidence of this animal. In 2004 we moved back to Bibb Co. since then we have seen Black Bears at my mother-in-laws house, my parents have had one walk across their yard, one was killed on hwy 5 in WestBlocton, my wife and son saw one feeding on berries on the side of a back road at dusk. This was all before the AL Fish and Game decided to let everyone know that there are bears in Al. I have said all this to get to this; what does it take to get someone to check into the possibility of there being (although a very small number) of mountain lions and red wolves? I have looked on the internet and talked to the local forrestry and they have the same attitude "it was just a dog" A dog??? my wife hit a cat on hwy 82 between the Bibb/Tuscaloosa county line and Duncanville in an area where they were logging. The cat was taller than the bumper on the car she and her sister were in and had a tail that was about 3 feet long, she clipped the backend of it as it ran across the road, she breaked to avoid it but still clipped it, the cat spun around and landed in the median but as soon as my wife stopped to look at it, it ran across the other 2 lanes and went into the woodline. From 05-06 I have seen what appears to be a red wolf on a dirt road known as Haysop, there had been some logging taking place the first time I saw it, it stood just over 2 feet tall at the shoulder, had a very stiff legged gate to it. It was not running but was crossing the road at a brisk pace, it's head was looking downward but turned and looked at me before heading into the woods. The last time I saw the same animal it was at nearly the same location and I saw it coming down the side of the hill, this time it was at a full sprint and didnt take the time to glance my way. This animal was a grayish black on it's back with just a touch of a light brown. I know that it was not a german sheppard as the color was off as well as the size of it. Does anyone on here know who I might be able to contact about these sightings since the local forrestry seems to think that we are just seeing dogs?

[weathermansam]

You're probably going to need either distinct photographic proof, video footage or a carcass to start with.  Funding is so cut on everything these days it'd be probably near impossible to get anyone to research it, unless you could convince some university professor to send some grad students out after it.     

[dogwood]

Several years ago, my son and i were backpacking in Piedmont and tented on the Hawkin's Hollow platform.  All night, we heard faint screams and sounds of something rather large running through the woods.  I know that a squirrel can sound ten feet tall outside of a tent, but this was definately something pretty good sized!  Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep that night.  The next morning, we hiked another mile toward the Ga/Al line and came across some fresh cat tracks.  Knowing the differences between cat and dog/coyote/etc tracks, we could tell that it was a large cat.  When i bent down and could put my fist inside the print, we decided not to stay another night.

[wirerat123]

I have personally seen a red wolf myself twice in Big Spring Valley where I grew up.  I know for a fact that they do exist here whether it's documented or not.  Also when I was younger we often heard the distinct wail of a Mountain Lion.  And oddly enough there was random instances of peoples dogs and some larger type animals were being killed and drug away.  In Browns Valley in Guntersville there has been sightings of a Black Panther that pop up randomly over a 10 year span.  Haven't heard from it in a good 10 years though.

Yes, some of these could have very well been Coyotes, but they rarely attack dogs, in fact I've never heard of anyones dog being attacked by Coyotes.  A lot of the animals killed and missing were much too large for birds of prey, unlikely to be attacked by coyotes (Coyotes are also very noisey when they attack larger prey).  It was either the creator of that distinctly cat like scream, or red wolves.

But I would say with 100% certainty that about 25 years ago while fishing on a creek bank a red wolf silently slipped out of the bushes got several sips of water from the creek, eyeballed me and dissapeared back into the woods without a sound.  I can tell a red wolf from any domesticated dog.  Then a few years later we found as dad called it "The biggest Coyote I've ever seen in my life." hanging by his back foot in our fence dead, he had gotten hung up while jumping over and likely died of dehydration.  Coyotes are a part of life in the Country, you see tons and tons of them over the years.  This was no Coyote.  It was a slightly smaller version of what I had seen on the creek bank a couple years before.  It's coloration was very much like this, and it was about the size of a really big German Shephard.  But it was certainly no German Shephard.

Alabama's Wildlife

[trailtigger]

Glad to know that I am not the only person in this state to see similar signs of these wonderful animals. I know budgets have been cut but there tends to be the same ol mindset that people are mis-identifying what they have seen. I have thought about getting permission to do a little serching on the land around where I have seen these animals but the problems is that this land belongs to... you geussed it,  logging companies. If anything comes up they would be forced to stop cutting and we all know thats not about to happen. I am going to keep my eyes open and see what I can do during my off time to get some kind of proof but I think my chances are pretty slim.

[MobileBackpacker]

I dont think you would find a biologist in the state that would disagree that mountain lions can be found here in Alabama. I think they big hang up is whether these are occasional transients and captive releases vs true wild breeding populations. They have been increasingly pushing eastward into KS, OK, AR so its only a matter of time. Collared lions from the sub population in florida have been found as far north as Jacksonville.

Red wolves have an excellent chance of residing here. St Vincent island and St George island south of apalachicola has had a "wild" population since the 90's. I worked in St Joe and heard stories of Red wolves swimming across the sound to the mainland quite a few times.  There was also a population on Horn island off the Mississippi coast.

Alabama has enough wildlife corridors and rural areas to theoretically support populations of both. The white tail population certaintly could sustain lions as well.

[trailtigger]

I dont doubt that there are a few wild breeding red wolf/mountain lion population here in the state. In fact I just stopped by a gas station that had a Alabama outdoor magazine ( cant remember the actual name) which had a headline dealing with mountain lions in AL and where they are coming from. Anyone else have any encounters with these very elusive animals? The last thing I have come across is a large amount of Bear scat at Bulls Gap about a year ago. 

[WolfVanZandt]

The camp host at Cheaha swears that there's a breeding pack of timber wolves in that area and, since I know of several releases, it wouldn't surprise me. I also know we have bear throughout the state. And bobcats. I've never had any direct evidence of cougar but that wouldn't surprise me either. There's no question about coyote.

[wirerat123]

I know we have red wolves.  I know that without a doubt.  No amount of convincing from any wildlife services expert would convince me otherwise.  Last time I saw one was about 20 years ago though.  But I've been in the military then living in Huntsville since then so I haven't been out on my property as much as I'd like to be.

These are all going to be hard to spot critters.

On a side not 2 years ago on the way to Talladega, we were driving down 278 and in one of the most remote areas on 278 we almost hit a wolf that was solid black.  He was big like a timberwolf, his coat was very wolf type, his features were that of a wolf.  Not saying for sure that it was a wolf, but it certainly looked like one.  I asked Greg if he saw what I saw, and he said "Black Wolf?".  We're both pretty certain that was a wolf, but being solid black like he was I wouldn't swear by it.

This is exactly what it looked like standing on the very edge of the road as we passed by.  In fact seeing it sent a chill down my spine.

Alabama's Wildlife

I have read in the passed that red or grey wolves can produce black coloration wolves so it doesn't surprise me.  He was on the road about 15 miles West of HWY 77 near where Foxies is now.

[Firedog]

I haven't seen any canines other than coyote's in the past years but off of Cleburne county road 13 near Robinson's lake, I was deer hunting on a cutover hillside. It was clear cut downto the stream in the bottoms. The other side of the stream was standing timber. I never heard it but did see a black panther type cat come down the hillside on the north side of the stream. He went down to the stream, got water for a few minutes and went back the way he came. I don't think it ever saw me. I was very deliberate not to move. It was twice as large as any Bobcat that I'd ever seen. Long black tail, solid black body. Beautiful animal.

[trailtigger]

Well I read the magazine article that I mentioned earlier and basically the DCNR believes that the mountain lions in this area are from Florida. The one thing that the writer stressed in the article is how the people that work in the DCNR blow everyone off as wishful thinkers or misidentificatio n. One man whose parents own 3,000 acres sent them a photo taken from a trail camera which in my eyes clearly shows a very large cat to these people and  two said it was dog, one said it was bobcat and the rest were unsure. What you can see in the photo is clearly not a bobcat and does not have look like any dog I have seen. A hunter in Troup Co. Ga. (on the Al border and over half way up the state from the Fl. line)killed a panther that was from the Fl group but yet the DCNR doesnt think that there are any panthers here even from Fl.
One thing why did the hunter kill the panther? It does not state that he was in any danger so why not fire a warning shot to scare it off? Apparently the DCNR just doesnt want to go investigate any of the sightings so that means any animal such as the panther or wolf will not be protected and if there are any here that are breeding will be killed off by a bunch of redneck idiots.