North Carolina Archives

Are there wild cats in North Carolina? The answer is yes, but only one species of them. The bobcat is North Carolina's only existing native wild cat species. Mountain lions are also native to the state. However, mountain lions have been expatriated from North Carolina since the late 19th century. Although people call the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission from time to time to report cougar sightings, they are, more often than not, cases of mistaken identity. The NCWRC also sometimes receives reports of black panthers lurking about the state. Their official stance on this is that beyond the Carolina Panthers' mascot, there are no black panthers in the state of North Carolina. Further down in this article, we'll look at not only the bobcat but also the mountain lion and the black panther in a little more depth. Bobcats in North Carolina (Lynx rufus) Bobcats are exclusively a North American wild cat and are also the most common wild cat species in North America. Some other names for the bobcat are bay lynx, red lynx, and swamp devil. Early settlers in North Carolina referred to the bobcat as ol’ spitfire, lightning, and woods ghost, among other names. Biologists believe that both the bobcat and the Canada lynx are descendants of the Eurasian lynx, and their ancestors crossed into North America via the Bearing Sea land bridge. Where do bobcats live? These small wild cats live in three North American countries. Their range begins in southern Canada and then extends south through most of the United States and down into central Mexico. Compared to Canada lynx, which thrive in deep snow country, bobcats struggle more in the snow due to the fact that they cannot walk on top of it like lynx can. A lynx’s oversized large paws function like snowshoes keeping it on the snow’s surface. On the other hand, compared to lynx, bobcats have small feet that tend to sink into the snow. If the snow is too deep and powdery, it reduces their mobility along with their ability to catch prey. Admittedly, snow is almost never an issue in North Carolina. The commentary on snow is still important in establishing the bobcat’s broader range over the entirety of North America. These cats are mostly crepuscular or nocturnal animals, but it’s not uncommon to see one out and about in the daytime because they only sleep for 2 to 3 hours at a time. In North Carolina, bobcats are pretty versatile and tend to utilize all the different habitats within their range. However, bobcat populations are larger on the coastal plains and in the mountain ranges of western North Carolina. In eastern North Carolina, bottomland hardwoods, young pine stands, swamps, and pocosins provide the best bobcat habitat. On the other hand, in the western mountains, they utilize mature forests with openings or with successional forests nearby. They use other habitats to a lesser extent. You’ll even find them in agricultural areas and or urban areas if there is sufficient cover for them to utilize. Bobcats are solitary animals with the exceptions of during mating season or when a female is raising young. They are territorial and live in home ranges that they patrol and scent mark with urine and feces. In North Carolina, the home range of a bobcat can be anywhere from a half mile to 30 square miles. Male home ranges are two to five times larger than female home ranges. One more thing about home ranges is that adult males and adult females sometimes have overlapping ranges. What do bobcats look like? An adult bobcat is about twice the size of a domestic cat. They are 2 to 4 feet long with proportionately long legs. Male North Carolina bobcats are roughly 39 inches in length and weigh 20 to 30 pounds. On the other hand, females weigh 15 to 25 pounds. These animals have a “bobbed,” short tail with black bands on its upper surface. Their tail also has a black tip on its upper surface but not the back. Their fur is usually gray to brown, with mottled black spots interspersed with black lines on their bodies. They also have black stripes on their inner forelegs and tail. From a side view, you will notice that a bobcat is slightly higher at the rump than at the shoulders. Bobcats and lynx have long hind legs in proportion to their forelegs. Bobcats have black-tufted, proportionately large ears. In other words, they have short ear tufts of hair that poke up above their ears and are black at the tips. The backs of their ears, below the black tips, are black. They have white spots in the center of each ear’s backside. This gives the impression of a false eye on the back of each ear. They also have a whiskered face that seems broader due to their long ruffled facial hair and whiskers. Their eyes are yellow with round black pupils. What do bobcats eat in North Carolina? Despite their comparatively small size, bobcats are aggressive, tough predators. At times, they take down wild animals that are several times larger than they are, such as wild hogs and white-tailed deer. However, their regular diets mainly consist of small mammals such as eastern cottontails and assorted rodents. They also eat reptiles, birds, insects, and carrion. When they take up residence close to a residential area, their menu might occasionally also include domestic animals, such as small pets, and/or small livestock, such as goats or chickens. They even use venomous snakes as a food source when the opportunity arises despite not being immune to the venom. They accomplish this by using their quickness to pin the snake’s head down with a paw, after which they dispatch the snake with a quick bite to its spine behind the head. Reproduction and Life Cycle for Bobcats Bobcats mate anywhere in February and March. During the breeding season, a male bobcat may mate with multiple females. If they successfully mate, the gestation period for bobcats is 60 days. After breeding, the male and female go their separate ways. The female takes all responsibility for the selection of a den site and the rearing of the young. Females generally give birth between late April and early May. See Bobcats use features such as rock outcropping, Hollow trees, openings in the ground, the root masses of overturned stumps, or the space beneath a blown-down tree as denning sites. The average bobcat litter size is 3 kittens. Bobcat kittens are born with their eyes sealed, just like domestic cats are. However, their eyes will open when they are a week to 10 days old. By the time they are 2 months old, they will have replaced their spotted baby fur with a haircoat similar to what their parents have. By mid-July, the kittens begin to venture out with the mother bobcats to fine-tune their survival skills. Their training may last into the early winter. By mid-winter, the kittens strike out on their own. Female bobcats reach sexual maturity at 1 year of age, while males reach sexual maturity at age 2. In the wild, the average life span of a bobcat is 7 to 10 years. See Angry Mountain Lion Mountain lions in North Carolina. (Puma concolor) Due to the fact that they live in a wide geographical area, mountain lions have a long list of regional names. In recent years, their scientific name was even changed from Felis concolor to Puma concolor. Some common names that mountain lions go by are cougar, panther painter, Andean Mountain lion, and puma. The eastern cougar is a native species to North Carolina. However, these large felines have not been present in the state since the late 1800s. Additionally, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared the eastern cougar sub-species to be extinct in 2011. To add some confusion to the subject, researchers have compared mitochondrial DNA from eastern mountain lion specimens to that of western mountain lions and determined that the eastern mountain lions sampled are not any more closely related to each other than they are to the western mountain lions. See. This calls into question whether not eastern cougars ever existed as a distinct sub-species. One more wrinkle to the question of the eastern cougar is this. Wildlife experts now have all mountain lions grouped into sub-species. As of the year 2017, mountain lions are taxonomically divided into 2 sub-species. The first is (Puma concolor couguar) or northern cougar. Northern cougars range through North America, Central America, and possibly northwestern South America. The second sub-species is (Puma concolor concolor) or southern cougar. These cats range only in South America See What we do know is that mountain lions are a native species in North Carolina, but they have been expatriated from the state. The closest established population of cougars to North Carolina exists in South Florida. See Meanwhile, sightings of cougars in North Carolina keep rolling into the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission. Most of these turn out to be cases of mistaken identity. Domestic cats, dogs, coyotes, bobcats, and red foxes infected with mange have all been mistaken for mountain lions. Additionally, in the 1980s, two cougars were found feeding at a dumpster in Tyrrell County, North Carolina. Both of these animals were found to have tattoos that marked them as someone's escaped pets. See Where are mountain lions typically found? Mountain lions live on all three of the American continents. Their range begins in Canada’s Yukon territory and extends south through parts of North America, Central America, and South America to the southern tip of Argentina. In Canada, the biggest populations of them are in British Columbia and Alberta. On the other hand, in the United States, they mainly live in the western states and Florida in the southeast. In Florida, the cougar is called the Florida panther. What do mountain lions look like? To visualize what a mountain lion looks like, picture a giant house cat with short tan hair. Mountain lions are much larger than domestic cats, though. Average house cats weigh in at around 10 pounds, while male mountain lions can weigh over 200 pounds. These large cats have muscular slender bodies, rounded heads, and upright ears that are oval at the tip. Another characteristic that mountain lions have is their muscular long tails, which account for almost one-third of the entire length of the animal. They use their long tail for a counterbalance, moving it from side to side as they navigate through uneven terrain. Mountain lions have a tan coat of short, coarse hair over most of their body. The area around their nose, the tip of their tail, and the tips of their ears are black. Their belly, the area above their upper lip, below their lower lip, and their chin are all white. They also have a sprinkling of dark hair on their backs. There are some coat color variances between different geographic locations. Mountain lions are the second largest cat in the western hemisphere, smaller only than the Jaguar. However, worldwide, the African Lion and the Tiger are also larger. Male and female mountain lions are phenotypically identical in every respect except for size. Males are 30 to 40% bigger than females. Though sizes vary considerably throughout the cat’s geographic range, an adult male cougar typically weighs between 110 and 180 pounds, 50 to (82 kgs). A rare few of them grow bigger than 200 pounds (91kgs). Female mountain lions or queens average between 80 and 130 pounds (36 to 59 kgs). Adult males or toms will reach a length of 6 to 8 feet (1.8 to 2.4 M) from their snout to the tip of their tail. On the other hand, adult females are 5 to 7 feet long (1.5 to 2.1 M). A fun fact is that despite their large size, they are not taxonomically classified as big cats because they cannot roar. Leopards, for example, are smaller than mountain lions, but since they can roar and cannot purr, they are classified as big cats, while mountain lions are not. Another interesting thing that I can mention here is that mountain lions purr. Since they purr and cannot roar, mountain lions are in the Felis genus, while big cats that cannot purr and can roar are in the Panthera genus. What do mountain lions eat? If there were mountain lions in North Carolina, they would prey on white-tailed deer, elk, corolla horses, coyotes, raccoons, rabbits, birds, various small rodents, American beavers, porcupines, skunks, snakes, pets, farm animals, feral cats, and any other native wildlife they can catch. Mountain lion behavior Mountain lions are solitary animals. It’s a Rarity to see 2 or more together unless during mating or in the case of a female raising young. They have expansive home territories. In fact, an adult male cougars home range is normally more than 100 square miles and up to 250 square miles. They will sometimes mark their territory by leaving claw marks on trees. They also scratch up piles of leaves and or pine needles that they urinate on as a scent marker. Male mountain lions fight to the death sometimes to defend their territory. Do mountain lions ever harm humans? I’ve taken much of the following section from another one of my blog posts entitled “Are Mountain Lions Dangerous?” Found here. Fatal mountain lion attacks on humans are extremely rare. In fact, there are only 20 records of fatal mountain lion attacks on humans in all of North America in the last 100 years. Don’t let that fact lull you into a complete sense of false security, though. There have been many more mountain lion attacks over the years that didn’t result in a fatality. Mountain lions are, in fact, dangerous. A mountain lion is a formidably tough wild predatory animal. They can run 40 to 50 miles per hour for short bursts. Additionally, they can leap 18 feet vertically and 40 feet horizontally to catch their prey. These stealthy predators typically stalk their prey from behind and then leap on an animal’s back. They then crush their cervical spine or larynx with their powerful jaws. They have a bite force of 750 pounds per square inch. Here are a couple of recent examples of non-fatal mountain lion attacks on humans. See See Some factors that cause mountain lions to attack humans The majority of the time, mountain lions use their ghost-like skills to avoid human contact. On rare occasions, though, they attack humans. Below are a few of the reasons why. If the cougar has an injury or some sort of impairment that prevents it from killing its normal prey, it’ll be more likely to look at a person as potential prey. Male mountain lions engage in fights for territory. Some of their battles are to the death. A percentage of cougar attacks on humans are perpetrated by hungry young males who have been kicked out of territories with a more abundant food supply. Scientific data suggests that mountain lions that were orphaned at a young age are more likely to attack humans. This is possibly because they missed the part of their training where their mothers taught them that humans are to be feared. Are there Black Panthers in North Carolina? Although the NCWRC receives calls about sightings of these big black cats occasionally, there have never been any confirmed sightings of black panthers in North Carolina. Black Panthers do exist. What people call a black panther is actually a melanistic leopard or jaguar. Leopards live in Africa and Asia. On the other hand, Jaguars are native to the Americas and range as far north as the American desert southwest. However, there's never been a Jaguar seen in North Carolina. There is an account of a Jaguar in southern Louisiana in 1886. That's still a couple of states away from North Carolina, though. See In the end, a black bear, a bobcat, or even a domestic black cat can look like a black panther under the right conditions.