Wild Cats in Tennessee

The state of Tennessee has 2 native wild cats. These are the bobcat and the mountain lion. However, the bobcat is the only wild cat species that currently has a breeding population in Tennessee. Mountain lions were expatriated from the state in the early 1900s.

In recent years there have been several mountain lion sightings in Tennessee that have been confirmed by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. However, wildlife officials still maintain that there is no permanent breeding population of cougars in the state. I’ll talk about that in a little more detail later.

Black panther sightings seem to be common across the southeastern United States, and you can include Tennessee to the list of states that have had them. I’ll talk about that towards the bottom of the article too.

Bobcats in Tennessee (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.

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 Canadian 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 huge paws function like snowshoes keeping it on the snow’s surface. On the other hand, compared to lynxes, bobcats have small feet that tend to sink into the snow. Bobcat tracks are about half as wide as lynx tracks. If the snow is too deep and powdery, it reduces their mobility along with their ability to catch prey.

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 Tennessee

In Tennessee, bobcats are pretty versatile and tend to utilize all the different habitats within their range. These wild cats are spread across all 3 of the grand divisions.

They thrive in the mountains of East Tennessee but also live in the rolling hills and fertile valleys of middle Tennessee. To a lesser extent, they also live in the relatively flat west Tennessee.

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.

I couldn’t find any information regarding Tennessee bobcat home range sizes, but I did find some data on the subject for bobcats in some of Tennessee’s neighboring states. You’ll find that information below.

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.

Meanwhile, in Alabama, male bobcat home range sizes average around a half square mile, and in Georgia, male bobcat’s home ranges average about 10 square miles.

As you can see, home range size varies with the geography and probably has a lot to do with available food items.

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. A domestic cat has a longer tail than a bobcat, though. Bobcats are 2 to 4 feet long with proportionately long legs.

Male 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,” stubby 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. They have black ears with 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 Tennessee?

Despite their comparatively small size, bobcats are aggressive, tough predators. At times, they take down larger animals that are several times bigger than they are, such as wild hogs and white-tailed deer. However, their regular diets mainly consist of small animals 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.

The venomous snakes in Tennessee are the eastern copperhead, the timber rattlesnake, the western cottonmouth, and the western pygmy rattlesnake. See

Reproduction and Life Cycle for Bobcats

In Tennessee, Bobcats mate anywhere from December to June. Breeding activity peeks in March, though. 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

Look for maternal dens in a wooded area. Bobcats use features such as rock outcropping, Hollow trees, openings in the ground, the root masses of overturned stumps, or the space beneath a fallen 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.

The average life span of a wild bobcat is 7 to 10 years. See

Bobcat hunting and trapping in Tennessee

Bobcats are classified as furbearers in Tennessee. As such, it is legal to hunt and trap them during the appropriate seasons. Look here for more information.

Mountain lions in Tennessee (Puma concolor)

Due to the fact that they live in a wide geographical area, this large cat has 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 subspecies of cougar is a native species to Tennessee. 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 Tennessee, but they have been expatriated from the state. The closest established population of cougars to Tennessee exists in South Florida. See

Cougar Sightings

However, in a time period stretching from September 2015 through September 2016, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency confirmed 10 different mountain lion sightings. All in west and middle Tennessee in Obion, Carroll, Humphreys, and Wayne counties. Nine of these sightings were trail cam photos, while the tenth was a fur sample that was submitted for DNA analysis.

The TWRA attributes all of these sightings to individual animals from expanding established populations in other states that traveled through Tennessee. As they put it, ” The recent confirmed sightings in Tennessee could be a result of this range expansion and long exploratory treks by transient cougars.”. For example, in the case of the fur sample, the DNA suggests that the owner of the fur was related to mountain lions in South Dakota. Young cougars sometimes travel hundreds of miles from expanding populations in an attempt to establish their own territory.

Here are 2 more quotes from the TWRA website.

“This expansion does not equate to population establishment. Population establishment only occurs where reproducing females are documented.”

“Considering that there are large expanses between Tennessee and the established populations, it will likely be a long time before cougars make their home here.”

So that’s what the wildlife professionals think of the possibility of there being a breeding population of mountain lions in Tennessee.

If there were indeed a breeding population of cougars in Tennessee, they would join black bears, black widows, the timber rattlesnake, and the eastern copperhead on the state’s list of most dangerous animals. 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).

Mountain Lions are Not Big Cats

A fun fact is that despite their large size, mountain lions 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 Tennessee, they would prey on white-tailed deer, elk, wild horses, coyotes, raccoons, rabbits, birds such as wild turkeys, 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. An adult male’s 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.

An adult male’s 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 Tennessee?

The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency doesn’t think so, even though they get several black panther reports per year. They say that black panthers do exist. However, they don’t exist in Tennessee. What we call black panthers are actually melanistic leopards or melanistic jaguars. There has never been a documented black mountain lion.

Getting back to leopards and jaguars, leopards live in Africa and Asia. On the other hand, Jaguars live on all 3 American continents. However, the furthest north they range is the desert southwest of the United States. A regular jaguar was killed in Louisiana in 1886. See, That was an isolated incident that happened a very long time ago, though. What’s more, it happened a state away from Tennessee.

Take a look at this Aug 17, 2022, article in Main Street Nashville. It tells the story of a couple who had a black panther 12 feet away from their deer stand in Cumberland County. They say it was around six feet long from nose to tail tip with solid black fur. These people seem credible to me. Take a look and see what you think.

As to the question, “Are there black panthers in Tennessee?” I’ll only say that there are plenty of things out there still waiting to be discovered, and that’s what makes life interesting.