On Monday, the Charleston Post and Courier newspaper ran a story saying most biologists believe the Eastern Cougar has been extinct for about 100 years, excluding about 120 Florida panthers.  The same story quoted several locals who believe they’ve seen cougars in the lowcountry.

Cougars sightings on Dewees Island have been a regular, if infrequent, occurance over the years.  Many Dewees Islanders swear they’ve seen the big cat.

Last year when we to plaster casts of tracks at Needle Rush Walk, we thought we might have something special.  We took lots of photos and showed the plaster casts around.  You can read our blog post about the cat here.  But the DNR folks we talked to said, “probably a big bobcat.”

If you ever see an usually large wild cat on Dewees, try to take pictures or get plaster casts of the tracks.  When taking pictures of tracks, its important to have something for scale, like a quarter or a baseball hat.  We’d love to find evidence that the big cats are still alive in our area.