At one time, they were plentiful. They were strong, sleek, and dangerous—an apex predator. By the early 1900s, the mountain lion, also called a cougar, panther, or puma, was completely eradicated from Tennessee. New sightings, however, have a lot of people asking: is this elusive big cat returning to the Volunteer State?
Many researchers believe that mountain lions have been poised to make a comeback east of the Mississippi River for years. Sightings across the midwest have increased over the past decade, and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) has confirmed several sightings in Tennessee.
In 2015, the TWRA announced that they had confirmed the first sighting of a mountain lion in the state of Tennessee in over 100 years. It was taken in Obion County and confirmed with a trail cam photo. Over the next year, nine more trail cam photos and videos were confirmed by TWRA. Here they are:
- 9/20/2015 Obion County, Trail camera photo submitted by a landowner
2nd photo from Obion County, TennesseePhoto byTWRA website