A Painter Description

The following is a description of a painter drawn from Philip Tome in 1854, writing in Pioneer Life; or Thirty Years a Hunter: " Body, long, slim, head large (averaging eight inches in mature specimens, wide in proportion to length); legs strong, short, forelegs, like the African lion, stouter than back legs; tail, long and tufted at end; general color brownish-gray." A description from a different writer said that "its color is the same as the deer, changing in May with its new coat to a red, which changes again to a bluish color in October. Early in January was called the running season, being the time when it mated. George G. Hastings wrote that a painter he killed had a "bulldog head." The largest painter recorded killed in the state weighed 200 pounds, but the average appeared to be about 150 pounds.

Lumbermen employed by the Central Pennsylvania Lumber Company often talked about the lair of cats that once terrorized the Endless Mountains around West Pond on the boundary of Davidson and Laporte townships in Sullivan County. Their stories intrigued a group of hunters in 1925 who later purchased and renamed the timbered mountain land. The name they gave the hunting club was taken from the word that previous generations of hunters used for the panther. Extinct locally for over 120 years, the Western counterpart of the animal is alive and well and growing in number.

The cat has over 40 different names in English, and counting Indian and Spanish names the number exceeds 100. The most common names in the East are Painter, a hunter’s colloquialism of panther; Cougar, a French corruption of a Tupi Indian word; and Catamount, a New England expression, originally "cat-of-the-mountain" referring to any cat including the bobcat and Canadian lynx. Other names found included Indian devil, Alleghenian cougar, Adirondack cougar, American lion, Pennsylvania lion, brown tiger tail, and long-tailed cats. The old Germans called them Benders. They were sometimes called panthers in the state, probably based on William Penn’s use of the word and his belief that they were the same as the animals of the same name found in North Africa. Leon is preferred in Spanish America. In the West and the Southwest, Pumas, from the Incas of Peru: Panther, the Greek word for leopard; and Mountain Lion are used most frequently.

For the purpose of continuity and to avoid confusion, references to mountain lions are to all living members of the Felis concolor species (Felis means "cat" and concolor means "of one color." All references to "painters" (Felis concolor cougar) are to the Pennsylvania cat that disappeared from our area over a century ago, now declared extinct and protected since 1970 by the Endangered Species Act. The influence of this animal can be measured by the number of Painter runs, creeks, hollows, rocks, and –villes in the state.

By whatever name, the largest living cat in North America once inhabited an area greater than any other land mammal in our hemisphere. The cat existed in every contiguous state, roaming forests from southern Canada to the bottom of South America and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Only slight variations in size, color and cranial-dental characteristics existed among the cats.

The species held spiritual significance for the Indians. The North American Indian thought of the cat as the "Ancient Guardian" of their spirits. Warriors desired the qualities of the mountain lion, believing it provided fearless protection against their enemies. The cat was considered the strongest of all spirits and a work of the Great Spirit. This magnificent, powerful spirit stalked the wilds of America veiled in myth and mystery.

Seneca Indians made the skin into pouches, in which they stored their "great medicine." The claws were worn to signify the Indians’ victory over the forces of evil. The animal was rumored to have kinship to the Machtando or Evil One.

In a history of the Lenni-Lenapi Indians, a writer states that "when pursued, even with a small dog, it leaps into a tree, from which it darts upon its enemy. If the first shot misses, the hunter is in eminent danger."

From the earliest times, the Pennsylvania lion was unjustly feared. The first Swedish settlers on the Delaware hunted unmercifully, insisting that "an animal which howled so hideously at night must be a destroyer of human life."

Early state settlers felt that "mountain young bloods dare not pay court to the dark-haired, dark-skinned mountain girls unless they could boast they had killed a painter or two."

Hunting prior to 1850 was unique: from June through September, hunters would often "fire-hunt" deer. Deer would come to streams, rivers, or other bodies of water at night. Hunters would build a fire of yellow pitch pine in the middle of a canoe, and station a man in the stern to steer and one or two others in front to shoot the deer. When the deer or other animals were spotted, the canoe was steered to drift toward them. The deer would raise their heads and stare at the fire. If the deer finally decided to run, it would see its own shadow in the banks and thinking it was a dog or wolf would cry out and jump into the water, giving the hunters another few shots. In this manner, the early hunters could kill one to four in a location and three to ten deer a night.

Cat hunters knew that the painter returned to the spot where it had reared its young the season before and they sometimes lay in wait for the animal this way.

The cat hunts without mercy. It is a carnivore, a fresh meat eater preferring deer or elk meat to all other meat. If game is scarce, or if the mountain lion is young and independent or old and weak, it kills cows, sheep, or horses. (Historians note that Pennsylvania cats never were known for killing pigs.

One early history of Sugarloaf Township tells of Frederick and Henry Hess trapping a painter "most destructive in its incursions upon the cattle and sheep" of the farmers. Painters lived in shallow caves along steep slopes of the mountains. The brothers set a trap "beyond the county line," apparently in Sullivan County, to "secure the bounty of ten dollars." Killing a mountain lion was a matter of pride and remembered by hunters for years simply by a local newspaper running an account of it.

The cat was marked for extermination by early settlers and some of Americas earliest laws dealt with the animal. The bounty system, initiated throughout Pennsylvania in 1807, provided a great incentive to cat hunting. An early notice proclaimed that "a bounty of 20 shillings was paid to whatsoever Christian shall kill and bring the head of a painter to any magistrate of any county in this province." Sullivan County records from 1794 through 1808 show that bounties were paid. The biologist S.N. Rhoads found that Luzerne County disbursed $1,822 in bounties and averaged 50 bounties per year for mountain lions from 1808 and 1820. Samuel Adams, Centre county, killed sixty-four cats between 1820 and 1845, and during those twenty-five years an estimated 600 cats were killed in Centre County.

Initially, a bounty of $8 was placed on the cat’s head and $4 on the pelt. The General Assembly increased the bounty to $12 in 1819, and later to $14 in selected counties. The last bounty paid for painter scalps in Warren County was in 1863 and as late as 1871 Clinton County paid $6 each for two mountain lions killed in Beech Creek Township. The largest cat killed in the state under the bounty system (in 1850) measured eleven feet from nose to tip of the tail. Professor Edwin L. Bell, Professor of Biology, Albright College points out that sometimes length was measured from outstretched forelimbs to end of tail.

The bounty system helped wipe out the cat in Eastern United States. The bounty system slowed in the Western United States in the 1960s.

Shoot-on-sight was the equivalent of all out war on the cat and other native game animals, pursued by some for profit and by others for adventure. At one time, in our area, game was plentiful with bear, elk, deer and wild turkeys in abundance. Fifteen or twenty elk could be seen at one time. John McHenry (1785-1868), a Stillwater hunter, shot his first deer at age 13 and killed more than 2,000 deer and a number of wolves, painters, bear and small game. A number of early Benton men claimed to have shot over 1,000 deer in their lifetime.

Early hunters spent several months of each year in the woods and shot anything that moved. Salable portions of deer kills were suspended "some distance from the ground on stout saplings bent over for that purpose." Hunters took whatever meat they killed to buyers in Philadelphia where it was converted into money "or such supplies as were required for back country households."

Painters were of great value for the hide, meat and oil. Painter oil was a "remedy for gallstones and rheumatism." One early writer told of taking "sixteen and a half pounds of rendered tallow" from a painter. He said that it was "softer than mutton tallow, but by mixing it with one fourth of its weight of beeswax, it makes good candles." Old hunters declared that "nothing in the eating line can equal a panther roast." The meat was said to taste like pork, and it was white in color.

Expert hunters killed as many as 50 cats in their lifetime. Philip Tombe in Pioneer Life; or, Thirty Years a Hunter claimed that he killed over 500 cats. Pelts were used for rugs and lap robes. Almost all backwoods kitchens had a painter pelt covering the lounge next to the stove. Pelts used as saddle pads, however, were "bad luck," bringing "woe to the wearer."

Lois Dorman, a hunter who died in 1905, followed one panther for nearly two months before he killed it. Aaron Hall, the "Lion Hunter of the Juniata," killed 50 between 1845 and 1869. He bred a race of chase dogs which were "part bull dog, part bloodhound, part Newfoundland and part mastiff." Many early hunters said that "small bull dogs" are best to pursue the cats, though many preferred the ordinary whippet or "fice."

By 1840, the cat was rarely seen East of Wilkes-Barre and by 1860 was a rarity in the Pennsylvania wilderness. Three or four were the most killed in any one year from that date on. A painter was reported in Sullivan County in 1873 by Ben Landis. The last known cat killed in northeastern Pennsylvania was in Susquehanna County in 1874, although reported kills occurred elsewhere in the state in 1891, 1892, 1893, 1911, 1914 and 1916. Schroeder & Company, Lock Haven, sent the last few painter hides to Germany as late as 1893. The native cat was last seen in Treaster and Havice valleys of Mifflin County in 1895.

It is difficult to determine when the last native painter was seen in our area, but we know that large forest tracts still remained 100 years ago. Railroads penetrated these remote wilderness areas, supplying wood for sawmills, tanneries and wood-chemical companies. Trees were quickly removed and sawmills moved to new tracts. When the backwoods retreats and the food supply of the lion disappeared, the cat vanished too. Decimation of forest habitat and the accompanying decline of white-tailed deer was the fatal blow to the disappearance of the cat in Pennsylvania.

Biologist Rhoads wrote in 1903 that the "beaver, wolf, cougar, wapiti and bison" were extinct in Pennsylvania. The lion was extirpated from neighboring Ohio by 1850 and from West Virginia by 1900. Occasional signs of the animal persist in our state, but no cat has been caught or examined during the last 100 years.

A theory is that painters, like wild cats, were afraid of the grey timber wolves. Where wolves were found, painters were not. Hundreds of lions were slain in Susquehanna and Wyoming counties, great numbers were found in Lycoming, Luzerne and Sullivan counties, but the animal was never plentiful in Clinton and several other counties.

The legislature created the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) in 1895. With only a few hundred white-tailed deer left in the entire state, conservation measures were badly needed. In 1906, the first 50 white-tailed deer were imported into Pennsylvania from Michigan to replace deer slaughtered by generations of indiscriminate killing. Few game animals existed for either predator or hunter through 1914 when the Bloomsburg Daily Mail reported the shooting of a deer at Ganoga Lake, the first deer seen on the mountain in six years. It was not until after 1925 that the supply of deer feed was sufficient to sustain a deer population on North Mountain.

There are only two whole mounted specimens definitely known to be Pennsylvania mountain lions according to Professor Edwin Bell. The first is the 7 feet, 9 inch male mount taken by Samuel E. Brush in Susquehanna County in 1856. The mount, owned by the Pennsylvania State University, is currently located at the Carnegie Museum. The second is the so-called "Dorman Panther" now at Albright College, probably taken in 1868 in a gap of Woodward Mountains between Woodward and Milheim, near Fiedler, Penn’s Valley, Centre County. This male was eight feet long.

Chet Siegel wrote while he was still living that Col. Henry Wharton Shoemaker, author of Extinct Pennsylvania Animals, kept a live cat at his home in McElhattan, Centre County, in 1935. Another one was kept at the Little Roadside Zoo near Kane in 1938. Frank Week, Immokalee, Florida, maintained an animal compound devoted to the mountain lion, called Florida Endangered Species Research Association, Inc. At onetime, 29 big cats of several sub-species were in residence. Overnight guests of the Weeds had the opportunity to sleep in the same bed with one of the full-grown cats that was raised from infancy. In 1995, Weed ran afoul of the authorities and agreed to surrender his USDA license and pay a civil penalty of $10,000, which was suspended provided that Weed or the research association do not violate various Florida acts relating to mountain lions.

Maurice G. Hornocker, director of the Wildlife Research Institute in Moscow, Idaho, has extensive experience researching the behavior of North American mountain lion. "The mountain lion is coming back and existing in slightly larger numbers every year," said biologist Hornocker, based on statistics obtained over ten years on studies conducted in the Running Creek study area in Idaho, Yellowstone National Park and White Sands proving grounds.

It is difficult to estimate accurately the current number of mountain lions in the United States, although it is possible to count them in a given area. Zoologists estimate 4,000 to 5,000 roam the United States today in every state west of the Rocky Mountains and parts of Texas and Florida. Sightings are reported in other states.

The Florida cougar, Felis concloor coryi, formerly found from the Florida Keys to the Carolinas, was considered extinct but a small group was found in the Big Cypress Swamp and the Everglades. The cat was declared endangered in 1967 and the population is still quoted as being well under a hundred. The cat, (called the Eastern Panther, Florida Panther or Florida Cougar), is the state mammal because of a referendum sponsored by school children in the state.

The mountain lion, like the grizzly bear, is a predator. A mountain lion consumes the food that it kills, except where warm weather turns the food putrid. Seven or eight pounds of meat satisfies the lion’s appetite, and it hides the uneaten meat. A mountain lion, weighing 100 pounds, can kill an 800 pound elk and eat on the animal for 20 days, covering the remains with leaves, brush or snow when it is away from the kill. Pieces of elk skeletons have been found in feces of mountain lions, attesting to the fact that they eat what they kill. In the summer, the mountain lion kills and eats ground squirrels, mice, raccoons, coyotes, varying hares and even grasshoppers. In winter, they seek deer, elk and moose for prey.

A coyote is a natural enemy of a mountain lion. Coyotes traveling in packs will sometimes attack the solitary mountain lion while feeding. A mountain lion will kill a coyote as a source of food.

Male and female mountain lions mark but do not defend their hunting territory, and a male rarely strays into another male’s territory. A territory is marked with mounds of pine needles and by urinating or defecating on raised, prominent spots. Males also mark territories by making scratch marks on the ground. The antisocial animal instinctively only needs to smell the scent of another mountain lion in order to turn around and avoid confrontation. In Idaho, studies found that in a stable mountain lion population no more than 10 adults were full-time winter residents in a 200 square mile study area. The winter range for a female is 5 to 25 miles and for a male 15 to 30 miles. The size of a female’s territory depends on the number and age of the young. Her territory is larger when she is teaching her young to hunt and smaller when they are kittens.

Jaguars have been extinct in our country for three decades and the wolf and the grizzlies are barely holding their own (the grizzly not being as adaptable as our black bear). The mountain lion population, on the other hand, has increased to where there are perhaps more in the United States now than when Columbus landed.

The solitary mountain lion must depend on its physical well-being. Fighting in defense of its territory, such as some irascible species like a wolf, is a luxury that a lion cannot afford. An injured wolf might survive as part of the pack, but an injured mountain lion would likely starve.

As in any flourishing population, there are many births and deaths. The mountain lion keeps deer and elk herds on the move, a desirable effort when food supplies are low. When a kill is made, the reaction of a herd is immediate: the deer and elk abandon the area and move to new feeding grounds. Dr. Hornocker told of a 100-pound female that killed an 800-pound elk in Idaho. The mountain lion was shot with a tranquilizer gun and a radio transmitter placed around her neck. Six years later, ranchers killed the animal 150 miles from where she grew up.

The mountain lion is an opportunistic killer. It keeps a deer herd on the alert, turning it up, so to speak. It can kill the fastest and the biggest in the herd; however, based on Dr. Hornocker’s studies, 75% of what it kills in an elk herd and 62% in a deer herd are the youngest or the oldest. Mountain lions cull the poorest specimens from the herds, the infirm and the aged. Kills examined by zoologists find that approximately half of the kills have nutritional deficiencies.

Mountain lions are available in specialty pet shops. A Portland, Oregon company called LIOC, Endangered Species Conservation Federation, will, for $20, provide mountain lion owners with "membership and a bimonthly newsletter consisting of information on all aspects of care, diet and permits for all non-domestic cats.

If captured or purchased as a kitten, the mountain lion grows to become much like an overgrown domestic cat. As it grows older, larger and harder to handle, owners may elect to release the animal into the wild. These animals, if they survive, might breed with native mountain lions and subspecies develop.

In December 1990, a Jessup, Maryland, family gave up Sheba, their pet mountain lion purchased as a birthday present from a pet shop in Florida. Howard County police said it is illegal to import them to the state without a permit because the federal government has not approved a safe rabies vaccination for them. The animal was moved for safekeeping to a 375-acre public-wildlife retreat in the north-central part of West Virginia.

The mountain lion feels that the middle of no place is the middle of paradise. Although it avoids human contact it is not afraid of it. On Vancouver Island, British Columbia, a narrow band of deer exists around the perimeter of the island. Inland, the winters are too harsh for game food to survive. Because the food supply is around the outside of the island, the mountain lions and the people live in relative harmony together, although 35 to 40 mountain lions are relocated or killed each year.

Since records were first kept, a total of 11 recorded human deaths have been attributed to mountain lions in the United States. Additional 23 deaths are attributed to lions in British Columbia. Many of the tales of killing of humans evolved when men died in the woods and their bodies were molested by animals, including mountain lions.

A more assertive strain of mountain lion is emerging in some places. Where people are attacked by lions, the animals were probably held in captivity prior to release in the wild. These animals do not fear man and a prey-response is triggered. It is also probable that the first time a native cat sees a human, it avoids it, but when frequently seen the human becomes just another target for attack.

The mountain lion is doing well in Canada, from Alberta west. It is thriving in the sub-tropics of Spanish America. Male weights up to 140 pounds are found in New Mexico and 95 pounds in Central America. A female weighs up to 60 pounds in Venezuela and 100 pounds in Idaho. An average mature female weighs 100 pounds to the male’s 130 pounds with males varying more in weight than the female. In an Idaho study area, the lightest males weighed 130 pounds and the heaviest 181 pounds. The largest mountain lion of record was killed near Prescott, Arizona, in 1923 and weighed 276 pounds field dressed.

A mountain lion can measure 7 to 9.5 feet from nose to tip of tail, weigh from 80 to 275 pounds for males and a third lighter for females, and stand 2’6" at its shoulders. The head is round and small, with a very slender body, long, round tail, brown eyes with circular pupils, and thirty teeth. Approximately one third of its body length is tail. Local folklore tells of several painters measuring an astronomical eleven feet in length, with four feet for tale!

The cat has good speed for short distances and can range 20 miles a night. A primary attribute, however, is its ability to jump, with documented leaps of 15-20 feet from a standing position.

The solitary mountain lion is social only during breeding periods. Mating can occur at any time of the year, but in Idaho it mostly takes place in the winter and late spring. The female frequently gives birth during the summer months. During the 9- to 14- day mating period, the male and the female remain together. After mating, the male goes his own way. The young kittens are born 92 to 96 days later, usually 3 in a litter, in caves, under waterfalls or in other concealed places lined with moss or foliage. The kittens are about ten-inches long, weigh about a pound and their eyes are sealed shut until they are approximately ten days old. Hearing is limited at birth. The fur is short, soft, and buff colored with distinctive black spots on the body and rings around the tail. It gets its first teeth about 18 days of age, takes shredded meat from the mother at nine weeks, and is weaned and eats "unprocessed" meat at three months. The mother has the responsibility for protecting, feeding and training the young. The kittens gain about a pound a week until nearly full grown.

The color of the developing cat’s coat ranges from tan to reddish brown tones, to black and an occasional gray. The ears and the tip of the tail are darker and belly and rumps are white.

As the young cat matures (about 18 months of age), the mother drives it out of her territory to establish a home elsewhere. The young lion must find an unoccupied territory to call his own in order to find a female willing to mate. This process worked where backcountry existed for mountain lions. Now, however, the best territories are taken and young cats frequently get pushed into places where people live and play. Most of the lions that get in trouble with people are young ones. Just as humans sometimes have trouble with their kids not following the rules, about anything can be expected from a 30 pound, eight-month-old mountain lion.

The mountain lion, sometimes called the "Ghost of North America," is extremely secretive. It inhabits rugged, inaccessible wilderness country, cannot be observed from a distance or from a blind and cannot be approached rapidly. It must be tracked on foot or on snowshoes, and usually with the aid of tracking dogs.

In zoos, a mountain lion will live about 20 years. Averages in an Idaho study area are running 8 years, but are dependent on the amount of strife in the animal’s lives--whether intruder males make life difficult for territorial males.

The North American mountain lion’s weakness is a barking dog. A mountain lion can kill an 800-pound elk or moose, but has an inherent fear of barking dogs and will run, eventually climbing a tree or seeking shelter in a cave. This weakness is not generally true of all mountain lions. Outside the United States, the mountain lion will attack and kill dogs.

The mountain lion, like a domestic cat, mews, purrs, purrs, spits, hisses and screams, but much louder. Although it rarely makes any sound, it has a scream that can make "hair stand on end."

Most screeches heard in the woods probably come from barn owls, but occasionally when looking for a mate, a lion will make an unforgettable sound that has been heard a mile away. An article in American Natural History, published in 1828, laments: " The panther is a terrible beast… in the daytime the cougar is seldom seen, but its peculiar cry frequently thrills the experienced traveler with horror while camping in the forest for the night." A typical story relates how a lion followed Grandpa home at night with only an occasional glimpse of the animal in the moonlight, but scaring the pants off him with its cries. The early settler would need the nerves of steel not to have the hair crawl on his head. The painter was a curious animal and several stories are found about being shadowed in lion country. Mary Jamison, "the White Woman of the Genesee," spoke of the terrifying shrieks of the ferocious panther." Franklin Shreckengast, Clinton County, commented on the volume of the cat: "If a panther roared on the side of the Nittany Mountain, all Sugar Valley would be aroused tonight."

Human acceptance of mountain lions varies greatly. Texas continues to treat the cat as vermin. California ended sport hunting for mountain lions in June 1990. Although California’s proposition 117 ended hunting in that state, hunting is permitted in all other states west of the Rockies. Mountain lions are shot, on occasion and by accident, while hunting for other game and by luring with predator calls. Shooting of the animal has less to do with mountain lion population than does the amount of winter food and the harshness of winters.

A Pennsylvania hunter calling turkeys from a blind during the 1989 fall hunting season was startled when a mountain lion appeared instead. When it saw the human instead of a turkey, it turned and vaulted into the woods.

Dr. Robert Downing, formerly of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, claims the last known native population of the mountain lion existed in New York state during the 1870’s and 1880’s. He spent 5 years (1978-1983) trying to locate mountain lions in the Eastern United States. The cat was virtually impossible to observe in nature and he was "never able to verify even one single cat," although the did "find hair and many large tracks."

Each year, sightings of the cat are made in states that officially do not have mountain lions, states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, New York, Maryland, Virginia and Massachusetts. In 1954, an estimated 700 hunters concentrated on Brobst Mountain, 20 miles northwest of Williamsport, to find a black "panther." In October 1990, twenty-one sightings of mountain lions were reported in Pennsylvania. There were several sighting in Sullivan County, and nearby Bradford, Tioga and Lycoming counties, with the most in the Forksville/Shunk area, extending as far north as Troy. Because the animal (Felis concolor cougar) is on the endangered list, it is illegal to hunt, harass, shoot or harm the Pennsylvania mountain lion in any way.

Harold and Esther Hess saw a mountain lion on Painter Den property in 1975 at the Rickett’s gate. Later the same year, Don and Jamie Rabb spotted a lion. Two sightings in the fields near the Job Corps Center are on record. A local florist claims that in 2003 he is paid a visit by a mountain lion about once a month. Other local reports claim the existence of a mountain lion, but to the best of our knowledge, none have been captured Ed Cole reported one near his house on the Divide road North of Benton, and now-deceased Gene Bardo saw one in the same area. Tracks have been seen in the Springbrook area of Painter Den. Several Painter Den members have seen the tell-tale signs of cat paws and a large tail dragging in the snow as unseen animals traversed the bleak expanses of their winter haunts. Sightings should be reported to the PGC.

Based on the reliability of the people reporting the sightings, the description of the animals, and the screams heard at night, it is evident that the mountain lion exists in Pennsylvania today in small numbers. It is highly unlikely that the animals are remaining descendents of the original painters.

Wilbur Kocher, with Don and Robert Rabb, found a large mound of leaves near the turnpike during hunting season about ten years ago. Under the leaves, Wilbur found a freshly killed deer. When the group returned late in the day to show other hunters, the deer was again covered with leaves. There was a sense that something unseen--a mountain lion, a bobcat, something--was watching the hunters that afternoon. The group waited to hear the piercing wail of the great cat as it crossed the ridges, knowing that it may be waiting and watching others enjoy our mountain beauty.

It is possible that sometime in the future you, like "countless numbers of our ancestors," will cross our beautiful state"watching the wily fox and the timid flights of deer, listening to the strange sounds of the owls and the snarl of the painter."

We originally added the picture above to the Benton News web site, but sent a copy to the Pennsylvania Game Commission to verify that it was not a fake. In an email from the PGC on Monday, June 16, 2003, the Game Commission verified that the picture was a FAKE.

The picture was supplied by a reader who claims that the mountain lion was killed on state game land #211 approximately 18 miles north of Harrisburg.

We subsequently found out that the big tom was taken by Roy Hisler from Duval, WA, with one shot from a .30/06 shooting Barnes X bullets. For more information on this cat, go here.

For another interesting site, go here.

Those making the reports were mostly people who are familiar with the everyday wildlife of the area, including bear, deer, wild turkeys, vultures and buzzards, coyotes, and bobcats. These residents claim that this cat-like creature is much larger than the area's bobcats, and, unlike a bobcat, it had a long tail which is characteristic of cougars.

The official stance of the Pennsylvania Wildlife Commission is that there are no longer any wild mountain lions in the state. They have investigated the sightings and found the evidence inconclusive, including at least one video a resident taped of the cougar-like creature.