Cougars in Randolph County, NC

We have Mountain Lions in Randolph County, NC. I saw my first one in the late '70s. Broad shoulders and camel colored, it circled road kill as my headlights came around a curve at 2am and it circled back off the road.

A few years ago one was killed on the road around the Sandy Creek area. A very large cat between 100-200 pounds.

Several years before this I was walking into an overgrown field along an adjoining creek and thought I had jumped a deer. Something big hit the ground but I didn't hear a deer trotting away.

Looking around I saw the backside of a large camel colored cat silently slipping out of the field and into the thick woods.

He was traveling away from a lone tree that overlooked the down-slope of the field towards the creek. The large tree had its first forking limbs about twenty feet off the ground.

I would not want to face one of these cats in a foul mood but I guess the good news is that they are territorial to one another and one pair will occupy 100 square miles or roughly a 10 mile by 10 mile area.