A guy in west central Georgia shot a big cat about 10 years ago. The state of Georgia stands on their statement that there are no big cats living in Georgia. So this guy shoots one and proudly calls the game warden and waits for him to show up. State WRD does their investigation and concluded it was an illegal pet that got loose or was released. Case closed, well almost. The US fish and wildlife gets involved and concluded the GADNR was wrong. DNA testing confirmed it came from a wild population of Florida Panthers in south Florida. That’s right the guy got charged with killing an endangered species. It wasn’t pretty. Young males often follow river systems in search of a mate and their own territory. A radio collared male cat from Ocala Florida followed the Suwannee river up to the Okefenokee and then the Altamaha up to ocmulgee and followed it to Macon before turning back south and finding his way back to where he came from.
That doesn’t mean you got a cat on your trail camera. The southeast has enough trail cameras over corn piles that we should get about every animal in the woods on camera as if there’s an animal out there that doesn’t eat corn it eats animals that do. If it was a resident cat you would get more than one picture but it could be one just passing through.
