Investigators say cougar likely held in captivity…

By Tim Chitwood - The Columbus-Ledger Enquirer Newspaper–

A cougar killed Sunday in Troup County was so well fed it was fat and had other characteristics consistent with an animal that had been held captive, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources said Tuesday. The cat weighed 140 pounds and measured 88 inches from its nose to the tip of its tail. State investigators said the male cat had a “very low parasite level,” an indication it had not been feeding on wild game.
The pads on its paws were also scuffed in a manner common to animals that have been on concrete rather than roaming the woods. This evidence is “consistent with a captive, reared cougar, not a wild specimen,” according to the Southeastern Wildlife Disease Study in Athens, Ga., which inspected the carcass. The DNR is emphasizing such findings because it occasionally gets reports from residents who say they’ve spotted what appear to be wild cougars roaming the woods.
DNR wildlife biologists maintain no wild population of the Eastern cougar or mountain lion remains in Georgia, and the nearest breeding population is in southern Florida, where the cat’s called the Florida panther.
The cougar was shot Sunday morning by deer hunter David Adams of Newnan, who was perched in a tree stand on U.S. Corps of Engineers land near the community of Abbottsford, west of LaGrange, Ga., on the Alabama border, the DNR said. Adams was hunting legally and violated no regulations by shooting the cougar, authorities said.
No longer considered a native species in Georgia, the cougar is not protected here as a threatened or endangered animal. Wildlife biologists examining the carcass found the cougar had not been collared or tagged; it had no tattoos; and it had not been declawed. The DNR said the nearest facilities permitted to hold cougars are in the Alabama counties of Elmore and Macon, where the permit-holders have accounted for their cats. So the cougar killed Sunday likely was released or escaped from someone who had it illegally.

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Comments: We’d like to say that LaGrange, Georgia is in Troup County. Additionally, Valley, Alabama is just east of that township as well. It seems like this area has drawn an undetermined number of uneplainable events over the past two years. We know of a few individuals that reside in that area who have seen large, black cats which are not supposed to be in this part of the country.