I think i saw a red fox tonight, just after dark on Rosemary drive. Sorry, no pic. Just a quick flash before it scampered off the road.

Does BCS have red foxes? If not, it could have been a house cat . I'm just intrigued/curious.

Yep. I saw one a few years ago near Carter Lake.

Red fox? Here?!?!?

Now I've seen everything!

I'm coming, Elisabeth!!!!

I saw one about 15 years ago near one of the bridges on HWY 50, between HWY 60 and HWY 21. It was beautiful and it's the only one I have ever seen.

I have seen a couple in Woodlake in the past decade. They are around.

I used to see one in that area off of Francis sometime ago.

I live out here west of BCS near Lyons and see a gray fox on my game cam almost every night. Beautiful animal that is welcome to roam my property anytime. "A large part of its diet is made up of small mammals like mice, voles and eastern cottontail rabbits. It also eats birds; insects; and plants like corn, apples, nuts, berries and grass."

I'm effectively certain I saw a mountain lion cross 47 one afternoon about a year ago.

Am I crazy?

There's at least one out in Foxfire. Seen it a couple dozen times over the past few years.

Edit: red fox, not a mountain lion. You may not be crazy, but there's a 99.9% chance you're mistaken.

We have one that lives on our farm between Snook and Somerville. It stopped about 20 feet from me last week while I was sitting on the back porch of our cabin. I kept very still and he sort of paced back and forth while looking towards the cabin, then disappeared into the yaupon bushes.

What did it say?

My kids and I have seen that same animal on Rosemary Drive! We all definitely thought we saw a red fox.

Im from East Texas and mountain lions are hidden all throughout in the Piney Woods. Seen a few myself. Even though Bryan/College Station is NOT East Texas like people claim( definately central Texas), no reason for them not to be scattered here.

I live off Koppe Bridge Road and there are red foxes in the area. I have seen them in my neighbors back yard. Another neighbor has a picture of a bobcat on his wildlife cam.

I'm sorry, but I've gotta disagree with you here. To my knowledge there hasn't been a verified sighting of a mountain lion (in person or on a game cam) in Brazos county in several decades. The same goes for any of the counties east of here. With more and more hunters and ranchers using game cams these days, I'd imagine we'd have a verifiable picture of a mountain lion if there were any in the area. My $0.02.

Edit: I stand corrected. Found an article that mentioned a verified sighting on a game cam in Shelby county about a decade ago. Haven't dug around enough to see if there have been any sightings other than that one.

JM84 said:

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I'm sorry, but I've gotta disagree with you here. To my knowledge there hasn't been a verified sighting of a mountain lion (in person or on a game cam) in Brazos county in several decades. The same goes for any of the counties east of here. With more and more hunters and ranchers using game cams these days, I'd imagine we'd have a verifiable picture of a mountain lion if there were any in the area. My $0.02.

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Are you in some special or official position that you'd know about wildlife sightings?

To my knowledge, Jane Fonda has never been to Antwerp, but that doesn't mean *****

No sir I'm not. Just very interested in the subject of mountain lions in Texas. My family had a deer lease south of Uvalde when I was growing up and we used to always hear stories about mountain lions and black panthers from the ranchers in the area. Ever since then I've always had a fascination with big cats throughout the state.

As for my sources, I'm going by what I've heard from a few game biologists I've spoken to through the years as well as what I've gleaned from Ursusguy over on the Outdoors board. I'm certainly not calling anyone who says that they saw a mountain lion in Brazos County a liar and I apologize if it somehow came across that way. I just think there's a much greater chance that their eyes played a trick on them. I know it's happened to me before.

http://cougarrewilding.org/CougarNews/?p=5452

Wow. Thanks for sharing that site. Looks like I was dead wrong about Brazos County and a few others in East Texas. Anybody know the story on the cat that was killed in Brazos County?

Im literally from Shelby County, big time hunter and lived back in the woods. Not trying to be an @**hole but I have seen mountain lions, caught on camera, and you used to could here them scream like a women from back porch. Send chills down your spine in a way you have never experienced. On our property when I was in Jr. High, one dragged a full grown deer over the top of our 8 foot fence and found the other half still drapped over the top of it. Something else to. Black Bears still roam the Piney Woods as well. 2-3 years ago dogs bayed a small black bear under a truck of a buddies along the Sabine River.

No offense taken and I appreciate the knowledge. Not sure if the biologists and other folks in TPWD I've spoken to over the years have just grown skeptical from a lot of false sightings or what, but they always told me there's not much of a chance of ever getting a confirmed sighting of a mountain lion in our area of the state.

Again, thanks for sharing. BTW the same guys who are skeptical about those east Texas cats are also telling me the piney woods black bear population is definitely back on the rise.

I saw two within a day of each other two years ago in the copse of trees just north of Creek Meadows across Greens Prairie, next to Palmisano's. I ride a bike early in the morning out there and one morning I saw what I thought was a cat that had been run over on GP. It was dark. When I looped back around a half hour later the sun was coming up so I got a better look and it was a red fox. The next morning I saw another one dart across GP from that copse of trees towards the forest area behind the duplexes. I've not seen another one since.

The dramatic rise in the feral hog population should provide an ample food source for large predators, assuming they are actually around.

BrandoC said:

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Im literally from Shelby County, big time hunter and lived back in the woods. Not trying to be an @**hole but I have seen mountain lions, caught on camera, and you used to could here them scream like a women from back porch. Send chills down your spine in a way you have never experienced. On our property when I was in Jr. High, one dragged a full grown deer over the top of our 8 foot fence and found the other half still drapped over the top of it. Something else to. Black Bears still roam the Piney Woods as well. 2-3 years ago dogs bayed a small black bear under a truck of a buddies along the Sabine River.

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LOL

I was, and can say one hasn't been confirmed in that area in just over 25 years.

I was a TPWD biologist in that district.

Oh, and neither bear or mountain lions are particularly good at killing feral hogs. The Great Smokies have LOTS of bear and lots of hogs. Very occasionally a 300+ lbs boar will kill a pig. California has lots of pigs and lots of lions, rarely does a lion kill a pig.

Ursus, is that map shown above accurate and if so, do you have any info on the lion that was killed in Brazos County?

JM84 said:

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Ursus, is that map shown above accurate and if so, do you have any info on the lion that was killed in Brazos County?

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that map is from this TPWD brochure

https://tpwd.texas.gov/publications/pwdpubs/media/pwd_br_w7000_0232.pdf

i would be curious to know about the Brazos county cat as well.

ursusguy said:

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I was, and can say one hasn't been confirmed in that area in just over 25 years.

I was a TPWD biologist in that district.

Oh, and neither bear or mountain lions are particularly good at killing feral hogs. The Great Smokies have LOTS of bear and lots of hogs. Very occasionally a 300+ lbs boar will kill a pig. California has lots of pigs and lots of lions, rarely does a lion kill a pig.

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It is accurate, but keep in mind that is data up to 2005 and published in 2008. That right about the time TPWD was coming up with its mountain lion protocol for reported sightings (ie, what requires a site visit, for a couple years I had the glorious distinction of the most investigations in the state). What I do remember about the Brazos cat is that it was from really early in the reporting, so early 80's. Beyond that, I don't have a clue. I also remember hearing somewhere along the way that a couple of the East Texas cats had a potential link to captivity.

Circa '99, there was a lot of excitement in Washington County too, and long story short, it was a German Sheppard.

Honestly, about the only thing that can be said about the mountain lion population is that we have two genetically different populations (and they don't intermingle all that much). The general belief is that the population is stable to slightly increasing, but from a scientific standpoint, that is a swag.

While we're on the subject of fantastic beasts and where to find them, as I was leaving for work this morning a large caracara took off from the big tree in my front yard. I've seen those things around Austin, but never here.

Beautiful birds...once saw one beat up three vultures trying to muscle in on its food.

FlyRod said:

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While we're on the subject of fantastic beasts and where to find them, as I was leaving for work this morning a large caracara took off from the big tree in my front yard. I've seen those things around Austin, but never here.

Beautiful birds...once saw one beat up three vultures trying to muscle in on its food.

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I've seen a couple in town this year too. Normally I just see them out in the country side in the pastures.