Case file · Cryptid
The eastern cougar ('painter')
Mountain people tell of 'painters' screaming in the hills, and sightings continue, but the US Fish and Wildlife Service declared the eastern cougar extinct and removed it from the endangered list in 2018.
2018 CE · 38.90, -79.80 · status: disputed
The sceptical view
Officials say the eastern population probably died out by the 1930s, and confirmed cats in the East are escaped pets or western cougars wandering from the Midwest.
The researched reading
The native eastern cougar is gone. Most sightings are mistaken, but a few real cougars do wander east from the Midwest or escape captivity.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Something known, misidentified | 50% | Most eastern “panther” reports, when checked, are bobcats, house cats, dogs, deer or foxes seen briefly. Black “cougars”, which do not exist in the species, are especially common in reports. |
| An unknown or out-of-place animal | 25% | Some cats really are out of place. A western cougar killed in Connecticut in 2011 was DNA-traced to the Black Hills, and escaped captives occur. A surviving native population is very unlikely after decades with no road kills or DNA. |
| A cultural story | 9% | Appalachian “painter” lore keeps the expectation alive, and screams of foxes or owls get attributed to it. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 6% | Recycled or faked trail-camera photos circulate widely each year. |
| Undetermined | 5% | The share a generic explanation had beyond what has been shown for this case: it fits many cases like this one, but has not been demonstrated for this one. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 4% | Expectation and size misjudgement at a distance inflate ordinary sightings. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 1% | A real species, so nothing anomalous is proposed. |
Official position: The US Fish and Wildlife Service declared the eastern cougar extinct in 2018.