New Eastern Virginia Puma Outbreak
Posted by: Loren Coleman on June 10th, 2010
Along the eastern shore of Virginia, there has been an upswing in sightings of tan-colored mystery cats. Here’s a part of a report from The Daily News of June 9, 2010, by Ceri Larson Danes:
Raymond Gunter of Townsend is not the first person to suspect he has seen a cougar or other large cat prowling on the Eastern Shore, but he may be the latest.
“I have never seen anything like it and I have been in construction work for 38 years,” Gunter said.
He’s built highways all over the southeast and has seen alligators, rattlesnakes, bears and all sorts of wildlife.
“And I never heard a sound like this,” he said.
Gunter’s report is one of several recent large-cat sightings, many of which describe a cougar-like animal.
The animal he saw on May 28 at fairly close range fits the same description — a rusty-tan colored, three-foot-long cat with a long tail. It was quick-footed and traveling close to the ground.
Similar sightings were reported in February a few miles north in Dalbys.
Since that incident, more sightings in Accomack and Northampton counties were reported.
Gunter was doing some tree work at a Cheapside home when he heard a loud sound coming from high up in a 50-foot-tall tree.
“It was a real scream like,” Gunter said. “Like a growl that went into a scream. He did it twice, like he was warning me.”
Then he heard rustling and scratching sounds as the animal made its way down the opposite side of the tree. Gunter didn’t get a good look until it was on the ground.
“It was crouched, moving low to the ground, creeping like, at a pretty good rate, then crossed over the road and went into the woods,” he said.
In February, Ernie and Kathleen Coulter reported hearing a loud screaming sound over a couple days in December.
“I thought it might have been a bobcat because it was loud,” Kathleen Coulter said. “It was a deep scream. It was scary. I have never heard anything like that before.”
The couple saw a very similar animal to Gunter’s at least twice after hearing the sounds….
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
