New VA Mystery Cat Photo
Posted by: Loren Coleman on May 17th, 2009
Charles Wooten’s 2009 photograph of a mystery cat.
Charlie Wooten [of Isle of Wight, Virginia] has been a hunter since 1976 and has seen more than his fair share of wild animals.
His four trail cameras usually catch the occasional black bear roaming around between May and September, but when one of his cameras snapped a photo of an apparent cougar on his property in the Isle of Wight Courthouse area, he wasn’t sure what he saw.
“I’m no expert,” he said, “but it doesn’t look like a bobcat to me.”
Wooten, who primarily hunts white-tailed deer and turkeys, showed the photo to 20 fellow hunters, and “19 of them said it wasn’t a bobcat,” he said.
Wooten’s big cat photo awaits confirmation, but similar sightings in South Hampton Roads aren’t without precedent.
Aaron Proctor, a district wildlife biologist for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, said the department is working to verify Wooten’s reported cougar sighting. Proctor said the department gets about six to 12 big cat sightings on the Southside a year.
The department allowed big cats to be pets 15 to 20 years ago, Proctor said, but has since no longer does.
Eric Gillard, Daily Press, May 14, 2009.
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.
Yep. That’s a mountain lion.
it DOES look like a cougar!
THe shape fits, especially at the head. But how big is it? I’d like to know how tall that grass is.
It isn’t a Felis rufus (North American Bobcat) or a Felis lynx (Canada Lynx), both of which are known to have bobbed (subby) tails.
Cougars range in colour from buff to grey, to brown, and a variety of shades in between. Their long tail is a distinctive feature. The cat in that photo has all of those characteristics.
And with younger male cats being pushed further and further out to find new territory, it doesn’t suprise me one bit that one decided Virginia is a nice place to live. I seem to recall the state advertised itself as “The state for lovers.”
Kitty is probably just looking for a missues is all.
Looks like a young puma.
Um..it looks exactly like a bobcat to me.
Bobcat.
It would help if the resolution was better. An intriguing image nevertheless.
Don’t know. Vague enough to be either bobcat or cougar. Head looks more to me like the latter, although the ears look a bit big.
I might actually bet some money it isn’t a domestic cat, though.
Wow. A mystery cat photo that’s really a mystery! 😀
The odds that that the tail just “happened” to be “down” along the legs and out of view is too much for me…
Thus, this IS a bobcat!
A lot of Isle of Wight county is swampy country, still pretty wild in places even though it’s just outside of the major metropolitan area of Norfolk/Chesapeake/Virginia Beach. And it’s close to the Great Dismal Swamp, and generally hard to access as a result. It wouldn’t suprise me to find cougars in there.
I went back and forth on this one. I’m sure the guy who submitted to Fish & Game people is sincere in his belief that this might be a cougar. However, the image is just vague enough to obscure some critical details. For instance, right where the face tufts are on a bobcat its just white out. Bobcat ear tufts are dark and could simply be lost in the grainy image. A bobcat tail is short, but it is still longer than most people think. In the down position like this it may give the impression of being longer than it really is – e.g. cougar long.
I am not totally discounting cougar, they are showing up in places where people least expect them. But I am going with bobcat on this one. I personally know of two situations where at first glance, wildlife officials misidentified bobcats as cougars at a distance. A second and longer look with binoculars dispelled that first impression. So given poor visual conditions and poor photos it is easy to misidentify.
And it could be a big old tom cat too. Locally someone shot a video of a “cougar” in their farm field. It certainly looked like the real deal. It passed by a fence post. Based on what the individual said about the fence hieght, it was the right size for a cougar. But on the scene, when a tape measure was put on the fence post, the cat size shrunk by 50%. Tracks in the immediate vicinity indicated a domestic cat, albeit a big one. The person who reported this was sincere, they just misidentified it.
We need some scale in this picture. Since there is an investigation maybe that information will be forthcoming.
I’m willing to go out and say this is a cougar. Sue me.
But if it is a bobcat, it is still a great picture.
Wonderfully ambiguous.
Enlarge the photo. Adjust the brightness and contrast. Flip it to black & white. Make it transparent and underlay a photo or good drawing of a known bobcat. You’ll see; it’s very obviously a bobcat.
No tracks, I’m presuming. No other evidence of a cougar in the local area.
Has anyone looked?
Charlie Wooten’s trail camera photograph in Isle of Wight County, Virginia is that of a sub-adult PUMA according to mammal trackers & identification specialists with the EASTERN PUMA RESEARCH NETWORK.
This young cougar is probably the newest addition to the small numbers of known big cats who call the Great Dismal Swamp of SE Virginia & NE North Carolina their home.
why won’t wooten go to a naturalist? they’ll tell you it’s puma. just look at the face markings!
It’s a cougar.Trust me. I know what a cougar looks like. i live in Montana.Trust me. I wouod know
My friend just moved into a town house in virginia beach (off of ferrell parkway very busy street) we were walkng to my car around
ok wasnt done yet. we were walkn to my car around 11 pm her townhome backs up to a new shopping center with a small stretch of wooded area between the grocery stores and visitor parking, in the path we Usually take to the grocery store we spotted a cat walking up towards the parking lot, it didnt alarm us at first since
we frequently see cats wandering around at night. we stopped and i realized this cat was much larger than any cat i’d ever seen, he/she stopped in mid stride and sat down *we both stopped and we are looking at the cat* he turns his head and two other cats around the same size appear behind him and they all lurk around looking at us for a few minutes then disapear into the wooded area again (note this “wooded area” probably has about 20 trees max). we immediately went home and searched online when we saw the picture posted we immediately identified that as teh cats we saw. These cats are double maybe triple t size of regular cats and have long tails. We thought they may be foxes at first but i have a fox in my backyard and they are more dog like than the creatures we saw. Went back to the passage way we saw them on 30 minutes later found one distinct foot print and a pile of hollowed bones. We think maybe other resisdents have seen these cats and left bones with peanut butter out to attract them out. Thanks so much for your post and picture. I hope our accounts of seeing one too help your case
We saw a large cat the other night on HWY 158, just south of the Great Dismal Swamp in NC. We were on our way back when we spotted a large animal with its head down that we at first took for a deer drinking water, until it lifted it’s head and looked at our car. I think its definite that a cougar could make its home in the swamp quite easily.