Fairly compelling argument from Jackson Landers over at Rule.303:
In a nutshell, officially admitting that there are wild cougars in Virginia invites a political mess that none of these people really wants to deal with. Can you really blame them? So in response to sighting after sighting and article after article, DGIF and other agencies give the same old ‘swamp gas and weather balloons’ routine, as if we were talking about unicorns or velociraptors hiding out in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Their potential ‘out’ when some hunter finally shoots one and forces the issue into everyone’s lap is the fact that, as I have explained here, odds are that these are not in fact eastern cougars at all but rather exotic pet trade hybrids. Hybrids which have no official status in wildlife regulations and are not considered endangered animals.
At that point, DGIF will almost certainly attempt to calm everyone down by pointing out that these are the product of escaped pets. This is what other states have done in the same situation. That takes care of the legal protection issue, but as for the rest it changes nothing. In terms of either safety or a desire to restore the old ecology of Virginia with a large, top level carnivorous cat, who the heck cares what subspecies it is? The worst part is that people usually swallow this kind of crap. And certainly DGIF will say that we have no reason to think that the escaped animals are breeding, so they don’t really count, etc. But you’d have to be a complete idiot to think that there is any reason why these cats wouldn’t be doing what comes naturally and breeding in the wild.
Now I have never seen one of these bad boys running amok in my part of Fluvanna (might have heard one out towards Luray — sounds like an angry baby crying), but I have had the pleasure of running into black bear from time to time… even in Spotsylvania County there were black bear sightings in and around the battlefields.
Heck, anyone care to guess how long ago it was when people said that coyotes weren’t a problem… until folks started shooting them in and around Fort A.P. Hill? I wouldn’t put it outside of the realm of possibility that eastern bobcats are still running amok in Virginia.