Is there a cougar roaming around Horry County? What SC wildlife officials say
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A photo on a trail cam in Galivants Ferry shows what appears to be a cougar roaming in the woods in the early morning hours Thursday and Friday.
The picture was posted in a Facebook group and has been shared more than a hundred times, receiving comments that ranged from the photo being a fake to others discussing their own cougar sightings.
A message left with the person who posted the photos, including a new one on Friday that shows the cougar apparently walking away with a chicken in its mouth, was not returned before publication.
“I’m not gonna tell you that it’s not,” said Charles Ruth, wildlife biologist and big game program coordinator with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources.
Ruth said SCDNR has received trail cam pictures of possible cougars. While the black-and-white photo doesn’t indicate what color the large cat is, Ruth said if it’s black, “we immediately say negative.”
If it’s brown or tawny, “it’s in the realm of of possibilities,” Ruth said.
A reverse Google image search doesn’t show that the photo has appeared elsewhere. However, it doesn’t mean that the photo wasn’t altered in other ways, including through the use of Photoshop.
There is not a big population of cats anywhere in South Carolina, Ruth said. He said the last documented case of a cougar in the state was in the early 1900s.
The eastern cougar, which has a small population located in south Florida, has been declared extinct in the Southeast, Ruth said. Of the 100 that remain in Florida, they are wild and free-ranging, and 10 to 12 are hit by cars every year, he said.
“We have never had that happen in South Carolina,” said Ruth, which leads him to believe that if a cougar is in Horry County, it’s most likely someone’s former pet that has escaped or was turned loose.
“You’d be surprised how many of these big cats were in private possession,” Ruth said.
