I live in North GA and yes I have seen one black bear in the wild while hunting. I was hunting on a small track of land about 5 mins. from the Northern track of Dawson Forrest, near Big Canoe. My neighbor's dogs were going crazy a few years back, 93 in fact, the Storm of the Century. Any way he took the shotgun and a flashlight outside and saw a huge cat with a long tail. I have heard a few other people say they have seen mountain lions here in N. GA. I have never personally seen one but I do believe there are a few up here.

I've never seen either animal here in southwest Alabama, but it is an uncontested fact that black bears exist in Washington County, substantiated by bear carcasses. There are "bear crossing" signs on the highways. I have seen what I firmly believe to have been cougar tracks in soft, wet clay in Clarke County---definitely not dog tracks---they were from the night before and matched every description and picture of cougar tracks I could find---size, shape, depth and everything. That was several years ago and I haven't seen any more.

Seen bears here in Ark. there are reports of a "cat"(female with cubs) around the farm we've been hunting. No sightings/photos YET !

My brother-in-law worked for Carlton Co in Albany and knows people who saw a sow & cub on Oakland Plantation (Lee Co.), which was owned by Mr. Carlton.

When I was a kid we lived on a chicken farm just north of Plains (Sumter). There was a black panther (cougar, or whatever you want to call it) which I saw personally more than once, and several family members and friends have seen, which hung out in the general vicinity of our farm. He used to lay in the middle of the dirt road at the top of the hill between the neighbor's house and ours. The neighbors would see him in the morning before school when he went to check catfish poles at the beaver pond. This was in the early 1960s.

In the late 1990s we were checking out a deer lease in Marion County (above Preston) and saw big cat prints in a sandy area. There was no mistaking they were cougar.

I read an article 8-10 years ago which stated that Florida brought some cougars from out west to help boost their population. Some had tracking collars. The article said one was tracked up into GA as far north as Vidalia area, then turned westward then south again, probably somewhere around the Sumter, Marion, Schley area or thereabouts they lost track at that point.

bout a year ago there was a string of bear sightings in durham nc bunch of people saw this bear around the city

Here where i live there are miles of wilderness IE swamp and the bear and deer are being drawn from their historical range by the new housing subdivisions where there is no hunting pressure . People are feeding deer and bear in their backyards and the bears are in the garbage cans.Something needs to be done about this because there is going to be a morsel of a child left unattended for a little too long and the proverbial pooh is going to hit the fan.