What Are Ghost Cats (And Why Do People Claim To See Them)?

While a few pumas east of the Mississippi have been positively identified, skeptics cast doubt on any substantial eastern population of cougars outside the Florida panther's range since 1938, when the last Eastern cougar was killed according to the Miami Herald. Biologist James E. Cardoza hasn't been shy about his doubts, in published research and in comments to JSTOR. There may be a romantic yearning for cougars, a symbol of the American wilderness, to still be living across the country, but there just isn't much hard evidence, like a corpse from a dead animal. Only around 15 such bodies have been found since 1950, most of them escaped pets or other captive animals.

Eyewitnesses who've had a ghost cat encounter insist that the cougars are out there, and pushback from skeptics can only entrench their position. Cardoza maintains that many ghost cat sightings are misidentifications of smaller cats, coyotes, and even dogs. He also notes longstanding issues with eyewitness testimony: bias (conscious or unconscious) and memory issues.

The limits of eyewitness testimony have implications beyond tracking possible big cats in the Eastern U.S.; Teach Democracy has raised issues with such testimony in courts, and Science has reported on studies that focus on its limitations. But it is worth noting that other studies indicate memory is easily influenced but not unreliable, and that proper procedure can get accurate answers, whether about a crime scene or a ghost cat (per Scientific American).

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