Photo of mountain lion dragging a deer not in Kansas

A  photo currently circulating online of a mountain lion supposedly dragging a whitetail buck in front of a wildlife feeder in Kansas was taken by a trail camera in another state.

Mark Dowling, of the Cougar Network and Matt Peek, of the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, verified the shot is part of what’s become a wide-ranging hoax.

Recently many local people recieved this photo online saying the photo was taken in Kansas. The same photograph has also been attributed to at least ten other states. Experts say it was taken in Texas.

Recently many local people received this photo online saying the photo was taken in Kansas. The same photograph has also been attributed to at least ten other states. Experts say it was taken in Texas.

Several people recently forwarded the photo to The Eagle and Wildlife and Parks, claiming it was recently taken near Wellington or Pittsburg.

Some online searching shows the  photo has been attributed to at least ten other states.

Dowling said it’s been circulating for quite a while and originally came from Texas.

Last week Wildlife and Parks released a confirmed photograph of a live mountain lion in northwest Kansas. The photo was taken by a bowhunter in a treestand and verified by Wildlife and Parks biologists.

In 2007 a mountain lion was killed by a landowner near Medicine Lodge. Those are the only two verified wild Kansas mountain lions in more than 100 years despite many undocumented reports.

Several other online hoaxes containing photos of mountain lions supposedly taken in Kansas have surfaced in recent years.

Last winter a photo of a dead mountain lion with a paw being held-up was widely circulated as being hit by a car near Ottawa. The online story said it tried to get wildlife officials who came to euthanize the injured animal. That mountain lion was actually a road-kill from northern Arizona.

Several years ago a photo made the online rounds of a man holding the body of a huge mountain lion in a garage. The story with the hoax said the cat had been shot while chasing cattle near Leon. The mountain lion was actually shot by a hunter while calling coyotes in Washington.

Another common hoax was of a an adult female mountain lion and two partially-grown cubs feeding on a deer carcass. The hoax claimed the trail camera photo was from Sumner County. The photo was really taken in South Dakota.

Photos of the Arizona,Washington and South Dakota mountain lions were widely circulated and were reportedly killed or photographed in at least a dozen other states.

  • Frank_Lingo

    Mr. Pierce, besides bragging rights what do the hoaxsters hope to accomplish with this? Every time this type of thing comes up I have greater respect for the KDWP biologists and less and less for the outdoorsmen of Kansas. This type of behavior feeds the anti-hunt, anti-consumption movement.

  • Wiseman

    I wonder what is it with the clowns trying to create the hoax.
    What purpose does showing a mountain lion in Kansas prove?
    We already know that there have been mountain lions in Kansas for years, it is no big deal and it won’t change anything.

  • JLW7440

    It is the age of the egocentric hoaxers. Far to many clowns post their diatribe of BS in these forums just to read themselves in print. They have some false sense of being knowledgable and humorous. Yeah, right…about as knowledgable as being the author of ‘Opinions For Dummies’ and as funny as a burning case of that which Preperation-H soothes.

  • ralphralph

    Despite the hoaxes, there really ARE mountain lions in Kansas … whether they are permanent residents or just passing through. I saw a mountain lion cross Highway K-150 near the Marion-Chase County line in 2001. There is no question what the animal was, but I did not have a camera (and wouldn’t have had time to take a photo if I had). I’m not much of a hunter, but have spent a lot of time in the outdoors hiking, fishing, camping, canoeing, etc., and I have a substantial education in biology, and did some trapping and amateur taxidermy as a younger man. It was a mountain lion, right in the heart of the Flint Hills.

  • http://bcchs.org Don Racine

    WELL WELL WELL looks like we got a live one here fellas. I say we kill all these mountain lions and feed them to the abortionists make them realize what they be doin is wrong!!!! These mountan lions be killin deer while we be feedin abortionist!!!! What all happens in the woods STAYS IN THE WOODS

  • http://TOEASYANDCHEAP rocoks

    They why might be rooted in the tall tale tradition, but generally the audience is aware they are being told a tall tale, without researching it on the internet.Remove move that froward icon in use email applications. Force the user to compose a new email to send the crap on, they won’t do it. That or start cheching a penny, nickel, dime for each email that has multiple recipients.

  • JLW7440

    RalphRalph….I don’t doubt your story one bit. Look how long it did it take for (some still don’t), folks to believe there were Black Bears in Eastern Kansas, or the Moose discovered walking along a wooded fence row in western Kansas. Recently, an Elk in southwestern Kansas. Years ago hunting in the Flint Hills, I came across cat tracks hunting for Bobcats. Had it been a bobcat with a footpad and claws that huge, I’ve have been scootin’ my hinny out of the area so fast any cat would have broke its neck slippin’ and sliddin’ in all that mess I would have been leaving behind. Nor would I have stopped to change my drawers neither.

  • WAR

    Wasn’t there an article in the Eagle a few years back about a mountain lion carcass found alongside railroad tracks in southern Kansas near the Oklahoma border?

  • http://hhhhh suco

    proving that there is mountain lions in kansas is to open the wildlife officials eyes because they still deny it! I have seen two or three sites of lions in KS all in Sumner county one was a friend of mines trail cam picture and the other my neighbor spotted it walking across our land and I have seen tracks near our creek but when you tell a wildlife official they say you are crazy

  • JLW7440

    I can’t think of one KDWP enforcement officer that would say such-a-thing, and I know most all of them in this and several other district’s. Besides, the one from the department who would generally be assigned to do any intense tracking or field investigative work would be a Biologist. I do know a couple of them that would be capable of saying such, one of them happening to work Sumner County at times in the past. That person couldn’t track their own footprints in a foot of snow and all alone.

  • JLW7440

    Yeah, WAR….I know of cats being around Osage State Park west of Bartlesville in the past. Most thought to have been foraging coming up from the Washita forest area. At timess they’ve been spotted in many area’s inbetween. Not unreasonable to assume some might venture into Kansas at times. Might even be the same situation as with rancher’s in Montana where there exists a ‘No Tell Policy’ killing grizzlies that feed on their calves and yearlings.

  • MattJ

    WAR, it was found in northern Oklahoma near the Kansas border. That particular cat, though, was collard in South Dakota. So it most likely made its way through Kansas, possibly along the Arkansas River.

  • jjh

    After what I saw tonight I did a search and ran across this sight. On the way home we saw a cougar that stopped right in it’s tracks a foot off the road. I suspect our bright headlights were blinding it. Absobulely 100% sure it was a cougar as we saw it all, tail, ears, face, body. This was outside Eudora, Kansas. (eastern kansas)

  • TGH

    WAR, MattJ is right. That cat was found by a RR worker along the railroad track near Red Rock, OK. He had been collared in SD and the last signal they’d gotten from his collar was in WY. The Warden that recovered the cat was promised a DNA report on stomach contents so it would be known if he had fed on OK deer or not, but he never received the report.

  • Tammy

    I have lived here in Kansas most of my life. I do alot of camping, fishing, hiking, horse back riding, and hunting (camera). And never once have I seen any cougars or evidence of cougars. But that doesnt say that they aren’t here. There has been many times that I have found a spot where a coyote has watched my camp. But I never seen it. Just because you dont see it doesnt mean its not there. Its human nature to say “I’ll believe it when I see it with my own eyes.”

    Just over the weekend while out trail riding in an area that I have been numerous times, my horses started acting like something was bothering them. They kept looking toward the creek bottom, wide eyed and snorting loudly. They are not usually bothered by bobcats or coyotes. They all have been with me on my hunting trips. Even the dead smell dont bother them. Then it hit me. What if there’s something bigger then bobcat out there? The big cats are in Kansas.

    After studying the hunting and breeding habbits of these beautiful and powerful large cats for 3 years, Its very well possible that what my horses were smelling was indeed a cougar. Cougars are an ambush preditor. They stalk their prey and attack from a high point. Unfortunately most of these cats are not afraid of humans.