People report seeing large cat loose in the Midlands. Here’s what they’re describing
Officials are no longer actively searching for a possible large cat roaming in the Midlands.
After an official search was suspended late Tuesday afternoon there are no plans to resume looking for the animal that was reported in the area near Lexington and Calhoun counties.
While deputies will follow up on possible sightings as reports are made, there is no ongoing search, Lexington County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Sarah Alexander told The State.
As of Wednesday, there have been no confirmed sightings of the large cat, Alexander said.
There has also been a lack of evidence that a big cat has been in the Horses Neck Road area of Swansea in Lexington County, or in the 400 block of Valley Ridge Road in the Sandy Run area of neighboring Calhoun County, where law enforcement officers said sightings have been reported.
Game wardens and members of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources biological staff assisted in the search and were looking for signs of a big cat, but none were found, DNR spokesperson Greg Lucas told The State.
Since the end of Tuesday’s search, Lucas said DNR hasn’t heard anything more about the big cat.
Although there have not been any confirmed sightings, reports made to law enforcement officers and shared online offer a wide variety of descriptions of the animal.
Calhoun County Chief Deputy Matt Trentham told The State there have been multiple unconfirmed reports of people seeing a tiger.
One comment on the Calhoun County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page said it was multiple tigers.
Another popular rumor circulating on social media is that the cat is not a tiger, but more likely a panther, bobcat, or cougar.
Multiple people commented saying they have seen black panthers roaming the woods in the Midlands over the past 30 years.
Lucas said panthers are really another name for the Eastern cougar. The same goes for big cats identified as mountain lions and pumas.
And there are no Eastern cougars in South Carolina, according to Lucas.
While cougars are naturally secretive as part of their ability to capture prey, Lucas said, “there’s just no scientific documentation to” prove there are any in South Carolina, the Greenville Journal reported.
And all of those sightings reported to DNR on an annual basis? Lucas said the majority of those are likely people misidentifying other animals like bears, coyotes or large dogs.
The Eastern cougar, declared extinct by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, was probably gone by the late 1800s because of habitat loss and fragmentation, according to Lucas.
“Our only ‘wild’ cat is a bobcat, and it’s not much bigger than a house cat,” Lucas told The State. “They are elusive and rarely seen by humans.”
Lucas is not the only one who has said the recent big cat sightings in the Midlands might actually really be a misidentified big dog.
Trentham said some of the reports he received were of a large, brindle colored dog on the loose.
Whether people have seen an exotic animal or domesticated house pet, nothing has been confirmed from either DNR, the Calhoun County Sheriff’s Office, or the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department.
But out of an abundance of caution, anyone who sees the animal should call 911 to alert sheriff’s deputies and animal control in the neighboring counties.
This story was originally published March 17, 2022 at 9:31 AM with the headline "People report seeing large cat loose in the Midlands. Here’s what they’re describing."
