The mountain lion of Kansas. People claim to see them, take pictures of them. For years, officials followed leads but never found proof.
Some proved to be bobcats. Other reports wound up being the domestic house cat. Still, many residents believed.
Then someone shot one in Barber County, the first documented sighting since 1904.
Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks officials, who have been investigating the sighting since March, recently announced after months of testing that the animal possibly was wild.
But are mountain lions - or cougars, pumas, panthers or painters, as they also are called - running rampant in the Sunflower State? While the number of calls coming in on any given month would suggest it, state officials and cougar experts say most likely not.
For several years, Bob Wilson of Garden City has searched Kansas, placing trail cameras in areas where residents reported seeing cougars.
"I would run out to an area where I received a phone call and set up a game camera," said Wilson, who is part of the national Cougar Network. "I have literally thousands of pictures of deer, coyotes, bobcats, but not one mountain lion."
And as much as he would like to tell people there are mountain lions making their home in Kansas, Wilson's definite answer usually is "probably not."
"If you have any established population, you have a road kill," he said. "There's road kill in the Black Hills, road kill in Florida. If cougars are there, you will eventually have road kills. Kansas doesn't have a road kill."
There also are hundreds of trail cameras set up across the state, said Matt Peek, a furbearer biologist with KDWP. However, no one has captured an actual mountain lion. No one has trapped one, either.
Still, the calls keeping coming in to Peek's Emporia office.
One of the most recent call sightings made the evening news - a security-camera picture of an animal lurking inside a fenced-in area. An investigation proved it was a housecat.
The current case of a shot mountain lion started last spring.
A Barber County man was chopping wood when he saw the animal in the grass. He retrieved a firearm from his truck and shot it.
KDWP obtained the pelt in March. Biologists collected muscle tissue samples and sent them to a federal research laboratory in Montana.
After several months of tests, researchers were able to determine the animal was not of the South American decent, from which most captive lines come.
While the test doesn't prove the animal was wild, Peek said officials believe it probably was wild.
Meanwhile, tests are ongoing to determine the cougar's footprinting - or to what population of lions it belongs, he said.
No charges have been filed against the Barber County man as of Friday, according to Barber County Attorney Richard Raleigh's office.
There is no hunting season for mountain lions in Kansas. The man could be charged with killing a non-game animal for which there is not an established season and/or possessing a mountain lion.
While it has been more than 100 years since Kansas has had a true mountain lion sighting, states around Kansas have had a few reports.
Their territory in Colorado and near the Oklahoma panhandle is fairly close to Kansas. Their territory has spread into Nebraska because of the growing populations in South Dakota, Garden City's Wilson said.
Peek said a mountain lion collared in South Dakota for tracking purposes, and that was hit by a train 40 miles south of Arkansas City, probably had passed through Kansas.
Wilson said it was likely male cats had passed through Kansas. Most, however, aren't staying.
For a few of those who do report seeing a mountain lion in Kansas, well, they just might have seen one, Wilson said.
"The people who call in, they are hard-working people," Wilson said. "They know the difference between the mountain lion or bobcat. What they saw probably was the real McCoy. Young male cats, maybe in transit, might have just been passing through."
The mountain lion facts--
Diet: Elk, deer, domestic cattle, horses and sheep.
Hunting: Mountain lions take their prey by ambush rather than a long pursuit. They usually kill with a powerful bite below the base of the skull, breaking the neck. Lions drag the carcass to a sheltered spot beneath a tree or overhang to feed on it. They cover the carcass with dirt, leaves or snow and may return to feed on it over the course of a few days. Generally, they move the carcass and re-cover it after each feeding. Lions feeding on a kill can be dangerous to people.
Habitat: Prefers habitats with dense brush and rocky areas for stalking, but can live in open areas.
Safety: Mountain lions occasionally attack humans and pets, although such incidents are rare. According to Colorado State University Cooperative Extension, fewer than a dozen fatalities have been reported in North America in the past 100 years.
We don't get them often, but
We don't get them often, but we DO get them. They tend to follow the rivers to ensure plenty of game and water. When we raised sheep we saw one for sure as it came out of a lot of brush on our creek bed to pounce on a ewe. This was NOT a bobcat and we were on horseback close enough to determine that it was a mountain lion. Long thick tail, and didn't have the bobcat ears that are so obvious. I would love to tell you it was a tabby cat but when it got the ewe it nearly covered her body. It was just to big. My brother hollered and it ran off. Our horses were totally spooked. We think we had another visit from this cat a couple of weeks later. But didn't see it. Just the half eaten carcass of one of our registered dorsets pulled into a tree on the creek. Bob cats can't do that! And of course we can't prove it! LOL We didn't have a camera. And it was back in 1962. Long before video. We reported it to our local extention agent and he said he would tell the authorities.