@birdsandbats No but I would sure love to. The odds of seeing one in the wild in North America are about the same as the odds of winning the lottery.
As you may or may not know, the only place to reliably see them in the wild (as in almost guaranteed) is southern Chile. There are some large ranches next to Torres Del Paine National Park and the landscape is open and they have become somewhat accustomed to the presence of people. The only way to get on the land is to book a guided photo tour which is quite expensive (as in eight thousand dollars).
@Arizona Docent Funnily enough, I actually saw a wild Puma in Patagonia.
Didn't actually book a tour in one of the ranches though, just randomly stumbled across one in the National Park. Certainly the ranches are much more reliable, although there is something amazing about seeing such an amazing animal entirely by accident imo.
@TZDugong That's a great sighting! When people first learned about the visibility of Chilean pumas years ago the tours were in Torres Del Paine National Park. But too many of the guides were taking people off road to find cats so the park service put their foot down and said everyone had to stay on the established roads, which put an end to the puma tours until the neighboring ranches opened up.
I've seen puma tracks on several occasions, but I've never run across one yet. Nonetheless finding fresh puma tracks when you're out by yourself can be a touch unnerving.
