20 years ago when we were building this house a mountain lion crossed the road in front of my car one morning. I am sure it was not a bobcat because it had a tail longer than its body and it was huge.
Periodically one of my neighbors reports seeing one. I've read they often move 30 miles in a day looking for prey. I'm quite surprised we don't see them more often because there's so many deer in the area.

My guesstimate for the reason there were no cats for a long time was there was a lack of food.

I use to see the evidence there were puma walking through my property when I lived in Cle Elum. I'd seen one crossing the road one evening on my way home - can not mistaken that tail! Even got to pet one once, it was darted by Fish and Wild life so they could weigh, measure and relocate the cat. It was a female and had killed one of my neighbor's sheep.
Beautiful creatures, smelly though .

I read somewhere that cheetahs and mountain lions are genetically related.