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Hunster….I just think you might want to reconsider the idea of a BF population being "trapped" or "hemmed in" by encroaching development. Not even some of the more canny predators like coyotes and cats are inhibited much by those boundaries. Sighting reports of BF all over the continent support a much more nuanced survival strategy, perfectly concordant with the area we are looking at. What the evidence shows is BF are very well adapted to exploit greenways, utility right of ways, creek and river fringes and even pedestrian/bike paths going back and forth at night. If you zoom in on your Google map, thousands of such connections to the wilder areas are in plain view. They apparently cover lots of ground in search of food sources, many of which are human provided. The idea that they are ever bottled up in what is likely only their daylight base of operations for night foraging is not something I'm considering to be likely. It is not lost on them, I'm sure, that when the sun goes down and the A/C units start to hum, they pretty much have the place to themselves. On occasion they are wrong, and somebody walking a dog or sitting on the deck with a cigarette has a sighting, but they are not sticking around to let anyone have a second look , that much is clear.

Huntster: 300 sq. miles = "Small"? 110,000 acres? M'kay. This is also not prairie or open taiga we are talking about. This is dense, almost impenetrable thicket of palmetto, vines and Spanish moss, black water and triple canopy. You could hide an entire Division there, probably. You may not be familiar with this terrain, but if you are not, it is sort of hard to picture just how dense and inaccessible most of it would be to anyone on foot. Visibility is pretty much nil outside of 50 ft. in any direction if you are not on open water or the occasional marsh savannah/hummock. So what that there are hordes of humans close by? Actually, sounds to me to be about the perfect habitat/location for a swamp ape. Pig for breakfast, pig for dinner, pig for supper....