Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Predators and Varmints black panther???

the last few days ive had 4 ranch hands tell me they have seen a black panther, monday morning 2 hands driving on the south ranch saw a black panther standing in the middle of the road about 7:00 am, slide to a stop and it crossed the road going west. i went and looked at skide marks in the road and walked the road and found cat tracks, about 1/2 as big as mountian lion tracks but bigger than a bobcat track.then last night had another ranch hand call and said he and his wife were sitting on the back pourch after supper, and they had a black panther walk acrossed their back yard on the edge of the tall grass about 30 yrds away,now this morning one of the ranch hands was coming by my house to pick me up at 4:30 am, to take out some hunters and a black panther crossed the road in front of him about 100 yrds from my house. ive lived in s.tex. a long time and have killed several mountian lions here on the ranch over the years, but i have never seen a black panther, all my mexicain ranch hands think it a bad omen, that we have a devil cat on the ranch.when i get time thiink will go try to call it in. what do you'all think?? rio7

Well black panther would be a melanistic jaguar, or jaguarundi. No such thing as melanistic mountain lions. Do you have jaguarundi or ocelot where you live. You have something out there, now you have to figure out which it is. Most are endangered or considered extirpated from Texas. I wouldn't shoot it.

Kevinj, we do have ocelot, but rarley see one and have never shot one,or shot at one.i would just like to see this critter, dont need to kill it. rio7

You need to set some trail cams and get some pics. Would love to see it.

RIO7,it may have been a jaguarundi going by the size of the tracks you saw.Here is a good video of a couple in the wild.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi94gxt5pvQ

bald hunter, i think you may be right form what the guys told me.im going to have them come over and look at your viedo. thanks for your help.rio7

Wow what an odd critter. Moves like an otter on cat legs. Otter looking head. Weird straight back.

Mamma looking for babies or one looking for a mate? Never even heard of one.

i saw Jaguarundi once and from n distance they can appear almost black.

do coatimundi's wear jaguarundi's.......

I'm sorry, but black Mtn. Lions can exist. I saw one in 1958. My grandmother saw it the day before. Black mutants can occur in any mammal species. E

exactly my reaction. neat animal. as far as black cougars, I have seen two in my life. one just outside Yosemite park in 1955, and one in the marble mountains in northern California in 1973. of course that one might have been big foot.

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/wild/species/mlion/

http://www.in.gov/dnr/fishwild/files/fw-Mountain_Lion_Information.pdf

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_panther

Jaguar or leopard maybe.

That's pretty amazing concidering very few people will ever see even one regularly colored Lion in a lifetime.

Even more amazing is the fact that all three of the links posted above say there has never been a documentated sighting of a black Lion.

You should buy a lottery ticket.

had my guys come over and look at the viedo posted they all swear that the cat they saw was bigger than the cat on the viedo,been busy with hunters, so this cat hunt will have to wait till another time,no has seen the cat for the last couple of days. rio7

Never been one in all the documented history of white settlement in North America. That is hundreds of years and millions of people and nearly shooting and trapping mountain lions extinct yet not one person has ever been able to document a single black mountain lion. Even with seemingly half the USA being covered by trail cameras in today's techno swamped world there isn't a single photograph of a black mountain lion. Yet every other bozo from swamp east anywhere has seen them multiple times and swears the truth by it. Amazing!

Not really..... it just proves they are more secretive than bigfeets......

I think Rio really has a Jaguarundi down there GC.
As far as the others go, I ain't from MO but you'd still have to "show me".

PS,, if you ever get a chance, pick up a copy of Waner Glenn's "Eyes Of Fire"
It's a little book documenting the treeing of a Juguar by his hounds down on the AZ/MEX border. Complete with some of the best photography you've ever seen.
I ordered my signed copy right from his daughter on their ranch down in So AZ.
You might try google if you're interested providing she's still having them printed.

Sorry ya'll, haven't been on a good rant in quite some time. Excuse me while I go check some trail cameras, I am expecting a big discovery! Charlie, I have heard of the book, I will check it out.

There are documented black jaguars in Mexico and a few have been spotted in AZ and New Mexico, the latest was this past summer. South West Texas is close enough.