pira114
I have seen one wolf personaly, hunting partner two, in Tulare County, Kings Canyon basin. Fish and game won't admit it publicly. A sow brown bear has been spotted above California Hot Springs in the Portugese Pass area with cubs.
As to the big cats, We saw a very dark cat on a hillside one evening coming home, but it could be as others have said with the lighting, fifteen to twenty minutes before sundown?
I do know there are animals out there that "officials" denie.
The fact that they deny what people know to be there sure undercuts the trust one can put in them, doesn't it.
Never understood that. Just dumb.
There's been enough reports for so many years of "black panthers" without a carcass to prove it that IMO there are only 2 possible explanations. Jaguar or lighting that makes a regular ML look black.
No jag's up here but always the occasional report of black cougar sighting. A cousin of mine farms/ranches not far from here and witnessed a pair 3 days in a row that he says looked black. He watched for a couple minutes each time and one sighting for several minutes. All near sundown and all from his barn looking west into the pasture near wooded bottom about 400 yards away. He watched as they cross a fence one evening, which gave a good estimation of the size. Definitely lions. Appear black because of the angle of the lighting.
As for black cats, I've been reading a lot since this thread started. I wonder if mt. lions can have a recessive black fur trait??? Aside from mis-identifying the color at dawn or dusk, I think that could be a plausible explanation as to why they're seen occasionally, but not captured or killed.
This would most probably be a form of melanism.
Unlike albinism, as far as I know, it's a dominant trait. If that's the case the frequency should be like solid black jaguars, 1/3 or even fully 1/2 the population.
It's got to be the lighting.
