Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Black Panther exist?

Lots of big cats in Mexico and South Texas.

Did you try reading the caption? It plainly states there it's a jaguar not a mountain lion or panther.

a few years back I knew 4 people along the blue ridge mountains that claim to have all seen a black panther around there yards. all these sightings were within a weeks apart and none of these people knew each other. they all said the cat was solid black.i know there are mountain lions here .

That coon be hidin' under the feeder til the big boys go away!

I've lived in Georgia all my life. I've hunted from Alaska to Florida and thought I'd seen most things in the wild. I have a BS degree in Biology and understand that no one has ever scientifically documented the presence of a black phase Panther, Cougar or Mountain Lion. What ever name you want to call it. All my life I have heard of people that have seen a cougar and some that have seen a black cougar. People that I know and trust have seen one and watched it for a while. They know what a house cat looks like, a black bear, an otter, a black lab, all the normal black critters. What they saw isn't one of those. I've always wondered why no good clear pictures could have been taken. Well, I know now.

This past January I was going deer hunting and driving down a dirt road. It was misting rain and had been all day. The road had cut banks on both sides that were about 4 feet high on the other side of the ditch. A "big black cat" with a long tail jumped down into the road probably 50 yards in front of my truck. It looked my way and took a step to the middle of the road then jumped to the top of the cut bank on the other side of the road and was gone. It wasn't a big wet bobcat, a black housecat, or any of the other normal black animals described by those that haven't seen one of these things. I also never thought it was a black cougar. The head looked a little different even though the cat did resemble a cougar in body shape. It looked to me to weigh about 30 pounds which would put it on the small side for a cougar.

I believe that what I saw was a black phase Jaguarundi. Black is a common color, the size is about right and the Jaguarundi is a diurnal cat, so seeing him in the middle of the afternoon would not be unusual. I checked with a friend that has seen a big black cat and he stated that the one he saw would have weighed about 30 to 35 pounds too. It turns out that in the last part of the 1800's or early part of the 1900's a man in Florida released some jaguarundis in Northern Florida in an effort to establish a viable population in that state. It would seem, from what I saw, that he was successful. This is the one explanation that makes the most sense to me and is one that fits what I saw.

I would never say that there is no such thing as a black phase cougar, just because on one has ever seen one. The absence of one in the scientific record doesn't prove that one doesn't exist. But for all these sightings of big black cats that I have been hearing about all my life and finally saw myself, the jaguarundi fits the description and there is reason for it to be in the area.

And no I didn't have time to take a picture, I never even thought about a picture while he was standing there. I was amazed at what I was seeing and more than a little in shock!

Mathsr, Thanks for posting that. It is a new wrinkle to me in this recycling topic.

As to recycling, I will add my usual comments numbers 2 and 3 plus personal experience # 5.

mathsr, thanks from here too, I believe that's the name I was told that my sighting might be

Jaguarundis live in Central and South America, and in the southern tip of Texas.

Doesn't seem impossible that one could have been in North Texas in the early fiftys.

I saw one in near Cameron, TX while hog hunting in 2000 or 2001. Wild or escaped, I don't know, but I'd swear to it on a stack of bibles.

Please stop the leopard comments....

Im not stuck on the panther aspect. Just the fact that it’s a long tail large black cat. They are out there.

well, what ever you want to call it, a large long tail black cat was up in a tree by my house one night in the 70's in prescott. I wasn't the only one that saw it.

Saw one just outside Rio Grande City.


DMc

More than that here in VA.

Saw a couple in Philadelphia a few years ago.....someone should’ve dropped both of them! memtb

The last jaguar in this area was killed in 1929. Lots of people don't realize that the Big Thicket of SE Texas had the greatest concentration of black bears prior to the mid-1800's also. Now there's nothing but hogs and 'coons. There are however, drunks, pill-heads and dumbasses that see black panthers on a regular basis.

I thought you guys were going to show pictures of intimidation outside a conservative voting center.

No one has denied that melanistic jaguars or leopards exist. Yet you seem to be bent on pulling up pictures of these animals up inferring that they are the non-existant "black" panther. What is your point?

the genus Panthera includes tigers, lions, jags, and leopards. The genus Puma includes the mt lion. Technically, a panther is one from the Panthera genus but it's commonly used for Pumas, too.

Just not in the USA.

If people would quit posting crap about animals that are not native to here, I think it would do away with a lot of the controversy.

But then again, I reckon people can believe what they want.

I file them away right beside the flat earthers.