Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Mountain Lions in Texas ... evidence ?

Cougars, mountain lions, panthers, painters, wildcats, catamounts etc.

I have seen one jaguarundi at a big cat sanctuary. They are darker in color than a typical lion, but are much smaller. Funny looking critters too, almost like a weasel.

I would not be surprised if at one time or another, someone's leopard got loose and started living in Texas. Between deer, pigs, and turkeys they should make a good living, especially given their stealth and adaptability.

IIRC at one time there was a handful of ocelots in far South Texas, but their numbers have been greatly reduced. I don't know if they ever had a black color phase, or if any still exist.

I don't know what it is about the South and people seeing "black panthers". I can't count how many people I've met who has "seen" one, even though there is no such thing on this side of he planet. A Mountain Lion's tail can be black at times, so I just wonder if that's all they see is the tail. Or if they only see the mountain lion at night and just assume since they can only see the eyes, the cat is black. Even when you present them with the FACT that there are no leopards in the Western Hemisphere, they still won't believe it.

Now with that said, the South does seem to have a thing for exotic cats, so I'm sure at some point someone has turned loose a Leopard that was a pet and someone saw that. That happened not too far from my house in Arkansas with a full grown Tiger.

one of my buddy's kept telling about a black lion he was seeing while in his blind, i hunted his blind and sure enough a big ol black house cat crossed the sendero about a 100 yds away.

Last time I was in Abilene I stopped at a dance hall and it was full of cougars...oh wait never mind.

..I have seen footage of Jaguars up from Central South America prowling the lower southwest.

Why couldn't a black jag come along as well?

Sounds plausible to me.

There are as many black mountain lions as there are bigfoots and chupacabras.

Don't you reckon with all the game cameras, and folks with guns out there, that in a hundred years of hunting and photos that there would be one shot, or a credible picture of just ONE by now?

Lots of money to be made in the myth business though...

I've seen Mountain Lion tracks in Brewster county between Del Rio and Alpine. Also seen them a few miles south of Iraan, TX.

I have never seen a wild mountain lion of any color. But it seems reasonable there could be some black ones.

Two of my friends drove into deer camp one night saying they had seen a black panther, but no one else believed them because they had been drinking and they had only a wire hanging out of the truck door where they had drug off their radar detector.

I have seen one mountain lion hit by a car whilst hunting the Hill Country, walked up on one too. I don't know which of us was more startled. I have seen two Coatimundi. Saw a Black Bear outside of Alto in 1998.

Although, that buck of a lifetime has somehow eluded me.

it could happen (black jag) in southern Arizona/New Mexico or south TX, but you'd have better odds of winning the lotto.

Lotsa stories like this one.

Everyone knows someone that claims to have seen a big black cat.

Not one shred of proof of it ever though... Not one dead one, not one credible photo, not one shot or run over. Ever.

Yep. Way better. And that's counting the chances of seeing even a spotted jaguar. Not to mention a black color phase one.

Jag's don't come in black unless they have 4 wheels and a steering wheel.

Never personally seen one and don't believe in the black cat theory either. There was a mountain lion killed in East, TX maybe 15 years ago just outside of Jasper which is near the Lousiana border.

While working in South, TX I did see a Jaguar mounted on a fireplace hearth that supposidly was killed on the ranch. Perhaps a 100 or more years ago.

Okay so I just looked it up and apparently there are some black Jaguars but they�re not very common. So considering that I was in northern Arkansas and Jag�s in the South are pretty rare to begin with, and are usually in the extreme South, then add in the fact that a black Jag is an uncommon item, I�m sticking with the story that these people are seeing things.

Jaguars definitely do come in black - in South American jungles, where their color is no disadvantage. But in open desert, it would be a disadvantage...so I doubt any of the black ones have ever made a living in the Southwest, and were Darwinated.

black jaguar - an old video, but still an impressive, baddass cat.

As Rockin noted; ones chance of seeing a normal spotted jaguar, which rarely show up along the Mexican border with Arizona, in fact only two or three in the last 30 odd years. The chances diminish exponentially as you move north, away from the Mexican border.
The melanistic phase, only occurs in about 6% of an all ready small population which live in a specific area of central America. The odds of seeing one of those, even smack on the border with Mexico, would be astromonical, considering the very small chance of seeing a normal spotted variety.
Imagine the realistic odds of seeing a black one in Alabama, where everybody has a third cousins brother who swears his grand daddy saw one, but his rifle misfired, or he didn't have a camera or any other witness......the story line is generally the same in all the sightings.
Ive been fortunate to see my fair share of Mt. Lions, while either calling predators or just out hunting and tramping around the desert, twice seeing pairs, with the rest singles. Depending on the time of day, a lions coat can "appear" to be very dark, when in late evening and low light. Put him in the shadows while light is getting dim, and it might just look like it's black...I suspect this is the real reason for the black lion sightings?

Actually there are 2 more explanations for black panther sightings, and neither of them are flattering. apparently, the entire northern hemisphere is nearly overrun with them.

We had a lady at who claimed she saw a hyena in her pasture. We laughed like hell. The next day she came into work with photos of her pasture and I'll be damned if there wasn't a hyena in that picture. Which means that someone had one as a pet...WTF????

That's kind of a scary thing to be running wild.