“Panthers”
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Further reading re: Black Panthers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther
Basically, a black panther is a melanistic version of either a cougar/mountain lion, a jaguar, or a leopard.
The following article was taken from the January/February 1990 issue of Arkansas Wildlife.
Colorful, sometimes extraordinary stories have a marvelous way of creeping into everyday conversations with Arkansas outdoorsmen. Consider, for instance, the tale of the stinging snake. I’ve spoken to literally dozens of people who swear they’ve seen a stinging snake sting a tree which proceeded to shed all its leaves at once, and die, deader than a hammer, “right before my very eyes.”
Another widespread story revolves around a scuba diver in some lake or river. Seems this fellow went down into the water, and when he surfaced, he was white as a sheet and could hardly speak. When his companions pressed him for information about the source of his distress, he tells them about giant catfish, some bigger than a car, lurking in the inky blackness below, waiting to devour some unsuspecting human. I’ve never met this diver myself, but I’ve spoken to scores of people who are related to him, and each and every one will vouch for his honesty.
The most prevalent stories, no doubt, are the ones about “them big ol’ black panthers.” Pick any city in the state, give me eight hours, and I can come up with at least a dozen black panther tales related by fine, upstanding citizens. Nearly everyone in Arkansas will swear to having seen a black panther or to knowing some totally trustworthy individual (usually a preacher) who has.
These stories and others like them have one thing in common. Though each is told as “the gospel truth” time and time again in every county of the state, no one has ever produced one single iota of reliable evidence to back these claims. Stinging snakes, man-eating catfish and black panthers are like will-o-the-wisps, those fitting, phosphorescent lights that have supposedly lured thousands of heedless outdoorsmen into the depths of America’s swamps. They’re totally elusive, untouchable. And while many believe in their existence, no one has ever offered tangible evidence they’re anything more than the product of overactive imaginations.
If that didn’t get your feathers ruffled, what I’m about to say probably will. Though hundreds of people have reported seeing mountain lions in Arkansas in recent years – – not just black panthers, but ordinary tan-colored lions, too – – it’s quite probable there are no wild native mountain lions left in our state.
I know, I know. You’re probably thinking “How can he say that? The Game & Fish Commission has been telling us for years that mountain lions live in Arkansas, even though the population is probably small. Dozens of sightings from reliable observers are on file, from their own biologists even! And after all, haven’t mountain lions actually been shot in Arkansas and examined by biologists?, That should be enough to convince anyone. So why is this bozo trying to equate mountain lion reports with tales of stinging snakes, car-sized catfish and black panthers?”
Let me try to explain. First, I’m convinced that many people have indeed seen mountain lions in the wilds of Arkansas. Not black panthers, mind you, but normal- colored mountain lions. There are too many reports from reliable observers to believe otherwise.
I’m not convinced, however, that the animals sighted were wild lions native to the state. Why? First of all, because no one in recent years has presented hard physical evidence to the contrary. That’s why I use the snake/catfish/panther tales analogy. The stories are common, but there’s nothing to prove they’re true. No photographs, no track casts, no videotape, no scats, no prey kills, no dead lions, nothing authenticating the presence of mountain lions has been presented in almost 15 years. Arkansas mountain lions, like the will-o’-the-wisp, seem to be totally elusive.
On top of that, one of the world’s premier mountain lion trackers was hired to find Arkansas lions, and despite the fact he’s covered thousands of miles searching for clues to this magnificent animal’s presence, so far he’s failed to find one scrap of evidence that wild mountain lions still roam the Natural State.
Still, not convinced? Well, I’m not either. I still cling to the hope that somehow, some way, this noble predator has managed to elude extinction in Arkansas. Unfortunately, that possibility is extremely slim. Read on and let me tell you more about Arkansas’ “panther enigma.”
The mountain lion (Felis concolor) is also known as the cougar, panther, puma, catamount and painter. One subspecies of this great cat, the Florida panther (Felis concolor coryi), once ranged from east Texas through Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida and parts of Tennessee and South Carolina. At present, the only documented population is in southern Florida with the total number estimated at 50 animals. The Florida panther is one of North America’s most endangered mammals.
Panthers may have been relatively common in Arkansas even into the late 1800s. Archival photographs show Arkansas hunters proudly displaying panthers they killed, and the written record is full of lion stories. A story in a 1963 issue of Arkansas Historical Quarterly tells of a widow McBride who lived in Monroe County in 1838. One day she was told by one of her children that family dogs had treed a panther within a half mile of her house. Mrs. McBride obtained powder and lead from a neighbor, molded bullets, and shot and killed the panther. The sound of the gun flushed another panther nearby. It ran up a tree within a half mile of the other, and she killed it, too.
Another story in the same publication involved World War I hero Herman Davis of Manila. Davis and his father spent most of their time hunting and fishing to supplement the family’s meager farming income, and sometimes when they were gone, a panther would get on the roof of the Davis home. When this happened, Mrs. Davis and her small children would calmly stuff blankets into the fireplace to prevent the big cat from gaining entry and wait for the elder Davis to return and kill it.
Biologists believe Arkansas panthers reached their lowest numbers in the late 1920s when the population of one of their staple foods, the white-tailed deer, fell to only 500 or so animals statewide. It’s possible a few lions remained, feeding on rabbits, raccoons, opossums, feral hogs and even domestic livestock, but there are no confirmed reports of panthers between 1920 and the late 1940s.
Florida panthers were believed extinct in Arkansas until December 1949 when an adult was killed by two hunters near Sims in Montgomery County. About this same time, panther sightings increased in frequency. From 1950 through 1969, records show 36 panther reports in 18 counties, including sightings by several professional biologists and trappers. Biologists believed reduced hunting pressure and an expanding deer herd was the reason the population grew, and increasing interest in disappearing wildlife prompted more people to report sightings.
On December 8th, 1969, a 152-pound male panther was killed by a hunter near Hamburg. This fortified speculation that at least a few panthers still roamed Arkansas, and reports continued to pile up. In April 1970, a woman reported an adult lion treed in Saline County. Three professional biologists reportedly observed panther tracks near Fayetteville in November 1970, and more tracks were seen in Stone County that December. Over the next two years, there were reports of panthers, panther tracks and/or panther scats (droppings) in 14 counties. Unfortunately, none can be confirmed, because no photographs were taken, no casts were made of tracks and no scats were preserved.
In 1974, the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission enacted laws to fully protect the Florida panther, but this didn’t prevent the November 1975 killing of a 118-pound male near Lake Dardanelle in Logan County. Isolated sightings continued to crop up, and in 1977, Sam Barkley, the Commission’s endangered species biologist, started a clearinghouse for Arkansas panther reports. From 1977 through June .1989, almost 250 reports were logged in Commission files. Dozens of these reports involved black panthers,” though no substantiated reports of this color phase are known to occur in North America. Other reports were considered more reliable, but no physical evidence is available to authenticate any reports since the Logan County panther killing in 1975. Tracks examined by biologists turned out to be dog tracks. Sightings and photographs turned out to be house cats. A goat supposedly killed by a panther near Cabot in 1988 was actually killed by dogs or coyotes.
The question remains whether the three verified lion kills and hundreds of reported sightings actually represent remnant native populations. The possibility exists that many, if not all, panther sightings result from escaped or released pets, a fact that’s particularly important in view of the significant numbers of mountain lions held in captivity and available for purchase in Arkansas and elsewhere. Although the total number of captive cougars in Arkansas is unknown, it’s probably considerable. Pet cougars are known to escape from time to time, and some are intentionally released. A decomposed mountain lion found in Franklin County in 1987 was declawed, indicating it was once a captive animal.
A three-year study currently underway could provide some answers to the panther enigma. In 1988, the Game & Fish Commission hired Rancher’s Supply Incorporated of Alpine, Texas to conduct in-depth field investigations for physical evidence of native panther populations in Arkansas. This company is owned by Roy McBride, a famed lion tracker who has been actively involved with a panther project in south Florida, the last known stronghold of these animals. His work has enabled Florida researchers to capture several panthers that were outfitted with radio collars for further study.
McBride began his field work in Arkansas in August 1988, searching for recognizable mountain lion sign such as tracks, urine markers, scats and kills. In his first progress report to the Commission, he reported covering over 1,900 miles in the Ozark National Forest and over 450 miles in the Mount Magazine area without finding any evidence of mountain lions. Tracking conditions were difficult in some areas, but McBride still observed 41 bear tracks plus the tracks of 21 bobcats, 199 coyotes and 281 deer.
In this report, McBride noted “there were no truly remote, inaccessible areas within the forest that could harbor an undetected population of mountain lions.” Extensive use of the forest by canoeists, trappers, hikers, loggers and ATV recreationists would invariably lead to the physical recovery of several wild mountain lions annually if they were present, McBride says, and numerous highways interspersed throughout the Ozarks carry a high volume of traffic that would attribute to the recovery of additional lions by road kills. McBride concludes his report by saying “…the area surveyed during this preliminary investigation did not have a resident, breeding population of wild mountain lions.”
Perhaps they’re out there, just beyond the glow of the campfire, flitting through the woods like the elusive will-o’-the-wisp. But even if they’re not, tales of Arkansas panthers are sure to persist. Our lions are like UFOs, Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster. We may never prove their existence, but in the minds of many, neither can we refute it. o
Note:
A guy I work with swears that he had a very large black cat stalking him when he was putting up his deer stand last year. He had no long gun with him, only a .38 snubby…there have since been several reports of sightings in that area. I have heard both the black cat version and the mountain lion version. One rumor going around is that a farmer shot a large cat and it had a NY state DEC tag. The conspiracy theory goes that the DEC secretly released some lions to control the deer population and won’t admit it. Why they would tag what would have to later be denied is beyond me.
That article about the black cat on the Chattooga sparked a lot of heated discussion on another fishing forum I frequent.
An escaped exotic pet seems plausible to me…I am amazed by the numbers of big cats people have as pets here in the south.
Sorry, but if someone says they saw a “black panther,” it should be given the same credibility as someone who says they saw Bigfoot or a monster in the White River.
If there are any cougars left in the South, they are extremely rare. It would be astoundingly against the odds to have an extremely rare animal and it happens to have an extremely rare melanistic mutation.
People who track cougar sightings use the “was it black?” question as a flag to rule out the bogus ones.
An escaped exotic pet seems plausible to me…
The “escaped pet” theory comes up a lot, but it’s not credible to me.
Y’all, I’ll just go on record and say that while I believe there aren’t enough cougars left in Arkansas or Georgia to pose a safety hazard, I do think they’re coming back and may be here in limited numbers already.
Here are some reasonably credible examples of cougar sightings in the east:
http://easterncougarnet.org/Arkansas%20Democrat-Gazette%20%20National%20News.htm
That article says 100 known backyard breeders are operating without any oversight in Arkansas, and “of the eight we know escaped, all were killed or re-captured.”
Interesting Jaguar link, which documents the jaguar sightings in the southwest, primarily Arizona.
http://www.smithsonianmagazine.com/issues/2005/december/phenomena.php
In respect to Texas (my home state), it is common knowledge that there are Mountain lions, which have on occasion, been shot and killed by deer hunters. A friend of mine took at shot at one at over 400 yards last November while deer hunting on leased property only 3 hours west of Dallas.
http://www.countryworldnews.com/Editorial/CTX/2005/ct0818cats.htm
As for the ‘released/escaped’ pet theory, there are some truly bizarre stories coming from Texas hunters who lease and own property in Northern Mexico. More than one hunter has claimed to have seen a full grown African lion! The Mexican workers which maintain the hunter’s property year-round (i.e. cooks, ranch hands) state that Mexican drug lords purchased the animals as pets, and then released them into the wild when they got to be too much to handle! Of course these are only undocumented rumors, but fairly interesting anyways.
Here’s some information on the Missouri cats:
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2003/aug/13/car_hits_kills/
“But in the past nine years, the Missouri Department of Conservation has confirmed eight sightings of at least seven different mountain lions, including the one killed Monday night.
All indications are that the mountain lion killed Monday night had been living in the wild for some time, although it’s unclear if it migrated to Missouri or was released or escaped from captivity. There are 41 people licensed to own mountain lions in the state.
Dave Hamilton, a biologist with the Conservation Department, believes the wild mountain lions may be migrating from South Dakota, Colorado or Texas.
A western origination seems most likely, because mountain lion populations are strong there and young males have been known to travel hundreds of miles — often along waterways such as the Missouri River — to stake out their own territory, Hamilton said.
“We can say we have mountain lions roaming in Missouri without a doubt,” he said. “Right now, we don’t believe we have a breeding population in the state of Missouri. There’s no evidence that’s happening … But I suspect it will.””
I don’t think this is the confirmation newsletter the AGFC guy was talking about but it has some great information.
http://www.mdc.mo.gov/documents/nathis/mammals/mlion/missouri_mlion.pdf
I’ll keep looking.
Zach
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