“Panthers”
- This topic has 81 replies, 23 voices, and was last updated Feb 22, 2007 at 3:45 pm by
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Yes, I now realize they are yellow in color and I understand that they are now believed to be limited to a very small region in southern Florida. BUT it is a fact that their range used to be recognized as extending as far as Arkansas. Now what I heard could have easily been a different species but the Florida Panther did roam here once and there has even been talk of reintroducing it since it is having so much trouble down there in Florida.
Agreed…never meant to imply otherwise.
If you ask around, you will literally hear about hundreds of sightings in Florida, as far north as the panhandle. I have family down there, and every one of them will tell you a panther story.
Writing from south Louisiana, at the mouth of the Atchafalaya River and the southern edge of the river basin that covers 3,000 square miles.
About 20 years ago, my buddy and I were fishing near dusk deep in the basin and we heard the cry of a panther, though we didn’t know what it was then. Scared us half to death. Almost an instant later, we saw it pass along a clearing on the bank. It was black, and it was big. It was in plain sight for about thirty seconds, maybe 45. It never looked at us, but it kinda stared ahead of us, as if interested in something we weren’t able to see or were aware of. Then it was gone in the cypress thicket.
I never saw or heard another. But I also live on the edge of a federal black bear refuge which is supposedly teeming with black bears, and in my entire life as an outdoorsman, I’ve only seen one, and that one was dead on a highway having been hit by a truck.
Roger Stouff
LouisianaYeah, I’ve heard (and seen) bobcats too but what I heard was no bobcat. Most bobcats aren’t that much bigger than a large barn cat but, yes, they could be responsible for some reports I’d imagine.
Bobcats can get up to 30 lbs. and have been known to take down deer on rare occasions. So they can get substantially bigger (and louder, and tougher) than a barn cat.
I remember back when I was in high school, someone released an alligator in the lake I live on. There were scores of sightings, with people putting the gator’s length anywhere from 8 to 12 feet. When it was finally trapped by game wardens, it was a baby, not even 3 feet long. The local news ran a hilarious bit where they played video of witness after witness talking about how huge the gator was, superimposed over a picture of the game warden holding the baby gator toward the camera.
My point is that when people get excited and see something they’re not used to seeing, their accounts of what they see, and how big it is, aren’t very reliable. A big bobcat sighted by someone who’s never seen one, and who’s just heard a terrifyingly loud scream like they’ve never heard before, could easily become a sighting of a much larger “panther.”
Of course, that still doesn’t explain all the people swearing they’ve seen big black panthers, since neither the bobcats nor the panthers (cougars) are black. They’re seeing an animal that does not exist.
bd
or at least an animal that YOU don’t think exists, that forest ranger who swam across the river might beg to differ.
It’s a BIG long shot to say there are wild mountain lions at all in South Carolina, where that incident happened. But on top of that, we’re supposed to believe a population of these extremely rare animals has survived AND it also has an extremely rare melanistic mutation that has never been scientifically documented?
Let me give an example. Suppose I claim that I saw an Ivory Billed Woodpecker in the woods of Tennessee. Now Ivory Bills have been officially extinct in Tennessee since 1920, but people claim they’re still out there. But on top of that, I claim the one I saw was also an albino! The odds would be so far against that being true that it would be impossible.
Besides, there has never, ever been a scientifically documented case of melanism in cougars. There are no photos of a black cougar, even in captivity. People who claim to have seen one have never been able to produce any physical evidence. You might as well be looking for a Yeti.
Jaguars exhibit melanism (rarely), but they wouldn’t be found in the wild anywhere within a thousand miles of the Chatooga. If the ranger is claiming he was attacked by a black jaguar, well, that’s pretty hard to believe.
I’m sorry to have to be the skeptic in this thread.
My opinion is that the cougars people report as black are not, in fact, black, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t cougars.
On the other hand, the guy is a biologist. To give an example, that’s like flashing a card with a picture of a car on it and then asking a professional car designer at Ford and me to identify the make and model. Chances are, the Ford employee is going to be accurate, or more accurate, and I am not.
The Ford employee would be more likely to get the color right, too. 😉
Okay, I’m done.
bd
I don’t think this guy was seeing things…
Well, Brian, if you really are that interested and you promise to play nice, I’ll tell you this story.
Cool Zach. I drive through Alabam all the time taking a short cut from Rogers to Harrison. Did you know Turpentine Wildlife park is just up the road on HWY 23 about 15 miles going towards Eureka? They take in all manner of big cats from pet owners and circuses, etc. [By the way you can pay them to do photo shoots with tigers. Let me know if you are ever interested, maybe we could get a 2 party discount for an arm and a leg
This is due to public policy of not either stirring up local hunters to kill as many cats as they can or scaring residents of the expanding suburbs of Northwest Arkansas, where the cats are most likely to be.
That’s one certainty in this whole thing – if the cats do turn up, there will be a lot of people trying to wipe them right back out.
I don’t think this guy was seeing things…
back to something Zach said earlier.
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