OK, TX, AK, & MO Black Panther Sightings

[Indiogene]

A black panther species in Oklahoma? Sounds interesting. At least photographic evidence in this thread, and we need to examine if the pic has an authentic creature or it's a hoax.

Btw, I have family history in the Cherokee nation (Eastern OK), Osage county reservation and in the Tulsa area, and I never heard of the crypto-panther in the state until now.

[+Hammerclaw]

Heard about them as long as I've heard of Bigfoot and apparently, just as elusive.                                                                         http://karlshuker.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-truth-about-black-pumas-separating.html

[Okiemom]

you may be right, but there have been too many accounts by credible people that have seen them for me to categorize it in the same group as big foot and aliens. 

[Okiemom]

The picture that I posted isn’t a hoax. It was from the game camera of a neighbor of mine I know well. I didn’t pull it from the web. I can’t tell if it’s a calf or cat or something else but it is a true picture  

I’ve never heard of them called crypto panthers before. That’s interesting. We’ve always called them black panthers around here. 

There is a Cherokee and Choctaw here. 

[Pawman]

Osage county Oklahoma, and the "Tulsa" area are very different from the Oklahoma / Arkansas border. Completely different terrain, heavily forested, mountainous, low population of humans.

Panthers , cougars, are not "crypto" creatures at all.  Sasquatch is only "crypto" because there has never been an authenticated corpse given to the scientific community to examine and classify.

But by the way,  they are as real as humans an cougars, and typically call the same habitat home.

 

[+DanL]

This is a Black Jaguarundi. They are native from south Texas down into Mexico BUT have been seen as far East as Alabama. I saw a couple of "Black Panthers" on the dirt back roads around Huntsville Texas in the 80s and early 90s. A lot of people that lived around me saw them but Parks and Wildlife swore there is no such thing as a Black Panther and didn't offer anything except house cats and Black Lab dogs as possibilities. It turns out that this may well be a part of what people see. The ones I saw were not huge but they were a lot bigger than ANY house cat. Both were moving and were about 5 feet long. A cat moves differently than a dog so I knew that it wasn't a big dog. Finally this year I read an article about these odd cats. I never got the opportunity to really study the ones I saw so the differences that distinguish them from other cats like leopards and Jaguars were not noted. I'm pretty sure this is what we were seeing. 

Edited August 2, 2018 by DanL

[J pitman]

I've seen one I would guess around 140 lbs 2-3 feet high to shoulders around 5-6 feet long. Winter of 1999 in Afton, Ottawa County Oklahoma near 520 Rd and 265 Rd around Grandlake of the Cherokee. There was a game preserve in the area we ask if the had any large cats and they said no but one was in the area and had kill some of their elk.

[Resume]

Much more intriguing, and clearly lacking, would be black panther catchings in these states.  

[Pawman]

LOL.  Very, Very, Very rare to ever "trap" or "catch" a Cougar/panther in some sort of pen, even in areas where they are numerous. They are far too leary and Intelligent for that.  Trained cat hounds and tranq.darting is the way scientist are able to examine and put transmitters on them.

[Resume]

4 hours ago, Pawman said:

LOL.  Very, Very, Very rare to ever "trap" or "catch" a Cougar/panther in some sort of pen, even in areas where they are numerous. They are far too leary and Intelligent for that.  Trained cat hounds and tranq.darting is the way scientist are able to examine and put transmitters on them.

Leg hold snare and traps are used as well as:

Quote

Cage Traps. Large, portable cage traps are used by USDA-APHIS-Wildlife Services personnel in California to capture moutain lions that kill pets and livestock in suburban areas and on small rural holdings. The traps are constructed of 4-foot (120-cm) wide, 4-foot (120-cm) high, 10-foot (3-m) long welded-wire stock panels with 2 x 4-inch (5 x 10-cm) grid. The trap is placed where the mountain lion left the kill, and it is baited with the remains of the kill. See Shuler (1992) for details on this method.

 

And of course, there's the shooting method.

http://icwdm.org/handbook/carnivor/MountainLion.asp

[Pawman]

When a Mountain Lion has been encroached upon by human "development" of their habitat, and they have resorted to preying on pets in backyards, all bets are off as to how the animal will react due to lack of natural prey food and hunger..

Tranquilizing an animal has been proven to be far less stressful than using a cage trap.

A cougar in it's wild element with plenty of game to feed on would not likely fall for any cage trap.

 

[Resume]

4 hours ago, Pawman said:

 

A cougar in it's wild element with plenty of game to feed on would not likely fall for any cage trap.

 

Except for when they do.  I would suggest to you that all NA game animals are very "leary" of human encroachment on their habitat, since they've experienced it for at least 15 thousand years now.  Yet still, the whitetails fall for the nimrod in the tree stand, bears can help themselves when they find a 55 gallon bait drum, and elk can't resist a guy in camo with a sexy cow call, or a deep, loud bull challenge. Also, the mountain lion in a snare.

And all of this is besides the point that a black panther one could examine is a great deal more interesting (to me, anyway) than just a report (or reports) about a black panther.

Edited October 9, 2018 by Resume
grammar

[Pawman]

To compare prey animals like deer and elk to a top predator like a Cougar is idiotic at best.  Bears are scavengers that gorge themselves for 6+ months of the year on anything that smells remotely edible to them to survive hibernation.

Like I said, hunger will cause even a predatory animal to take risks they will not normally take when they have plenty of natural food present.

Since you are obviously a professional cougar trapper and expert on them, please share with us the many, numerous pics and video you have of mountain lions you've snared and trapped in all your ingenious ways.

[Resume]

2 minutes ago, Pawman said:

To compare prey animals like deer and elk to a top predator like a Cougar is idiotic at best.  Bears are scavengers that gorge themselves for 6+ months of the year on anything that smells remotely edible to them to survive hibernation.

Like I said, hunger will cause even a predatory animal to take risks they will not normally take when they have plenty of natural food present.

Since you are obviously a professional cougar trapper and expert on them, please share with us the many, numerous pics and video you have of mountain lions you've snared and trapped in all your ingenious ways.

Take it up with wildlife professionals.  As I edited above, I'm much more interested in the reality of what can be demonstrated in regards to "black panthers" than in what is claimed.

[Pawman]

wildlife "pros" that say there aren't any large predatory cats in some of the states listed on this thread header ; states that I have personally saw both Cougars and black colored large predatory cats in ????  No thanks.  I'll leave it to people such as yourself that believe what the so called experts say or type.

[Resume]

1 minute ago, Pawman said:

wildlife "pros" that say there aren't any large predatory cats in some of the states listed on this thread header ; states that I have personally saw both Cougars and black colored large predatory cats in ????  No thanks.  I'll leave it to people such as yourself that believe what the so called experts say or type.

Hey thanks.  Let me know when you -- or anyone-- captures a black panther from those states for folks to examine.  That's be great!

Say, you're not Boone Smith, are you?

[Pawman]

I would never attempt to capture or kill a big cat unless it was harming me or something of mine. If that ever happens I'll be sure not to contact you because it sounds like you have a really odd obsession with black panthers. If you are so keen to examine one perhaps you should spend more time in the woods in their habitat. Who knows maybe you might get to examine 1 up close, or it you.

[Farmer77]

I think with big cats its best to not be too dogmatic about these things. Jaguars didnt live in AZ according to the DF&G , despite the numerous reports annually, eventually they got the pics and all the people labeled crazy or hoaxers were proven right.

[Resume]

17 minutes ago, Farmer77 said:

 

I think with big cats its best to not be too dogmatic about these things. Jaguars didnt live in AZ according to the DF&G , despite the numerous reports annually, eventually they got the pics and all the people labeled crazy or hoaxers were proven right.

Not being dogmatic at all, but merely skeptical of a claim of multiple sightings of cougars and black panthers outside of their native ranges.  Also, bigfoot.  I understand cougars (especially young males) tend to stray far and wide, and I also aware that some folks release or "lose track" of their exotic pets.  People also lie about all sort of stuff; they hallucinate, misidentify, and are just plain wrong about what they think they see. A few years back there was an African lion roaming around Milwaukee, but after seeing a photo, and using a fence for scale, you could easily discern it was a tawny tomcat, and not a particularly large one either.

This whole discussion began when I opined that I'd much rather see an actual black panther than stories about one roaming about.

39 minutes ago, Pawman said:

 

 

[Saru]

Thread cleaned

Keep it civil please folks.

[Ares_Zeusson]

I don't really see why Jaguars wouldn't migrate to the states from time to time or why a Puma couldn't occasionally be black.

There's nothing weird about a black panther in the states, it's when they're spotted in someplace like Ireland that's kinda weird.

[Earl.Of.Trumps]

On 7/19/2018 at 12:14 AM, Okiemom said:

you may be right, but there have been too many accounts by credible people that have seen them for me to categorize it in the same group as big foot and aliens. 

LOL, so you are saying that people who see BigFoot and UFO's aren't credible!  Surely you jest 

[skrubby]

1 minute ago, Earl.Of.Trumps said:

LOL, so you are saying that people who see BigFoot and UFO's aren't credible!  Surely you jest 

What is the evidence though

[Earl.Of.Trumps]

1 minute ago, skrubby said:

What is the evidence though

Well, what is the evidence that black panther exists??  same damm thing.

Visual sightings imo, are a form of evidence. Now, that poster said that he believes that the black panther is real because the witnesses are credible (I'll take his word for that)  but ppl that see UFO's say, are what...? a bunch of jokesters?  Like the thousands that witnessed the UFO over LA 1943, or the thousands that saw the UFO's over Phoenix?

[skrubby]

2 minutes ago, Earl.Of.Trumps said:

Well, what is the evidence that black panther exists??  same damm thing.

Visual sightings imo, are a form of evidence. Now, that poster said that he believes that the black panther is real because the witnesses are credible (I'll take his word for that)  but ppl that see UFO's say, are what...? a bunch of jokesters?  Like the thousands that witnessed the UFO over LA 1943, or the thousands that saw the UFO's over Phoenix?

To be truthful eye witness accounts are useless the human memory can change at the whim of a single word that's why I don't believe any of it and one ufo account once was just a light up frisbee ironically