I always wondered why I never saw a black Panther

[Cajun]

So You Say You Saw A Black Panther? Here’s Why I Don’t Believe You. ---Guest Post---

A Black Panther (i.e. a melanistic Jaguar).
Photo by Bruce McAdam.
    Black panthers have been part of modern lore in the United States for more than 100 years, despite the lack of any compelling evidence of their existence. As executive director of the Cougar Network, which is the only research non-profit that studies cougar range expansion in North America, I am frequently sent photos of misidentified felines and also often hear stories about black panther sightings. So for exactly this reason, the Cougar Network adheres to a scientifically rigorous standard to ensure that cougar observations are legitimate. Specifically, we want to see photos, tracks, DNA evidence, or video of the animals under consideration; we simply can’t accept sighting data because it’s often unreliable. And this isn’t to say people aren’t seeing a cougar when it’s reported to me – based on research I’ve done, we know they are recolonizing the midwestern part of the U.S. – it’s just that we can’t verify anything based on a story alone.

    However, black panther sightings are a little different than sightings of a regular old cougar – reporting something like a black panther is more akin to reporting Big Foot or the Loch Ness monster – outside of the rare instance of an escaped pet or a zoo animal, I’m quite skeptical. If black panthers existed in the wild in the United States, we should at the very least be seeing them killed on roads. For example, only one male (frequently photographed) cougar inhabited a small area outside of LA until it was just recently killed by a car. But we don’t see black panthers as road kill at all, ever. For that reason alone, I maintain skepticism when I hear black panther stories. But that’s not the only reason: 

    There is no compelling evidence that a single wild “black panther” has ever existed in United States. The largest cat in the United States, and in fact the fourth largest cat in the world, is the mountain lion (Puma concolor) – also known as cougar, catamount, painter, and in Florida, panther. Adult cougars are about 120-150 pounds, have tawny or brown coats, and with the exception of the endangered Florida panther population and a few solitary and long-distance travelers, live in the western part of the country. Cougars have been hunted for centuries and are one of the best-studied animals on the planet, yet there has never been a cougar documented displaying melanism. Melanism is a genetic variation that results in excess pigmentation turning the coat entirely black, and this variation just isn’t part of a cougar’s genetic make-up. So, you see, there has never been such thing as a black mountain lion.


Black Panther (i.e., a melanistic Leopard).
Photo from Wikimedia.
    So, when most of us think about a black panther we’re actually envisioning either a melanistic jaguar (which live in South America) or a melanistic leopard (which live in Africa or Asia – think Bagheera from “The Jungle Book”), both of which are huge cats with black coats. These are the only animals that legitimately fit the “black panther” description and they simply don’t live in the United States (it is true that jaguars are native to North America and a couple of individual animals may still be hanging on in extreme southwestern United States, but in modern history these animals were restricted to the southwestern extent of the country so we can’t use them to explain why people see Black Panthers). And any cat in the United States that’s even close to being large enough to be confused with a leopard would be a cougar – and they’re not black. So why are people absolutely convinced that’s what they are seeing?

    It turns out perception isn’t entirely objective. In other words, your brain is messing with you. Remember “The Dress” – the viral phenomenon that hit social media earlier this year? This is a perfect example of what I mean when I say perception isn’t objective. I can almost guarantee if you talked about The Dress, you found at least one person who saw an entirely different color than you did. That’s because the color you see, as it turns out, depends on context. Some of us were primed to see the dress in a daylight setting, making it look white with orange trim (that was me!). Others could only see it as dark blue because their eyes were primed to view it as being indoors or in a darker setting (the actual color of the dress was blue). This Wired article does a great job explaining this phenomenon. Similarly then, photographs of animals in the trees, bushes, or shadows look a lot darker than they do when they are in broad daylight; and sightings of “black panthers” early in the morning or late in the evening are caused by the low lighting and shadows cast at that time of the day. All this might seem obvious, but this simple fact is more deceiving than you’d think. Our brains are quite good at tricking us into seeing something we’re not. And if that’s the case, then what are these people seeing?


The story behind this picture is here. The house cat looks even
bigger than it really is because it is closer to camera than the
cougar, a camera trick called forced perspective.
    Most often it’s house cats. First of all, many of the photos I’ve seen are just too blurry to confidently identify to species. But one thing I can’t stress enough about house cats is how small they are in comparison to a cougar, which again is the only cat in the U.S. remotely the same size as a leopard. To put it in perspective, if a large house cat was measured at 12” at the shoulders, it wouldn’t even come up to the top of most car tires, which are about 16” high. A cougar, on the other hand, can be 30” high – putting its shoulders at about the height of the front hood of that same car. They’re gigantic, and I genuinely think most folks aren’t accustomed to the size difference; our search image – the way our brains expect different items to look – just isn’t calibrated to seeing that big of a cat. This might be why the majority of cougar reports I receive are from areas where cougars haven’t lived for more than 100 years. Most people in those areas (usually the eastern U.S.) haven’t ever seen a wild cougar (or jaguar or leopard for that matter) and I think excitement rises when trail cameras or fuzzy videos reveal a feline (even a large feline) in the woods.

    So what do you do if you’re convinced you saw something strange?  My advice is always to stop and think for a second: does what I just saw make sense? What else could it have been? What is the most reasonable explanation? In science, that’s what we call parsimony: the idea that we shouldn’t go looking for complex explanations when a simple one will suffice.  And if a simple explanation won’t do the trick – on rare occasions it doesn’t – then there must be mountains of corroborating evidence to back up the complex explanation.

    So if your neighbor’s cousin’s girlfriend’s dad swears up and down he saw a black panther run across the yard out of the corner of his eye at 5:30 last Thursday morning, think about it. Does that really make sense? What else could have caught his attention out of the corner of his eye that early in the morning? I’ll give you a hint: unless he lives in the Brazilian Pantanal or the forests of India, it was not a black panther.

    It was probably a house cat or a black lab.



    Michelle LaRue is a research ecologist and public speaker at the University of Minnesota, and is also the executive director of the Cougar Network, which is the only research non-profit that focuses on cougar range expansion in North America. Michelle focuses her own research on the spatial ecology of mammals and birds in many ecosystems, including cougars, penguins, seals, and polar bears. Her work has been covered by hundreds of international media outlets such as the BBC, NBC Nightly News, Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, and Scientific American.

[Jmesonp1]

I'm always being told stories of black panthers around here. People will get plum angry with you when you don't believe them. I spend a ton of time in the outdoors and have never even seen a big cat track of any kind much less a black one. 

[Slim9797]

There's a place I hunt that the guy across the road swears up and down he saw a black panther drag a dead deer across the road one morning from about 120 yards away like 3 years ago. I hunt another place about a mile down the road and last winter the owner supposedly got a picture of a mountain lion on trail cam. And one night I was out there hunting alone, and I swore up and down I heard a mountain lion screaming. The dogs were acting real sketchy. Made the hair on the back of my neck stand up and you best bet I shortened up that Bulldogs lead. I believe I called Cscott that night about it.


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[parker49]

I've seen 2 one when I was about 15 years  old me and my daddy was in a truck in ragley Louisiana on a farm we were doing some work on ....early in the morning e rode to the back to a creek where we had built a bridge across a creek ...coming up to the bridge we seen what looked like a brindle looking dog sitting on side the right of way ahead  of  us about 300 yards ....I said its a big brindle dog ....we  got closer  it stood up and walked across a open road about 50 feet wide ......it had a long tail hanging to the ground ...it was a huge  cat and was dark colored with lighter brown splotches kinda like you see from a pastured black horse  .......no doubt it was not what I see on tv as a mountain lion ...... I seen one walking down a fence row  one time when we was bailing hay it sure looked black to me .....I know they say there is none but the one by the bridge was black and a big cat ....I asked my daddy  if I could  head  it off and that creek open fields on each side we had a 22 rifle  he said  no its  just mind'n its  own business .....

[Judge peel]

The same reason you ain't see big foot. You know if these legends where really out there some one would have bayed or treed one and shot it. And that's plain and simple to many hunters in America not to have got one in the last 100 yrs.


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[Slim9797]

I'm with judge on that one. If there was a big foot in my woods my trashy mutts woulda ran it at some point


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[BOBDOG]

Ok I have to tell my black panther story.
A bunch of years back I was hog hunting with a friend in the Sam Houston National forest horseback. Up ahead oh fifty yards or so I saw something black bound across the trail. It was strange because my first thought was a hog because it was black but a milisecond later my brain said, That didn't move like a hog. It literally bounded. So I look over at my buddy and he said, "Did you see that, that was not a hog." I said " I did, what color did you see?" He said black. Well before we got up to where we had seen it an older dog and two young dogs came running up on us checking in from behind. Well the ran on past us and when they got to where we had seen it, the two young dogs ran the track for a little ways but the old dog would not. Panther? I don't know. But it was black, moved like a cat and the trash broke hog dog would not run the track.

[Not color blind]

I've followed all kinds of dogs since I was old enuf that my grandpa thot I could keep up, and that was earlier than I can remember well, use to get on a bobcat from time to time with coon hounds and that always seem to turn n to an all nite thing, bayed a pack of coyotes 1 time with my cow dogs, miles and hours have turned in to years! My lifetime hoghunting partner and I always get a kick outa taking deer hunters hoghunting on their leases and the looks on their faces when they realize we know more about their leases than they do! With that being said never have I seen a hair, scat, track or an actual black cat. Not saying they are not there SOMEWERE. 40+ yrs chasing!cussing!praising!loving,hating them old number 2eaters!

[K-Bar]

I won't say I have seen one because the two times I THINK I have I wasn't sure. I will say however that I saw a large cat track about a half mile south of your house a few years ago Jmesonp1. This was before you moved down here. I took a picture of it with a skoal can in it but the sun made it hard to see. Like I said, I can't say I've seen one; but I know people that have that aren't lying. As far as that goes, I don't see bobcats as often as you should for as many as there are around. Seldom see their tracks either. I know people that live in the badlands of SD, that is the most dense lion population in the United States so I hear, and they've never seen one. Red has a plaster cast of one from north of here a little way that he's had for years. He told the woman it was just a big dog track because for years the government guys had to deny they were here or they'd get fired. Till I see one with my own eyes I won't 100% say they are here but I know in my mind they are and have been periodically for years. Not a population of them perhaps but individual lions travelling at least. People didn't think we had bears in Oklahoma either for years.

PS: I also believe in Sasquatch. I saw him walking through my kitchen last night after his shower! haha

[parker49]

all I can say is I'd be  one of the first and have said if there was  something in these woods with all the deer camera's and people sitting in trees  somebody would have seen it ....BUT I know what I seen 34 years ago it was a big black cat with lighter splotches on it ....maybe somebody spray painted it  I don't  know but there's no doubt what it was ..... the one I seen while bailing hay I am not positive it was a big cat and looked black it was a ways off .... also every once in  a while somebody kills a snow white deer but if you was to say you seen one people  would  say  awh  they ain't nothing like that around  here .....

[jdt]

i have been playing working and hunting in the woods in west tn for nearly 40 years . i have never seen a panther much less a black one .  however i've never seen a bobcat but twice without dogs .
        for years panthers didn't exist here according to the wildlife people until one was caught on trail cam video and put on channel 4 news ... now they exist     my dad grandmother sister inlaw and several other neighbors have seen them both black and yeller , just like these yeller dogs sometimes throw a black pup. my grandaddy who grew up in central florida in the 20 s and 30 s said panthrs do the same .


there is no documented scientific evidence of a black panther .

there is no documented scientific evidence that i took a schitt this morning either .....


but i did !!! .... twice  

[jdt]

i have been playing working and hunting in the woods in west tn for nearly 40 years . i have never seen a panther much less a black one .  however i've never seen a bobcat but twice without dogs .
        for years panthers didn't exist here according to the wildlife people until one was caught on trail cam video and put on channel 4 news ... now they exist     my dad grandmother sister inlaw and several other neighbors have seen them both black and yeller , just like these yeller dogs sometimes throw a black pup. my grandaddy who grew up in central florida in the 20 s and 30 s said panthrs do the same .


there is no documented scientific evidence of a black panther .

there is no documented scientific evidence that i took a schitt this morning either .....


but i did !!! .... twice  

[Shotgun wg]

I saw a big cat many years ago. At the time I woulda put a hand on a bible it was black. Today I feel it was an effect of the light and fog combined with the moisture on the grass getting the fur wet causing it to appear darker. 


Shotgun
Arkansas

[Reuben]

I saw a big cat many years ago. At the time I woulda put a hand on a bible it was black. Today I feel it was an effect of the light and fog combined with the moisture on the grass getting the fur wet causing it to appear darker. 


Shotgun
Arkansas

Like a deer or coyote...in the sun they shine...in the shadows they disappear and actually darken quite a bit...

[Cajun]

Shotgun, We were running a big boar hog one day & it crossed the road a 100 or so yards from us & I would have swore it was black. Bayed it a few hundred yards from the road & went in & caught it & it was a red hog. Distance & shade will sure make something appear darker.

[HIGHWATER KENNELS]

Been in the woods all my life and I aint never seen one either but I can tell you this,,,, Predators will always be smarter than prey and I can promise you that there are mature bucks dying of old age in some woods across this country,, so I believe it is possible for the same to happen to these cats since they are very smart...

[bigo]

What makes me skeptical is there seems to be many more black ones seen than the normal color. This alone should raise a red flag about the validity of black panthers. There has never been one treed, shot, captured or proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to exist. East Texas has had people for over 2 hundred years and thousands of black panther stories, yet when they hunted the lions to near extinction, no black ones were treed or killed. I think because of there color, they appear dark in low light or shadows and brown in light, so they blend in with the surroundings.

[jdt]

well my grandmother saw a big black cat in her yard 2 days in a row . it was as big as a lab , dark grey almost black with a tale as long as the cat . i saw a video of exactly what she described on the dicovery channel in a backmyard in pa. some have said it was a south american jagurundi . i don't know , around here any big cat is called a panther , painter or wampus cat .

my preacher had a big cat kill a king bred mare and eat the colt out of her , the neighbor said it was black . all i've ever seen is tracks and trail cam pics , but then again i've never seen a flying squirrel either . and i've spent wore time in the woods than anybody my age or most anybody period for that matter .

[Judge peel]

There thousands upon thousands of people in the woods on a daily basis and every one has cell phones with better camera then ever. Tons of hunters shoot every kind of game that there is yet there are no black cougars shot in the us or big foot grass man chubacabra just saying. I have heard all the tall tells from pa nc tn and tx theses same people believe in zombies lol


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[Hog Dog Mike]

I am an old man and have heard about them all my life. When I was a kid I heard about what they called "loafer wolves". Never seen either one of them and I have hunted over most of Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Arkansas, and Louisiana.

I have seen exactly 1 cougar as it went across a right of way. I have seen several bobcats. AND, I traveled in my job and spent lots of time on the road. We had one cougar move onto our lease in west Texas. I never saw it but a couple of guys on the lease did. I did see fresh tracks. I have seen more bears than I have cougars but none of them were in Texas.

I have seen plenty of coyotes but never a wolf and that includes hunting out west and up north.

My guess is that when they are spotted it is alcohol or drug related.