I seen 2 exotic cats!

[nc.hunter]

Hey guys, yesterday me and my brother waited for about a half our at dusk and finally we seen the cat again, It was huge even at 50-60 yards it looked 2 times the size of a house cat, but about 10 minutes later we seen another one! It was black too, It was about 3 times the size of a housecat. We video taped them, but they look like black blobs at that distants. They both headed over a hill to the cow pasture, maybe he has been lossing some cows. Really crazy evening.

[elmer fudd]

you should have pulled out a gun with a realy realy good scope on it and popped um just so you could look at them!

[big boomer]

They claim there are no black panthers or cougers in NC but people keep seeing them so it would be nice to have proof shootone next time if you can.(If legal)

[SwedeSteve]

Too bad you don't have access to a good camera with a long telephoto.

[estNC]

I live on the outskirts of Kinston, NC. Not too long ago word was that the wildlife people let out some panthers not too far from here. About 5 days ago, my neighbor said he seen a huge black cat out near the edge of the woods. I was skpetical at first, figurin he was exaggeratin a bit. I went over the next day to look for some prints, and sure enough there were some nice 2 1/2 to 3 inch prints in the mud. Anyone know anything i dont? I'm guessing it was a panther considering the word of mouth and the prints. Any other kind of big cats around that may not be panthers? Ill go back and see if i can get some decent photos to post.

[Mike Franklin]

You should do a cast of the prints. Thet's enough to id a big cat. See if you can find where it, or they, cross under a fence. There might be hairs caught where they'd rub against the fence.

[Ballbearing]

About a year after my family moved out here on the acreage we live on now, My Grandmother threw out some old chicken and that night she heard what she described as "a sound like a woman screaming" and looked out the kitchen window and saw a really big black cat eating the chicken out of the dumped over trash barrel. She said it looked just like a mountain lion, except it was jet black, head to tail. The Cat took the chicken in it's mouth and beat feet into the forest. None of us ever saw it again. But i have seen both Bobcats and Lynx. My Grandmother, who recently left us for Heaven, lived through the great depression and fought the homefront war while my Grandfather drove an Army ambulance across Europe. She was not a woman given to flights of fancy.

[Jersey Jailer]

Were panthers ever indigenous to the US? I thought they were from Central and South America

[valalor]

good read. this was pulled off of wikipjedia.

Reports of black cougars in the United States
In Florida, a few melanistic bobcats have been captured; these have also apparently been mistaken for panthers. Ulmer (1941) presents photographs and descriptions of two animals captured in Martin County in 1939 and 1940. In the photographs, they appear black, and one of the hunters called them black. However,

The Academy specimen, upon close examination, is far from black. The most heavily pigmented portions are the crown and dorsal area. In most lights these areas appear black, but at certain angles the dorsal strip has a decidedly mahogany tint. The mahogany coloring becomes lighter and richer on the sides. The underparts are lightest, being almost ferruginous in color. The chin, throat and cheeks are dark chocolate-brown, but the facial stripes can be seen clearly. The limbs are dark mahogany. In certain lights the typical spot-pattern of the Florida bobcat can be distinctly seen on the side, underparts and limbs. The Bronx Park animal appears darker and the spots are not visible, although the poor light in the quarantine cage may have been the reason.[2]

Adult male bobcats are 28–47 in (70–120 cm) long, with a short, bobbed tail, and are 18–24 in (45–60 cm) high at the shoulder. Females are slightly smaller. Florida cougars are 23–32 in (60–80 cm) at the shoulder and 5–7 ft (1.5–2.1 m) long, including the tail. Bobcats weigh 16–30 lb (7–14 kg) while Florida cougars are 50–150 lb (23–70 kg).
Another possible explanation for black cougar sightings is the jaguarundi, a cat very similar genetically to the cougar, which grows to around 30 in (75 cm) with an additional 20 in (50 cm) of tail. Their coat goes through a reddish-brown phase and a dark grey phase. While their acknowledged natural range ends in southern Texas, a small breeding population was introduced to Florida in the 1940s, and there are rumors of people breeding them as pets there as well. In Central America, they are known as relatively docile pets, as far as non-domesticated animals go. The male jaguarundi's home range can be up to 100 km² (39 sq mi) while the female's home range can be as large as 20 km² (8 sq mi). It has been suggested that very small populations of jaguarundi, which rarely venture out of deep forests, are responsible for many or most of the supposed black cougar sightings. While they are significantly smaller than a cougar, differently colored, and much lower to the ground (many note a resemblance to the weasel), memory bias could explain many of the sightings in the southeastern U.S.
Another possibility would be the black jaguar which ranged into North America in historical memory. Melanistic jaguars are uncommon in nature and, significantly, jaguars in general were persecuted to near-extinction in the 1960s. Though they do not look exactly like cougars, they have the requisite size; it is conceivable that there could be a breeding population hidden in, for example, the Louisiana bayou. The jaguar has had several (photographically) confirmed, and many unconfirmed, sightings in Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and southwest Texas, but not beyond that region

[tippmann7]

n.c hunter-if your seeing them alot, try and get a good pic of em, dont go to close because if it is in fact a big cat you would be in trouble lol......i wouldnt realy recomend shooting them because im sure if you did there would be some sort of trouble you would be in.

[Coeloptera]

Well legally, if it goes for you and you have to shoot it, you're usually in the clear. Happens with mountain lions every so.

Insofar as I am aware, mountain lions don't come in melanistic, so that's unlikely. Also remember, 3 times the size of a housecat still isn't a very big animal. Maine coons can hit 27 pounds, most people aren't used to seeing a cat that size.

The problem with cat sightings at a distance is that the body types of felines tend to be so similar across species and size ranges that scale can easily become distorted. For all intents and purposes, a mountain lion and a caracal have fairly similar proportions, for instance, even though a caracal weighs 40 lbs and the mountain lion 4 times that.

Huh, but you've seen a real-live urban legend.

Not likely to be actual jaguars, Jersey Jailer. They've never lived so far north and frankly, they're huge. Third-biggest existing cat, in fact. Unless they escaped from a preserve or dumb owner and were still young, they'd have to be something else.

But eastNC, what sort of cat did the wildlife folks let out? "Panther" unfortunately, is sort of a catch-all term. You're talking mountain lions? Like I said before, they don't come in black- literally no documented reports of melanistic specimens, ever. But the paw-size sounds about right, mountain lions have biggish feet for their size.

Well I am intrigued. I'm also with Mike Franklin, go see if you can find some prints and make casts. Once you have those, IDing them won't be too difficult.

All we got out here in Vegas are bobcats, occasionally they come into the city, though. Although I did find the funniest set of tracks in the desert north of the city once. Set of perfect bobcat tracks acoss the sand intersected a set of desert mouse tracks by a bush, scuffled sand, set of cat tracks moving off at a walk. They were picture perfect...wish I'd had a camera at the time.

Keep us updated!

- Coeloptera

[Mike Franklin]

While I don't mind a cougar the jaguar is awhole 'nother ball of wax. They are confirmed man killers and except for maybe a big bear, are capable of killing anything in North America.

[Coeloptera]

Originally Posted by Mike Franklin

While I don't mind a cougar the jaguar is awhole 'nother ball of wax. They are confirmed man killers and except for maybe a big bear, are capable of killing anything in North America.

Thankfully we don't have them in North America. I would never want to be confronted with one. People have scared and fought mountain lions off. Jaguars? People just survive an attack if they're lucky.

Although there is this guy: Man Kills Leopard With Bare Hands - [tmbchr]?

73 year old Kenyan farmer killed a leopard with his bare hands. This story is verifiable and multiply-sourced.

Hard. Core.

(edit) Not that mountain lions are to be laughed at: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...inlion05m.html

- Coeloptera

[Mike Franklin]

There have been several sightings, confirmed, of Jaguars in southern Arizina and New Mexico. There are several teams, working on horseback, trying to get more photos and maybe even tag one.

[Coeloptera]

Originally Posted by Mike Franklin

There have been several sightings, confirmed, of Jaguars in southern Arizina and New Mexico. There are several teams, working on horseback, trying to get more photos and maybe even tag one.

Links? I had no idea they'd gotten that far north. I wonder what they're eating...they usually go for bigger prey animals.

Yeah, yeah, zoology buff (although my special emphasis is entomology), at least I've gotten to see a lot of the things I'm into. Never one of those wild, though.

- Coeloptera

[tippmann7]

Originally Posted by Coeloptera

Also remember, 3 times the size of a housecat still isn't a very big animal. Maine coons can hit 27 pounds, most people aren't used to seeing a cat that size.


- Coeloptera

for what its worth my cat weighs 21 pounds and alot of people thinks he is EXTREMLY big but i dont realy see him bein that big but yea people who arnt used to big cats can think that a large kitty is something else.

[Txhillbilly]

As the former owner of a Mountain Lion,Bengal Tiger and 14 Grey Wolves, the cats that yall are seeing are more than likely exotic pets that someone turned loose. People get these animals for stupid reasons,and then they grow and become a big problem and expense and unless you know exotic animal breeders you cannot easily find someone that will take it when you cannot handle them. I used to do educational seminars at schools and with the Tx. P&W dept. and actually got the moutain lion from them,it was caught in the wild at about 8-10 wks old,and was hell on wheels,it knew what is was and you could not ever let your guard down. He weighed 150+ full grown and was so strong he could hurt you without putting any effort into it. The bad part about these animals is they have been Humanized and are not afraid of people. Be very careful if you are anywhere near these animals,they can be on you in an instant.

[Rambo]

One of the only true Black Panthers of North America.

[K.H.]

Well, from the size you described I think what you saw was a bobcat if you have them down there, they are all over the place where I live, and sometimes they are a very dark gray color that can look black depending on the lighting.

[DWFan]

The truth is that we don't know what's really out there; "guesstimations" are the best we can do. It is unlikely but entirely possible exotic animals live in once remote locations that now aren't that remote due to development. They just recently found an entire colony of low-land gorillas in Africa they had no idea existed. It wouldn't surprise me in the least that big cats exist in America, decendants of escaped animals or animals simply dumped because the owner couldn't handle them once they were grown.