My Father in-law's brother just told us he saw a black panther, about knee high at the back, came in his back yard, checked out his chicken coup, and when the cat looked over and saw him, boogied. Supposedly it didn't have a tail. He has been sitting out on his back porch drinking coffee at about 10am this morning when he saw the cat. Said it didn't look like a Bobcat's head or ears. Google just comes up with a lot of articles by skeptics. This was in Kountze, TX.
Does anyone have any experience seeing one of these outside of a voting booth?
Lol. I was playing and don't even know where those counties are but there is such thing as jaguarundis down here and we definately have cougars. I don't know about out there but...
Lots of reports are coming in from Waller County of horses been clawed up and lots of pets disappearing. There's a professional trapper that was called in and he believes, from the evidence, that it's a black jaguar.
Before you laugh, nearly all of Texas was once jaguar range before they were killed off by cattle ranchers and professional hunters. Jaguars have a very large range and often travel hundreds of miles because of habitat destruction and fragmentation.
I've been in prime Jaguar habitat (Belize, Guatemala, Mexico, etc.) and have seen plenty of spotted jaguars but have only caught fleeting glimpse of the black ones. They are masters of stealth and could well be here in many areas without ever being seen.
The cell phone pictures are blurry.. But to professional wildlife tracker and trapped Jerry Hunt it's pretty clear this is no house cat.
"I think it's a black jaguar. They are coming from Mexico. Arizona has nine of them radio collared right now." Says Jerry Hunt.
He says they are native to Texas, but the last time one was bagged here was in 1932. They are the third largest species of cat behind lion and tiger..
Hunt has spent a lifetime in the woods tracking big cats. Farmer and ranchers pay him to trap and either kill or relocate predators.. When we showed you the pictures of a horse that had been mauled two weeks ago, his Facebook page lit up with comments..
He says there has been an uptick in the number of big cat attacks on livestock for a number of reasons. "We are encroaching in their neighborhood. We've been in a drought. the deep population has gone down a little bit which is their natural prey so they're are coming after whatever they can get right now."
The big cats have big territories too. They expand them in tough times. Here's what he finds so worrisome about these pictures. That they exist at all.
"They love to be hidden.. The Native Americans called them ghost cats. And if you they want to see them they you are in their territory.
He has only seen one in all his years of being in the woods.. This is considered the first level of aggression from these animals... a warning.. a warning only fools would choose to ignore...
"Somebody's going to get hurt. I just hope it's not a child."
I believe it. I've posted it here before, but I've got a buddy who has a resident black panther on his land. I know they're supposed to be nomadic and have a huge range, but I've seen that black cat twice now. They have a large plot of land with tons of deer that rarely gets hunted so I think that's huge part of why it sticks around. The last time I saw it we were hog hunting and I had my trusty .300 BLK on me. It walked across a sendero no more than 100yds away from us. I could've ground checked him/her, but dang it's hard to bring yourself to kill an animal like that, as rare as it is. Plus I think the land owner might have killed me if I did.
Never been a documented case of a melanistic cougar, but that doesn't mean there can't be a first.
There have been black jaguarundi's and of course black jaguars. Jaguars, including the black ones, once roamed nearly all of Texas. They especially like bottomlands.
Here is a nice mature cougar. I wouldnt kill it, but I would mount it. In my den, bedroom, man cave, outside in the pool, against the wall in the kitchen :doowapsta
That is a nice pelt!
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My Father in-law's brother just told us he saw a black panther, about knee high at the back, came in his back yard, checked out his chicken coup, and when the cat looked over and saw him, boogied. Supposedly it didn't have a tail. He has been sitting out on his back porch drinking coffee at about 10am this morning when he saw the cat. Said it didn't look like a Bobcat's head or ears. Google just comes up with a lot of articles by skeptics. This was in Kountze, TX.
Does anyone have any experience seeing one of these outside of a voting booth?
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