Pictures of hogs so we know this story is true.

Its true

I don't go to parties to talk about imaginary Unicorns, Black Panthers, Sasquatch, Fairy Dust, Lost gold mines, etc....

I will leave that to the folks so pathetic that this is their only source of entertainment or conversation.

So, yeah....I could suck all the fun right out that kind of room.

Not a mountain lion, but Canada just had its first reported melanistic lynx.

This came out in the journal Mammalia. https://www.researchgate.net/public..._melanism_in_Canada_lynx_Lynx_canadensis

Here is an article showing video...
https://phys.org/news/2022-10-black-canada-lynx.html

Before somebody says that if it can happen in lynx, it can happen in mountain lions, well maybe. However, it isn't like everyone and their cousin in Canada has seen or knows folks that have seen these things. There is no black lynx mythos in Canada like there is for black panthers here.

So I still have to fall back on the side of logic. How come so many people claim to see these black panthers, including hunters, so they are apparently super duper common, and yet we don't have a single body either through hunting, trapping, roadkills, etc.?

No question about that one. Pretty dang cool!

Only black panther parties.

I've hunted and killed numerous bobcats, one mountain lion (in colorado) and dozens upon dozens of feral cats. One mid day in Coleman county, I had a long black cat ( 4 ft from snout to tip of tail) stop in the middle of the road about 20 yards from me. Had no idea what the hell it was. Short legs, long tail, strange head. Maybe a juvenile mountain lion?

Googled a picture of a jaguarundi. I could have taken the same picture. They are known to live along our southern border into mexico and south america.

Maybe they are more widespread than is currently understood. And could definitely lead to an incorrect report of a black panther.

OK....lets run with that.

Certainly Jaguarundi exist, they are known to be present in Deep South Texas. Some are even dark gray (almost charcoal) though that is not their most prominent color.

But for arguments sake....lets say someone (Maybe even you) saw one...and saw one well outside their normal 'known' range.

I can accept the idea of a 'few' Jaguarundi sightings and them being mistaken for a 'Black Panther'. But NOT thousands of sightings ALL over Texas let alone the rest of the lower 48.

So how do you reconcile this? An animal even rarer than a Mountain Lion, one with the Black/Dark Gray color phase being seen by so many people. What are the chances?

How many people have even seen an ordinary Mountain Lion in the wild (of which there are many more than Jaguarundi) and of which we KNOW have a huge range (from Canada down to South America).

But we are to believe that somehow the dark Jaguarundi have secretively expanded their range and that this could be the answer to the Black Panthers.

Its amazing to me that folks labor so....to keep this myth alive.

It will be a myth until one walks out in front of you. Hope you can keep it to yourself. Not fun being called a delusional liar.

No, it will still be a myth until somebody produces a body, just like with Bigfoot.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof and that just doesn't exist for either.

Here are some photos from work I have done on some ranches in South Texas.

So you got a blob and two cat images in silhouette in the shade against a really bright background. The cat in the silhouette images could be green, pink, or purple and we would never know for certain, though the little bit of light on the cat's back would indicate it may be a lighter color.

Not my video, but pretty amazing. Note how small the head is compared to the body. Mountain lions have very large heads.

Your comments reveal your lack of knowledge on field i.d.

Jaguarundis have very unique shape heads and bodies, as do bobcats, mountain lions, deer, and bears.

This thread is really finding its legs now!

I will add to this discussion that a couple of years ago a ranch owner contacted me about a ranch hand killing two jaguarundis. The ranch hand thought they were small mountain lions and brought them to the owner. He knew what they were and called me knowing my efforts to help the cats. Long story made short, we never could work out an agreement with the bureaucracy at USFWS to turn them over.

That event caused some internal shakeup and today I should be able to work out a transfer. Another ranch had a hunter who killed an ocelot thinking it was a bobcat. That information was turned over successfully for everyone.

But understand, there is a strong effort to refuse to accept new evidence of jaguarundis. There is a very organized effort underway by large companies doing business in South Texas to have jaguarundis, ocelots, and some other endangered species declared extinct or soon to be extinct and removed from federal protection so they can do their dirty deeds without consequence.

There is a very well developed and organized plan to turn Port Aransas to Corpus Christi into the next Houston Ship Channel for major industrial development. That plan will result in more condemnation of private lands for pipelines, power lines, roads, and other infrastructure.

The Space X operations at Boca Chica have run ocelots out of the Laguna Atascosa NWR where the population has declined by half in just a few years.

The politicians have USFWS and TPWD turn a blind eye.

As always, private landowners are the best stewards of land and wildlife in this state.

I am very fortunate to be able to see some incredibly beautiful ranches and help them protect their land, water, and animals.

There are some very rare plants and animals on some of these ranches with owners doing their best everyday to save them.

I sat at a table with a ranch owner who lived a modest life living in a mobile home on a beautiful property, which he knew had ocelots. A pipeline company offered him $5 million if he would drop his claim to have ocelots on his land. The man told them to keep their money and leave his cats alone.

That deep passion and fierce protection of land and God’s little creatures gives me hope. We live in a unique land with many very wild areas still remaining.

LOL, I am 1000% certain your 2nd image is of a cat which is all that I said and apparently the 3rd image is the second image with the cat's head hidden. The first image looks like a blob.

And your positive identification of the two cats?

^^^^^^

Hah....I thought the first pic was an Ink Blot Test...!

Who sees the two black panthers in this one?

I see a tramp stamp.

For all you skeptics out here, please see proof positive of the existence of back panthers. Both deer have alerted to it.

I see a fleur-de-lis with a possum crawling up the left side and a raccoon crawling up the right side.

Ah, the sweet arguments among hunters. Some defending panthers and some getting real upset about it. Great entertainment.

For all those skeptics out there, finally found a clear photo of a black panther. He looks tense and ready to pounce.