Comments on: Louisiana Panther Hysteria: Fever Pitch

By: zmississippi

zmississippi — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 05:00:39 +0000

Why do people think they have all the answers? Like they know everything. The smartest person in the world will tell you they know nothing this world has to offer. Your brain cannot know everything but some act like they do. Point is I have seen a very large panther/leopard or whatever it was personally in the wild here in Hancock county Mississippi. It was about the size of a german shepard and was longer than tall it seems, and doesn’t fit the body type of any animal I’ve seen.It was shiny black like a color i’ve never seen anywhere on anything. I seen it CLEARLY as i was driving on 603/43 cross 4 lanes , a long median, and down the next embankment. Its head was smaller compared to its body and had an extremely long monkey like tail. I’ve never seen a housecat the size of a german shepard whether black brown or white. I have a friend that has seen one twice, So stop the charades and before you say they don’t exist (uneducately) come down and look for yourself. Just don’t ask me to go with you cause i’m not that stupid to go in those woods. its a safe bet theres no human being able to take one of this whatever it is on. Unbelievers – Jokes on you

By: kittalia

kittalia — Tue, 24 May 2011 01:29:59 +0000

Well, here is a site about leopard/puma hybrids. Also, They look like house cats to me. The top one looks 2-3 feet long, but that is still house cat size.

By: CajunRG

CajunRG — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 05:15:53 +0000

It would not surprise me if the large black cat sightings in lower St. Bernard Parish and Plaquemines Parish were leopards or jaguars that were kept as pets and had escaped or were released during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. This is a large marshy area that is sparsely populated that provides plenty of places for the big cats to hide and escape detection. There is also a plentiful supply of animals for them to hunt such as nutria, feral hogs, rabbits, and deer that would ensure their survival.

By: Spinach Village

Spinach Village — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 08:45:18 +0000

Interesting story. It’s hard for me to imagine that Louisiana does not have an established breeding population of cougars.

I am assuming that the man’s black and brown “panthers” were leopards and not jaguars; that is, if the story is true.

Can leopards breed with cougars?, My educated guess would be yes, based on the leopard/lion hybrids, etc. Leopards and cougars are very similar in size and also habit, e.g. they both are known to stash their kills in trees.

I would say that the picture of the cat with the greenery in it looks to be a big (healthy) house cat, but I can’t tell. However, the black and white CCTV image seems to be showing a much bigger animal. Compare the animal’s silhouette size to the size of the tire on the truck and you should see what I mean.

By: DWA

DWA — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 17:32:32 +0000

I’m thinking house cat from the pictures.

“Alerts” like this will always generate junk. If there are records that cannot be explained away, and appear authentic from the standpoint of witness reliability and what is described, the fakes aren’t even part of the discussion. So this doesn’t mean that the real McCoy isn’t out there.

It just means these aren’t it.

By: wolfatrest

wolfatrest — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 00:12:09 +0000

They both look like a picture of a house cat to me. A very big house cat, but still just a house cat.

By: Shelley

Shelley — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 19:16:22 +0000

I have to say in that top picture, it doesn’t look like anything much larger than my 16-lb housecat, in black, sitting in front of a VW type microbus. The dimensions of the vehicle should make it easy to figure out how big this cat actually is.

I went to a talk last night here in So. IL, in which the local expert said that no one has ever actually seen a big black cat because they do not exist here in the US. Since he is the person that all reports of big cats–anything bobcat size or larger–comes to in this area, we will probably never get to the bottom of these sightings. There was an audience member who had seen a large black cat who was not happy to be told that he was mistaken.

There was also the usual about no population of cougar/puma/mountain lion being resident here, and that all seen/found are just wandering through from further west. He did say that there is a thriving population of bobcat, which would expand even further if there was not an even more thriving population of coyote and, unfortunately, people driving too fast on the roads. Two-thirds of the dead bobcats found had been hit by a vehicle.

With all of this manpower and attention on this particular sighting in Louisiana, we’d hope they would get some definite proof or even an actual big cat.