Saturday, August 24, 2013

East Texas Black Panther

        Around the the end of the school year my two kids and I were headed out to school, near the end of our 1/4 mile crumbling dirt driveway I had to stop the truck and sit quiet for a minute.  My oldest daughter saw the same thing I did a large black cat about fifty feet away.  This is no house cat.  Our drive way has two ruts separated by a grassy patch down the middle. The cat was crossing the road and had  the grassy patch between its feet, but what really jumped out was the long waving tail that seemed like it was three feet long.  The cat paused for just a second, looked at us and then darted in the woods.  My youngest was fiddling with her school stuff in the middle of the truck and didn't see it but my oldest had her eyes fixed on the cat.  I couldn't believe my eyes I hadn't seen anything like it before. 
       According to some of the old timer that I have talked to these cats were more common thirty or forty years ago and that they them-self had seen on or that there father or uncle had seen these while deer hunting.  According to the ol' internets there are no black panthers in Texas and much of what I found was related to cryptozoology, which according to my spell check is not even a word,  and the study of the Bigfoot.  After a quick internet search I just put it out of mind and went about my day.  What brings this back the front this morning is my wife saw the cat last night.  This time the cat was down the county road a couple miles, between the deer hunting camps and main county rd. SHe was headed back form work and saw the cat about 7:30.
       Last night I began looking again and considering if there is some sort of wildlife agency that we should report it to just in case someone is studying large cats in East Texas.  After reading a little more the probability is that this is a Jaguarundi, an endangered species that does exsist in this area.  If I ever happened to get a chance to shoot at this fellow, then it will be personally endangered,  although in all fairness I am not that good a shot so it might have nothing to fear.  There is an interesting blog relating to these things Texas Cryptid Hunter, which I will definitely be reading.

4 comments:

  1. What county was the cat spotted in? My neighbor saw the same type cat in their tree this week in Upshur co. I have seen two in the last year in our county.

    ReplyDelete
  2. We live in Tyler County, about ten miles outside of Woodville. Almost everyone I have talked to since this has said that these cats are out there in the woods.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I live in Tyler County out by Jones Country and have seen a BIG black cat more then once

    ReplyDelete
  4. JONES COUNTRY. I had no idea George Jones tried to have a theme park here. Why didn't anyone tell me. I asked my wife where Jones County was, she said she didn't know. I said well I thought it was a typo, but is there a Jones Country here? Oh she says and tells me about Jones Country. I am going to have to drive over there and see what if anything is left. So far I haven't been able to find old pictures on the internet, but I gotta see that.

    I am glad to have only seen this cat once, hopefully it has moved on.

    ReplyDelete