Arkansas Online

Are there jaguars in Arkansas?

RICHARD MASON Email Richard Mason at richard@gibraltarenergy.com.

First it was cougars, which our state Game and Fish Commission said were probably released pets. AGFC has been rather quiet since cougar sightings now exceed 60. And there are wolf sightings: 14 so far, with another two recent pics. Next I’ll be checking for passenger pigeons.

Recently I noticed an article about sightings of what a lot of folks, especially Southerners, call “black panthers.” Many times a sighting was late in the day or at night, and the person seeing a big cat thought it was black.

But I have had second thoughts after talking with a couple of folks in my cougar-spotting survey. I thought maybe they really did see a black cougar or mountain lion.

Growing up in south Arkansas, I was very familiar with the term “black panther.” However, after I read a short piece from the Mountain Lion Foundation, I started to wonder. This quote is from the Foundation, and I would think it is a definitive statement:

“Many people have heard the term ‘black panther,’ but these are actually melanistic jaguars or leopards: a genetic trait that makes an individual cat’s fur appear much darker than the usual coloration. To date there has never been a confirmed case of a melanistic (black) mountain lion.”

If the Mountain Lion foundation is the ultimate source for cougar info, what are the big black cats that have been sighted by numerous individuals in the South? When I did a cougar survey, two of the sightings were definitely big black cats.

I asked both reporters, one a medical doctor and the other a grandmother, were they sure these big cats were black? They said they had no doubt.

There are numerous other big black cat sightings reported on the Internet. Here is a sample from a Tennessee sighting:

Rusty and Linda McClanahan were sitting in a blind watching for deer late one afternoon in a Cumberland Plateau woodland in Tennessee when they saw something wildlife experts insist doesn’t exist. A coalblack panther walked in front of the blind, stopped and stared at them, then whirled and bounded off.

“It was 12 feet away,” says McClanahan, a veteran outdoorsman who has hunted in 11 states and seen numerous panthers, also known as mountain lions. “It came walking down a trail, stopped, looked at us, then it went loping off. It never made a sound.” Linda said she was “terrified, and had trouble breathing for a few minutes.”

This sighting is from a seasoned hunter, and confirmed by his wife.

If there are no black mountain lions, and numerous individuals are certain the big cats they saw were black, and if the Mountain Lion Foundations firmly says there has never been a confirmed case of a black mountain lion, what are these big black cats? I don’t think anyone would consider these cats to be leopards, but what about jaguars?

From the late 1500s onward, jaguars were reported in much of the southern United States, including parts of California, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and Louisiana. Other historical sources place jaguars in most of the South up to the Carolinas. During this time, mountain lions and jaguars shared the same range.

If we consider black panther sightings valid, what are the big black cats? There are two obvious choices. The first is they are jaguars, and have been present in the original jaguar range for centuries. It may be that the black ones were able to survive when normal spotted jaguars were killed off by hunters or government trappers.

The second possibility is, from historical evidence, jaguars and mountain lions were both present in much of the South during their original range, and interbreeding could have occurred.

Like coyotes and wolves, they can certainly interbreed. Las Vegas showmen Siegfried and Roy had two called Ali and Chico.

Officially, big black cat sightings are discounted by saying most of the sightings were in dim light, or were bobcats or large feral domestic cats. However, a number of the sightings come with photos, and that makes discounting them difficult.

There have been other big black cat sightings in Arkansas, and while some of them are questionable because of distance or darkness, others are hard to deny, because photos were taken.

One sighting is from near the town of Kibler in Crawford County; it comes with photos and observation by the town’s police chief, Roger Green, who says he spotted one while hunting. He was sitting in his blind in November when he saw an unusual sight.

“I have seen deer, squirrels, rabbits, big rabbits. This time it was a black panther,” Green said. He used his cell phone to take photos of a big black cat. “I thought I had to get footage of this because so many people are saying there’s no black panthers in this area. I even believed it myself until I saw it, and then I knew I was witnessing something I had heard about for years.”

I don’t think we can get a sighting any more definitive than that. We either have jaguars in Arkansas, or we could have interbred cougars and jaguars.

Let’s do another survey. If sometime during the past five years, you spotted a big black cat which you thought was a cougar, send me an email.

Perspective

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2023-01-29T08:00:00.0000000Z

2023-01-29T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://edition.arkansasonline.com/article/284502937528880

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