Big Black Cats (Panthers)

Originally Posted By: foxsmasher1. The guy on the phone said "lion or puma". Whatever he meant is up for interpretation. Maybe he meant jaguar, i don't exactly know.


2. It was a yearling fawn, maybe 30 to 40#.
3. The cat was 3 or 4 times the size of the fawn easy. If memory serves, it was the same height as our chevy Cavalier's hood at its back.
4. The cat stopped to look at the car. I am quite sure it caught the fawn shortly after it went up the hill. It was probably 40 feet to the top of it and it closed the distance very fast.

Then by "lion or puma" maybe he was just repeating himself, like someone would say "bison or buffalo" or "elk or wapiti".

You should'a run it over.
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First let me say that I think most of these sightings are mistaken, too many Tarzan movies, imagination prompted by an actual sighting of SOMTHING they saw in a fleeting instant. Here is a "Black Panther" story I'll share from my boyhood. As a youngster in the late 50's/early 60's I was always outside playing in the woods, worrying my folks,afraid of nothing,not the "boogyman","gypsies", "Strangers", nothing. Until my grandad told me about the escaped black panther. Heres how the story went. In july of 1944 in Hartford Ct., about 40 mi south of here was a tragic fire at the Ringling Bros Circus. Over 150 people, mostly women & children died that day. I only learned recently that my Mom, then 14, baybysat for the 2 Cook children,a boy who survived, and his sister that was one of several unidetifiable bodies. Anyway, the big cat show was starting when the fire broke out, according to grandpa all the cats were rounded up EXCEPT the black panther, that followed the river north, and hid out in the Holyoke mtn range, and was still seen from time to time. That worked. I didn't know how long they lived, but this was only 15 yrs or so later, so I was really careful to be in by dark, usually had a knife & hatchet combo by my side, and on the dreary, creepy days when my 8 y/o imagination ran wild I stayed at grandpas' drinking Moxie & learning to curse in German.For years I looked over my shoulder, trusting my big black lab to warn me. Just thought I'd share
 
Wel there ya go!

It's gotta be getting up there in age by now, but it still seems to get around to various parts of the country pretty well. Might hitch a ride on those Ringling Bros Circus trains that travel from city to city.
 
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