Black panther lore strong, pervasive in East Texas
Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s another black panther in East Texas.
Now would be the time for the audience warning: “If you have any beliefs that there are such things as black panthers, stop now. If you think there are Sasquatches banging on trees or howling in the forests of this continent, stop now.”
This is a sore spot for me, of course, I come from East Texas where panther lore is strong and pervasive. Bigfoot fears didn’t come into existence until the last two decades, really, but its existence now has burrowed deep into the minds of rednecks and sane people alike.
But there’s no talking some people off that ledge. As one well-known biologist is famed for saying: “If I hadn’t believed it, I wouldn’t have seen it with my own eyes.” Bigfoot believers believe it. And there’s no chance of convincing people that their uncle didn’t kill a black panther 40 years ago or that a Bigfoot didn’t make off with their kid’s FFA project pig.
There’s no way to argue a negative and claiming that black panthers and Bigfoot don’t exist just plants believers deeper in the bottomland soil of East Texas.
Forget that biologists say there has never been a mountain lion with black fur. They don’t exist, but I had a guy once tell me that it was well known that Texas Parks and Wildlife had carried as many as 20 to the woods around Palestine and released them into the wild.
The latest flurry of activity and discussions of panthers came about a week ago when a man in Walker County near Huntsville claimed he photographed one on his property. The wire story ran with multiple denials by TPWD biologists that black panthers exist.
The picture that accompanied the story seemed to be a rather chubby house cat. The man, who claimed he’d seen the animal, was quoted as saying he’s heard “screams” from bobcats and lynx and his picture only proved that to him.
But there are no lynx living in Texas. They are a creature of the Rocky Mountains and Canadian wilderness, where they’ve developed giant feet that act as snowshoes to help them when they hunt in deep snow.
I am confronted by claims of black panthers around Central Texas pretty much every year. The folks who see them are adamant about it and rarely will stand for any challenge to what they’ve seen and so the legend grows.
I only hope that if Bigfoot or a black panther decides to show himself to anyone this year, it will be to me.
I’d probably just drop the camera.