i live in Mauldin....less than a mile from where the creature was sighted actually. wonder where it came from....

Hey, guys, it's a panther, isn't it? I saw two black panthers running together here in Oklahoma once, back in like 1990/91. They were awesome and it is very very rare to get to see them, but there have been legends of people hearing women screaming in the night down certain rivers in the mid-eastern and eastern portions of Oklahoma. When I panther calls it sound like a women screaming.

just a little update.....the whole thing has gotten bigger and bigger. its hard to say whether people are just making up sightings (cuz people are like that) or if the large black cat (now popularly becoming known as 'the panther') is actually being spotted more and more. most of the sightings have been around the same area.....the bridges and holland road area, although some have come from miles away. all the dogs in the area have been barking like crazy throughout the night. i do believe a trap with some raw meat has been set in the woods and a reward of $1000 for a capture of the animal has been offered. a friend of mine, who lives in the area, says he saw the panther a few nights ago just before sunset at the edge of the woods while jogging through the neighborhood. his claim seems pretty credible....he really has no reason to lie about it. he goes jogging often and lives right beside the woods where many of the sightings have come from. he says as soon as he saw it, he ran home and hasn't been jogging since. his account is similar to probably - by now - 20 to 40 other sightings. a few have even claimed to have heard the animal's call during the night, describing it as a high pitched roaring noise. in conclusion, i'd say there definately has to be something strange in the woods off bridges road.

Why are they going to trap it? Why can't you people just let it live in its natural environment? Has it hurt anybody? Has it threatened anybody? Is it eating your cows?

Typical BS human reaction. And I'm willing to bet there has been recent development in an area around there that was formally undeveloped...

so you come into this beautiful animal's home, # in the middle of his living room, and then set a trap for him because now that he has to live in a bigger area in order to avoid your pile of # you're seeing him and that bothers you.

LEAVE HIM ALONE!

Editorial Note: "You" refers to the doinks who are trying to trap the animal...not the poster I'm talking to...unless he happens to be trying to trap the animal.

About 8 months ago some people in Bathurst Australia caught a black cat on flim. It was all over the national news

i don't think there has been any recent development around the area....at least not enough to further intrude on the animal's territory. the thing is...it is a potential threat to the people living in the area, and personally i'd rather see it relocated than someone getting injured or killed by it. i'm not saying that it has done anything wrong or should be killed, but it would be better for the animal if it weren't living in the middle of a bunch of neighborhoods. also...no one knows where it came from. large black cats aren't exactly indigenous to the region, and if it did in fact originate from the area, i'm almost certain there would be more or it would have been seen quite a lot before now. in my opinion, we have just as much right to be there as it does. (i'm not attacking any posters, by the way. just expressing my opinion on the situation.)

Had a Siamese Cat that gave birth to a kitten with a pituitary gland problem. It grew to the size of a Doberman, & they kept it chained up. Possible big house cat on the loose?

There was something about this in our newspaper (Australia) in June Last Year. I don't fully remember it but what I remember was farmers were getting annoyed because they were loosing their animals to what they though was the black cat. There was also something about leaked documents existing on it and Freedom of Information requests but I can't imagine why 'they' would want to cover it up.

theres a possibility it is a panther. i mean people are seeing them and hearing them more and more suddenly

It's not that rare. People buy them as pets, find they can't look after them and let them go.

We have several areas in the UK that have panthers and other large cats roaming free. They are regularly caught on video too.

I wouldn't want to meet one though!

I used to pastor a Baptist church in Connerville, OK (though I have since renounced that religion). Quite a number of the locals had seen both big black and spotted cats for many years. My grandfather saw a black one cross the road in the seventies.
I grew quite curious about this, and thus contacted the Oklahoma state furbearer expert. She said they were people's exotic pets that had escaped, even as they had been given a video of a Jaguar (spotted color phase) taken by a hunter near Ardmore.
I wasn't satisfied with what I was told, so I talked with the Murray County fish & game warden (or whatever his title was). He said that indeed, jaguars, as well as the smaller jaguarundis travel up the well forested riverways through Texas and into Oklahoma. These big cats can travel fifty-miles in the dark of night, and are exceedingly stealthy.
The reason I would assume the officials are not conceding that there is a wild population is that they would then be required to protect them and their habitat, as they are considered endangered species.
Jeffrey Charles Archer

Laramie, Wyoming

There have been sightings and pets and livestock killed in Earlsboro Shawnee, Seminole, area. All the guys and the local pit stop were sharing the local stories and my grandfather is a regular at the pit stop. When we visit family in the area I make sure that I am with my kids when they play outside, since my family own 80 empty acres out there. They have several water sources and lots of wildlife. Makes you think twice about stepping outside before looking out the windows to make sure the coast is clear. The sightings were in 2007. It was confirmed that a big cat killed the dog of one resident.

Originally posted by Valhall
Why are they going to trap it? Why can't you people just let it live in its natural environment? Has it hurt anybody? Has it threatened anybody? Is it eating your cows?

Typical BS human reaction. And I'm willing to bet there has been recent development in an area around there that was formally undeveloped...

Yeah, typical BS human reaction trying to learn about something unknown....
God forbid

Actually, I researched all this "black cat" stuff. They are panthers and the only reason why people find these mysterious is because of the rarity of these animals and misconceptions as to what they really are.

Panthers are melanistic cats which can include the following species of cats... the most common would be the leopard; but also mountain lions; cougars; pumas; etc etc.

So, check to see what cat species roams in that area and most likely the black cat is the melanistic version of that species. If there isn't a species of cat in that region, it probably is someone's "pet" that was let go or escaped. Very cool, but certainly not a mythical beast (am not sure why ppl don't just research it. the information is readily available)