Sooner State Legends: Is There A Black Panther Wandering Oklahoma

Just a few days ago, new reports popped up across the state of another confirmed mountain lion sighting. It has quickly turned into five confirmed new sightings.

Granted, the counties where these big cats were seen are close together, so realistically some of these could have been the same cougar. That being said, the state put down a pair of them, so the minimal amount of new mountain lions in Oklahoma this week is at least three.

It begs the question, could the old Oklahoma legend of wandering black panthers be true?

Having extended family in Southwest Oklahoma, I've heard stories of black panthers in SW and Western Oklahoma, North Texas, and the Texan Panhandle my entire life. My mom's father used to tell us about the time he saw it on the farm back in the 70s, but we always sort of wrote it off as a tall tale.

He also used to tell us if we stayed out after dark the "hindya kitty" would get us... and you'd never see them because they were always behind us. Call it an Oklahoma rural legend, but grandpa isn't the only farmer talking about black panthers.

There are hundreds of eyewitness accounts of these jungle cats across our region, and the answer we've been given by the Wildlife Department doesn't exactly hold up.

"It's just a cougar you're seeing from too far away."

That's the explanation from the state, and it's not illogical. Any deer hunter will tell you, the further away a deer is, the darker they appear. It's just how light works I suppose, but when a big cat is seen from fifteen or twenty feet away, and that person says it was a big black cat, that's a different story.

It's also sort of ironic since the Oklahoma Wildlife Department spent so many decades denying mountain lions ever came to this state.

Could it be a black cougar though?

While we can never say "no" with any real authority, that's the nature of unknown science, but I will include what Wikipedia says on the matter.

There is no authenticated case of a truly melanistic cougar. No specimen has been photographed or killed in the wild, nor has it ever been bred in captivity. Unconfirmed sightings known as the "North American black panther" are currently attributed to errors in species identification by non-experts, and by the mimetic exaggeration of size

That would be a no. There are no black mountain lions, but America has confirmed the presence of jaguars in our country.

"There are no panthers in this country, but there are jaguars." Can you see how silly that sounds? After all, panthers are black jaguars.

At least two jaguars have been officially confirmed by wildlife authorities in the Southwestern United States over the years.

Historically these jungle cats are from the densely wooded areas of Central America but have spread widely across the western continents in the last few decades. Even the US Fish and Wildlife Service lists the jaguars' home range and territory in portions of the United States now. The most famous is Arizona's legendary El Jefe.

It would be logical to assume melanistic jaguars would visit the states as well.

Black Panther is the new Mountain Lion.

While the ODWC has come around and finally admitted that mountain lions show up in Oklahoma from time to time, mum is still the word on black panthers, but people are buying into it.

It's the same old story of The Boy That Cried Wolf. ODWC spent decades denying mountain lions amid irrefutable evidence before being forced to open the dialogue by in this modern "everyone has a camera now" world. How long will it be before they confirm the legendary Oklahoma black panther exists too?

Have you heard a black panther story in your neck of the woods?