This
came to me by way of Dale Drinnon’s blog and it turns out to be rather timely. We have just recognized a likely giant sloth
traveling on all fours as expected and close enough to eliminate either a Bear,
a Sasquatch, or a Puma for that matter. Most
important though was that its pelt was black.
Better, the shape partially
conforms to a Puma provided the legs are underestimated. Thus it is plausible that many of our puma sightings
were not the cat but the Giant Sloth. That
also solves another problem which is our failure to bag one.
Cats are bagged by
running dogs on their trail until they go up a tree were they are obviously
trapped. A giant Sloth would not be
trapped at all and would quickly traverse to another tree and leave its
pursuers well behind.
It is thus quite reasonable
to surmise that we have been spotting the Giant Sloth at some distance and
merely mistaking the creature for a cat.
It is only close up and personal that you would know otherwise and that
is rare and likely fatal.
Black Pumas From Terry
Colvin
Posted
to my email from Longtime FOZ associate and "Dark puma" witness Terry
Colvin:
Tuesday,
16 July 2013
I found this piece in Pursuit dealing mountain lions with melanism.
Terry
ps: Poor photocopy so there will be garble
BLACK PUMAS
In
our October 1971 issue we yelled Help! on the question of melanism in
pumas (otherwise called cougars. panthers. painters, mountain lions. and heaven
knows what else!). We cannot say that we have been deluged with material.
but we have received quite Enough to indicate that melanism -the
occurrence of black pumas in an otherwise tawny-coloured 'race'-is in
flact quite widespread and is possibly increasing.
Member #210 promptly came through with two references, noting that .. Stanley P. Young and Edward A. Goldman's ~ (Dover Edition, 1964) mentions a couple of sources black pumas. A specific case of just such a cat having been killed in 1843 in the carandahy River section of Brazil is cited. as well as a vague reference to specimens of South American pumas (black, of course) being taken 'from time to time'. In Victor H. Cahalane's Mammals Qf North Ameril (Macmillan Co., 1961) this great one liner is found on page 272: 'Melanistic or black cougars are known; cougars of Florida seem to run strongly to that "freak" color'."
Our
major source of information, however, is Bruce S. Wright, who is Director
of the Northeastern Wild-life Station of the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton.
N.B. Mr. Wright has written one book about pumas, entitled The
Ghost of North America, and is at work on a revised
edition. He cites a book by William Thomas. Great cats I Have Met;
Adventures ill Two Hemispheres (Alpha Publishing Co .• Boston. 1896.
p. 75-76), and in addition was kind enough to send us a copy of a paper he
presented at the 36th North American Wildlife Conference in March, 1971, the
Symposium on the Native Cats of North America. In this he devotes a
section to melanism. as follows:
"No black specimen of Felis concolor has ever been collected in North America [Unless you count Costa Rica], but one has been shot in Brazil (Young and Goldman. 1946, p. 58).
The repeated mention of black specimens seen in daylight at close range demands some explanation. I once believed they were caused by the specimens being wet. To test this I went to Vancouver: Island and followed a government cougar hunter until he killed a large male. I took the fresh hide and suspended it by its edges and filled it with water and left in overnight. The next morning I photographed it in color from all angles. I could not make it appear black.
"My next thought was that they must be backlighted. However. a check on the position of the sun at the time of these reports proved this theory ,untenable.
"I have now no alternative but to accept the word of the eye-witness that there are black specimens of Felis concolor in northeastern North America and that they are not particularly rare (about 7% in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.)"
Mr.
Wright appends a table detailing no less than 20 black pumas seen at
close range in daylight 'in New Brunswick. Quebec, and Nova Scotia
between September 1. 1951 and August 2. 1970, and notes that as
many more were not included because the circumstances were such that positive
'identification' of the color was impossible, though he adds "There
is no reasonable reason for disregarding these descriptions".
We
also asked Lennie Rue -one of the very great naturalists in this country;
see National Wildlife and International Wildlife for examples of his
animal photography - if he had any references to black pumas.
Lennie
has a truly incredible library 'on natural history. with emphasis on
North American mammals. but could not come up with a single reference. On
the ' other hand, he pointed out that there is a claim from Borneo
for a black Clouded Leopard (Panther'a nubulosa) believed by many to be
extinct, and that there is even a book called The Black Lion! We know of
~any albino tigers; has anyone references on black ones? Black leopards
are quite common, and black jaguars are not rare, though most seem to
come from a fairly limited area in the Guyana Massif. '
And,
just for the record, one of our subscribers tells us that some five years
ago he talked with a chap from El Salvador who stated calmly that he
occasionally hunted Bengal Tigers-"Tigres Bengalis"... across
the border in Honduras (not British :Honduras); he said they had
multiplied there since some escaped years ago from a circus, so. if
someone tells you he hunted Bengal tigers in Honduras (provided you can
get into that country safely -and out again). he is not necessarily a
liar!
Terry W. Colvin
Ladphrao
(Bangkok), Thailand
Pran
Buri (Hua Hin), Thailand
Historical
print of a dark-coloured puma, similar in most respects to to the more modern
sightings,
[I probably DO need to reiterate, reports of known species do not qualify as subjects for Cryptozoology, whether you admit to the colour phase they come in or not. or whether they seen are outside their normal range or not. And also I should mention that black jaguars are known to cross over the border of the US and Mexico occasionally. -DD.]
[I probably DO need to reiterate, reports of known species do not qualify as subjects for Cryptozoology, whether you admit to the colour phase they come in or not. or whether they seen are outside their normal range or not. And also I should mention that black jaguars are known to cross over the border of the US and Mexico occasionally. -DD.]
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