Bluegrassrivals

Possible Panther sighting in Whitley County.

http://www.wkyt.com/home/headlines/15456121.html

Panther.

Looks like a panther.

It's just a black house cat. There's nothing in the immediate background that you can judge it's size against which leads me to believe it's a house cat. Kind of like the picture of the Loch Ness Monster...where it was just a small toy in the water, but since there was nothing to measure it's size with in the background, people were tricked into thinking it was this huge monster.

Someone just saw the big cat episode of "Monster Quest" on the History Channel and decided to make their own.

I won't believe that this is a big cat unless it's killed and proven that way.

Looks like a panther to me.

That is a house cat

I dont know this particular picture is actually a panther or not but make no mistake about it. Panthers are in this area.

I've only seen 2 in Pike Co...I seen one when I was like 5. It had one of my papaw's goats (lol) trapped on a cliff. Then I seen one when I was 15 while ridin my dirtbike in the hills. It has 2 babies with it and they all just looked at me. Old guys try to tell me that there are no mountan lions ever around here but there is...BTW the ones I seen weren't black like the supposed one in Whitley Co.

Although I think it is possible, as growing up I had heard of several people swearing they had seen panthers. Mountain Lions as well are possible, IMO.
But this one in particular looks like a house cat. It has a short, thick neck and its body seems a lot thicker than what typical panthers I have seen os wildlife shows seem to have. If this was indeed a panther, It looks as if it might weigh around 350-400 lbs.!

[Image: Blckleopard.JPG]

This is a panther.

Melanistic cougars

There are no authenticated cases of truly melanistic cougars. Black cougars have been reported in Kentucky and in the Carolinas. There have also been reports of glossy black cougars from Kansas, Texas and eastern Nebraska. These have come to be known as the North American black panther. None has ever been photographed or shot in the wild and none has been bred. There is wide consensus among breeders and biologists that the animal does not exist and is a cryptid. Sightings are currently attributed to errors in species identification by non-experts, and by the memetic exaggeration of size.



From Wikipedia
Cougars-Mountain lions are existent in KY, and I know that for a fact. A panther is just a hybrid of that species.

When I was about 14 my grandpaw and I were fishing at our cabin in Somerset and while walking up the path to the house we ran across a bobcat.

I thought all of the Panthers were in Pikeville! haha

Seriously, there are some mountain lions around, and I've heard of Panther sightings. However I have never seen one around these parts. Only bobcats.

I boy I went to school with trapped a bobcat. He kept it for a while but someone told on him and he had to let it go. It was MEAN!!