Illustration by Burton Durand
Editor’s note: Lest we lead the reader astray, it is prudent to explain that the Louisiana “panther” is actually a cougar. There is a long history of sightings of black panthers throughout the southeastern United States, tall tales that wildlife professionals have chalked up to the misidentification of large black domestic cats. Puma Concolor Coryi, a.k.a. the Florida Panther, an endangered subspecies of cougar, and Puma Concolor Couguar, the North American cougar, are both tan; and these can exist in Louisiana. In fact, cougars hailing from New Mexico (i.e. the cougar shot in Bossier City mentioned below) and South Dakota have been found in Louisiana, though it’s a mystery how they got here. Whatever the present state of the cougar population in Louisiana, it is certainly clear from this report that they stalked the historical record.
In 2008, trail cameras and the killing of a cougar in Bossier City had proven what hunters had known for a long time—there are “panthers” roaming Louisiana’s woods.
In the old days, encounters with cougars were common and sometimes fatal. Texas historian J. Frank Dobie wrote about one incident that occurred in the mid-1800s when a local man took advantage of a rare snow fall to go deer hunting on Bayou Macon. When he failed to return home, a search party had discovered that the hunter had been following a large set of deer tracks. Eventually, they found the man’s mutilated body and determined that a panther had jumped on him when he walked under a leaning oak tree and “sucked blood from his throat.” The men trailed the panther another sixty yards and found where it had killed a buck and sucked blood from its throat, as well. They concluded that the panther had killed the deer the hunter was trailing and then ambushed him from the tree.
In 1874, the Galveston Weekly News carried a story about another panther victim in northeast Louisiana. A Delta man left home in his wagon and had been gone only fifteen minutes when the wagon team came rushing back home without the driver. Neighbors went looking for the man and found him less than a mile away. “The body of the man was lying in the road, and a huge panther was standing over it, eating one of his shoulders. ... When they got back [with a gun], the panther was still engaged eating its victim. They fired, but did not succeed in killing it, and the panther ran away into the woods.”
Just four years later, the Ouachita Telegraph reported a fatal encounter in western Catahoula Parish. “It seems the unfortunate victim had started to a neighbor’s house near by, and in passing through a skirt of woods was attacked by the hideous and dangerous animal. Her husband, becoming uneasy at her long absence, went in search of his wife and when he reached the scene he found the panther devouring its prey. The husband fired at the panther but without effect.”
An eerily similar incident occurred nearly thirty years later in the same vicinity when another woman was killed and eaten ten miles west of Columbia, Louisiana. Mrs. Anna Valentine had also left to visit a neighbor, and her husband began searching for her when she failed to return. He “found his wife’s head and her skeleton, picked bare of flesh in a clump of bushes. Bits of the woman’s clothing were scattered over a distance of two miles, showing that the panther had dragged its victim to a convenient spot to make a feast.”
For decades, newspapers nationwide carried stories about the Louisiana panther. Nashville Daily Union, May 6, 1866: “Last week a young son of Mr. William Gordy, on lower Bayou Sale, killed a panther eight feet in length. He by mistake gave him a charge of bird shot from a double barrel gun. The panther was in a tree when the lad paid his respects to him.”
Omaha Daily Bee, December 24, 1886: “A Louisiana panther trotted along beside two little children who got lost in the woods for a considerable time, purring like a cat and never offering to harm them.”
Fort Worth Daily Gazette, May 15, 1887: “Word has reached here that a colored child, while picking berries on the Daiger place, near Baton Rouge, Thursday evening, was torn in pieces by a wild animal, supposed to be a panther or Louisiana tiger, by no means rare in the swamps of this state.”
Panama City News Herald, January 13, 1952: “Heavily armed hunters [near Shreveport] cautiously beat their way through thickly wooded Louisiana hills today in search of a panther that has terrorized this area for two weeks.”
Winn Parish Enterprise, 1959: “Stay clear of brier patches in the woods south of Packton. You might stir up a panther’s nest, as did Jimmy Wingfield, 16-year-old local youth, while squirrel hunting in the area Saturday afternoon.” Young Wingfield was retrieving a bird he shot in a thicket on Caney Creek when the tan-colored panther bolted. He emptied his .22 at it, and reported the cougar “began growling and screaming.” Wingfield claimed the cat was as “big as a great Dane dog.”
Panthers are incredibly rare in our woods today, and people have nothing to fear from them. So, if you are lucky enough to catch a glimpse of one, savor the moment.
Dr. Terry L. Jones is a professor of history at the University of Louisiana at Monroe who has received numerous awards for his books and outdoor articles.
