Black cougars do not exist.
At least none have been verified by science, killed by hunters, mounted by taxidermists or reared in zoos and other animal facilities.
But are there white ones?
In January 2016 an interesting story broke via KLTV out of Tyler, TX. Landowner Mitchell Cox of Hughes Springs captured on video what he and many others thinks is a “white panther”.
“When I first saw the white animal, the first thing I thought was, it was a dog. I feel blessed to actually be able to see it,” said landowner Mitchell Cox in the KLTV story.
“The cat jumps across about a six foot creek there. At first, my initial thought was it was an edited video, but upon talking to people I believe it’s true. A white albino mountain lion,” investigator Hershel Stroman, of the Morris County Sheriff’s Office told KLTV officials.
The video is interesting and the animal moves like a cougar but without a closer video (this one was short 50 yards away) it is difficult to tell. Watch it below.
The photo included here is a standard color cougar rendered in Adobe Photoshop to show what a white specimen might look like.
In 2011 a white cougar was born at the Attica Zoological Park in Greece and was aptly named “Casper”. That alone is more proof of white cougar existence than has ever come forward for that of black specimens.
It is important to keep in mind the large black cats seen in zoos and on television or black (melanistic) jaguars or leopards. They are not a separate species called a “black panther”.
“Panther” is one of many terms used for Felis concolor along with cougar, mountain and puma but it has nothing to do with them being black.
A high resolution video or photo of a white cougar would be a major discovery in the United States and cause a major wave of interest among those who study wild cats.
The public has a major fascination with unusual white and albino animals.
Whether they are deer or wild cats there is something mysterious and majestic about an elusive white animal like the revered white buffalo of the Great Plains.
Chester Moore, Jr.