Understand, this map is not meant to be exact. I am bound by the amount of detail given to me about sighting locations by witnesses. If you are looking for GPS coordinates to get you within 20 yards of a sighting location then this map is not going to do it for you. It isn’t meant to. My intentions in mapping the sighting locations was to get a broad sense of where these cats were being spotted and hope to pick up on some “big picture” type of pattern. The overall locations are as accurate as they can possibly be on a map to this scale.
I do think that some patterns are starting to make themselves clear as the sample size increases. It has become obvious that if you live in north Texas, the area north and northwest of Dallas is the place to go looking for a large, black, long-tailed cat. In particular, the area surrounding Lake Lewisville is a real hot spot. The sightings are coming in from this area so quickly that I’m running out of room on the map.
Other areas that are emerging as black panther hot spots are southeast Texas between the Brazos and Neches Rivers, the Brazos Valley of central Texas and the southwest edge of the Texas Hill Country just west and northwest of San Antonio. A good rule of thumb as to where to look for these cats still seems to be the headwaters of major rivers or areas where major rivers converge and flow in close proximity to one another.
I hope to take this project up a notch and really zero in on sighting locations. I will still keep up with this distribution map but will also be creating maps of regions of the state. This will allow me to zoom in and provide a more accurate picture of exact sighting locations. I’ve been doing this on my own using an old Texas map and some pins. I feel like there is enough interest in this phenomenon to make it available to readers of the blog.
More soon.
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I love this! Finally, a Texas map showing black panther sighting hotspots! Even some advice as to where to look for them. I'm deeply fascinated in the black panther mystery, & have done a lil digging myself into accounts from all across the country. I hope to create black panther sighting distribution maps for the rest of the states they are regularly seen & reported in. Like you, Mike I want them discovered & scientifically documented. What a day that would be!!
ReplyDeleteI wonder if you had the same trouble getting people to believe what you had seen. My panther had the most beautiful cat face I have ever seen. It looked like a huge house cat in face only. I am a very curious, and accepting person so I wasn't one bit afraid. I guess we were both out hunting the same rabbits down by Inks lake.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, we both looked at each other from a distance of thirty feet away. I was standing in the tall grass, and the cat passed in front of me within a distance of about six inches. It almost had to step over my feet. It went its way, and I went mine. I hunted that same area many times but I never got to see that cat ever again, and I have never seen another one like it.
I once watched a documentary on TV about a some huge black cats eating a rancher's goats, and the rancher said he was terrified of it. As for me, I was never afraid! I guess I am just too curious to worry, about being afraid.