Unwelcome Visitor

According to a report in our local newspaper this weekend there has been a sighting of a large cat-like animal in a locality just a few miles outside Nenagh. One farmer reported seeing “a large black powerful animal “on his farmland on four separate occasions last week.

The animal seen was black in colour, larger than a Labrador dog and had a long black tail. This description has prompted speculation that a black panther is roaming the area. The farmer that first sighted the animal said his sheepdog and her pup gave chase to the animal who made its timely escape. The animal had no difficulty in fleeing the area as “large hedges meant nothing to it” the farmer said.

Speculation that a black panther was loose in the area was fuelled further by the discovery of a dead sheep on the farmers land. Considering the farmer has no sheep on his land and the nearest sheep farm is half a mile away, it was speculated that the panther had dragged the sheep on to the farmers land to eat it.

Another man reported seeing a large black animal which was larger than a German shepherd. The animal was disturbing his goose pen and frightening his goat and his dog.
People phoning the local radio station were assured by an expert that black panthers do not normally attack humans but dogs could be in danger if the animal was hungry.

News of the sighting prompted a wild life enthusiast to drive the 200 mile round trip from his home in Kerry in the hope of photographing the animal or at the very least finding some trace of it in the area. However, after spending a day on the farm of the man who first sighted the animal, he left convinced that there was no panther in the area.

Still, I don’t know. Farmers aren’t usually given to flights of fancy and I’m sure the man in question saw some kind of unusual animal.

As a matter of interest, my own expert from World Wildlife tells me that there really are no black panthers as a type of animal, but there are black leopards and black jaguars. These are sort of reverse albinos, the term being of Melanistic coloration. Melanism occurs because of a mutation or abnormality of one of the cats’ genes which is associated with coat coloration and markings. Often if the light hits the animal the right way, you can see the normal leopard pattern with black on black, though it’s not always easy to see this. If you look closely at the picture below, you will see the leopard spots shining through the animal’s coat.




An unlikely looking adversary for the fearsome-looking creature pictured above, but this animal, with the innocent countenance, which belies his true nature, is the the farmer's dog that took on the strange animal and chased him off his master's land. Good dog!!!