Spanish Black Panthers Terrorize Pigs
Posted by: Loren Coleman on May 3rd, 2008
One of the mauled Pato Negra pigs, with an insert of a black panther.
The Olive Press in Andalucia, Spain, has published the latest on a roaming pair of large melanistic cryptid felids. Needless to say, big cats are not suppose to exist in modern-day Spain.
The La Cala cougar is clearly not scared of travelling for a meal.
The celebrated wild cat that was first spotted in La Cala a year ago has apparently turned up in Campillos.
As reported by the Olive Press, he has been SLOWLY moving inland, and now the “panther-like” feline has been accused of killing over a dozen Iberican pigs in a hilly area, known as El Canuelo.
The pig farmer told the Olive Press that the animal had been seen by a number of his staff.
“He’s black with shiny hair and is very agile and moves quickly,” explained Ramon Garcia Valdecasas, adding that in the same attack he had also injured nine other animals.
“They were very significantly injured, with huge gashes to skin,” he said.
The farmer, who has over 300 of the so-called ‘Pato Negra’ pigs on his farm, has denounced the attack to the Guardia Civil.
He revealed how a couple of his employees had seen the animal a week after the incident in early April. “But it fled after they shouted at it,” he said. “It is very dangerous to have a large wild cat like this roaming around.”
He has now applied to Campillos town hall to shoot the animal.
Seprona, the Guardia Civil’s wildlife arm, insist the attack was more likely to have been by a pack of wild dogs.
The theory is based on the fact that the animals were killed without being eaten, a classic sign of an attack by dogs.
The town hall has also been taking the attack seriously.
Mayor Jesus Galeote organised a hunt with a number of councillors some days after the attack.
As we reported in the Olive Press, he was last spotted with a mate in the hills near Monda.
Stable owner Malcolm Platt said: “There were two of them and they were four or five times larger than a normal cat.”He had previously been seen above Alhaurin in October and before that a number of readers told us he had been seen in the Majadilla del Muerto estate above La Cala and further along near Mijas.
British oil worker Gary Jacks told us how he had seen the cat three times near his home at the foot of the Sierra Gorda near Alhaurin.
“He was big and very scary, bigger than our Great Dane with a long black tail.”
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
That group does make a point, big cats don’t usually kill to just kill. Now where would it have come from just all of the sudden? Any zoos in the beginning local? How about a rich somebody who thinks they are above any “no wild animal” laws Spain may have?
There are quite a few reports of mystery black cats coming from the Iberic peninsula. I buy each month the spanish magazine “Año Cero”, and they often print an occasional story of this sort.
I’ve heard of a jaguar killing a python for the sheer sake of it (I was a little troubled or annoyed)…. of course our 5-20 pounds or so’ friends have that attribute also
Spain has a species of Linx also….anyway it could be an actual big cat… i wouldint rule that out