Wildlife Experts Field Cryptid Questions

Posted by: Loren Coleman on October 21st, 2006

The Arizona Republic’s Kate Nolan has written an article on what kind of reaction eyewitnesses to strange creatures are receiving in Arizona:

Part of being a wildlife expert in Arizona is fielding calls from people asking, "What the heck is that?"

The Arizona Game and Fish Department gets more than 2,000 phone calls a year from people asking that or requesting help in handling wild animals.

The state doesn’t keep track of how many, but some of the reported beasties can sound pretty weird – from the supposed "Bigfoot" that roamed Prescott to jumbo versions of most Arizona native species.

"We get all kinds of mystery reports. There’s a black mystery cat that regularly appears on Silly Mountain near Apache Junction," said Randy Babb, a wildlife biologist in the Game and Fish Mesa regional office.

One fellow repeatedly brings in blurry photos of a giant chicken-sized quail.

"His pictures are like pictures of Nessie, the Loch Ness monster," Babb said, pointing out that the weirder the claim, the more adamant the budding cryptozoologist,or seeker of mystery animals.

Others swear they’ve spotted a "jackalope," the antlered-rabbit star of a million post cards. Most times it turns out to be an antelope jackrabbit, a giant-eared bunny of southern Arizona that can exceed 2 feet in height.

Volunteer wildlife organizations also check out such reports.

Linda Searles of Southwest Wildlife Rehabilitation in Scottsdale says people inflate the size of animals beyond all reason.

"I hear a lot of 100 pound coyotes and owls that stand 3-feet tall," Searles said.

To the inexperienced, even the most common animals seem exotic. Searles has come to know that reports of Madagascar lemurs – foreign to these parts – are probably sightings of the state’s official mammal, the ringtail.

Experience has made Babb and other wildlife experts skeptical.

Improbable animal sightings are usually explained as cases of overactive imagination or simple misidentification.

Misidentifications are augmented by lack of knowledge, said zoologist Kevin Hanson, the Cave Creek author of books about mountain lions and bobcats. Hanson noted a California study that evaluated reports of mountain lion sightings and concluded that only 20 of 350 reports proved true. Witnesses often mistook far less menacing creatures for lions.

Nature is complicit in the confusion, says Hanson. Often animal camouflage conspires with their nocturnal habits to make them harder to see clearly. Hence: is it a lion, a dog on the prowl or a bush with teeth?

Babb pointed to a common case of mistaken identity in Arizona. "As soon as we hear ‘black panther,’ we know that is bogus," Babb said. No such thing as a black panther (except for members of a radical movement in the 1960s), exists; and only four of the spotted variety, known as jaguars, have been recorded in Arizona in modern history. Yet the idea of the big black cat persists.

Babb tells a story he says is typical: A guy told a local newspaper he’d seen a black panther along the Mexican border near Rio Rico; within days of the press report, the panther was suddenly being "seen" in Douglas, Nogales and in western Arizona. Ultimately the "panther" report led to a black Great Dane that had been allowed to run free.

People like to see a jaguarundi, too. The small black cat looks like an otter and is typically listed as a native to Arizona – yet none has been recorded here. They’re usually seen in Texas.

Nature can be subtle, and fine lines can separate the strange from the commonplace.

Terry Stevens, rescue coordinator for Liberty Wildlife, another Valley rehabilitation group, said people commonly think they’ve found a baby turkey vulture, judging from its spindly neck. He regrets informing them it’s likely just a baby pigeon, which bears the same gristly trait. Someone else reported a great blue heron that inexplicably turned out to be a coot, which would be like mistaking Danny DeVito for Audrey Hepburn.

Babb says he can help identify animals better when people provide good descriptions.

He urges taking time to look closely, pay attention to details and think about what you saw before describing it to someone. Babb cautions that binoculars can make animals look larger than they are, and understanding zoological terms can help. For example, stripes run the length on an animal’s body, while bands run across it; spots are solid and rosettes are ring-shaped markings. Keep in mind that animals of a single species can exhibit a great deal of variety – they don’t all look alike.

"Biologists are trained observers and we can’t expect the public to be that," Babb said.

He even empathizes with the sense of discovery that the oddball reports exhibit. He said every now and then a rare find actually pops up.

A Game and Fish biologist recently spotted a rare albino Big Horn sheep. A few years ago, someone reported a kangaroo on a roadside and that’s what it turned out to be, most likely an escaped pet.

"There are even some persistent reports I would like to believe in," said Babb, allowing himself a moment of wishful thinking.

Since his college days at Arizona State University, Babb has doggedly followed reports of a something called bipes biporus, a two-legged worm lizard native to Baja. Occasionally someone claims to have spotted the ancient creature in Arizona. Alas, poor Babb, none has ever been confirmed.

Loren Coleman 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.


16 Responses to “Wildlife Experts Field Cryptid Questions”

  1. Bob Michaels responds:

    White Mountain lion reported some time ago from Prescott Arizona.

  2. youcantryreachingme responds:

    Oh dear. Thylacines don’t have stripes. They have bands!

    And I have a theory on the big black cat. It has already been proved in Australia that feral domestic cats can grow to the size of “big cats”. I’m sure Arizona would have its occassional feral domestic cat too.

  3. youcantryreachingme responds:

    Quoting author “Tigerman”, regarding the thylacine he says:

    There is comment in the [Tasmanian] tiger search community to be very careful of the Government

    From Tasmanian newspaper, The Examiner.

    Tigerman’s 80 page publication, arguing the case for the survival of the thylacine is available as a free download here.

    He has also commented on the 1973 Doyle film footage coming out of South Australia, arguing it likely shows a thylacine (see the online Thylacine Museum or my Doyle analysis).

  4. drypondscout responds:

    Hey what happens in the desert stays in the desert.

  5. oroblanco responds:

    “As soon as we hear ‘black panther,’ we know that is bogus,” Babb said. No such thing as a black panther (except for members of a radical movement in the 1960s), exists;”

    LOVE that attitude, automatic “bogus” if not what they “know” – as if they know every animal that exists within thousands upon thousands of square miles. Yep boy they sure do reinforce my respect for their “authority”! (har har)

  6. oroblanco responds:

    PS almost forgot, that attitude also ignores the known black color phase of concolor felix, mountain lion. Aren’t you filled with confidence in our “expert” wildlife managers?

  7. CamperGuy responds:

    3′ tall owls? Is that not normal, or just not normal for that area?

  8. Rillo777 responds:

    I read a report not long ago that there are more caged big cats in America than there are in the wild these days. As much as I believe in the big black cats it is harder now to simply classify them as cryptids when it could simply be an escaped pet. But to write them off as nonexistant is ridiculous, especially coming from an expert who should know this. Plus they could even be more dangerous since they have become used to being around humans.

  9. Ole Bub responds:

    Black Panthers are more common in Oklahoma than their tawny kin….try explaining that to the “experts”…many folks who live or work outside the city limits can susbtantiate those “cryptid” critters quite readily…JMHO

    I was unaware of their “non-existence” until the crypto-folks enlightened me…just mass hysteria or mistaken identity…come to think of it…I’ve never seen a game warden or ranger outside their truck…and then only rarely….are they cryptid too…JMHO

    For years “cryptid” alligators were reported in the southern counties along the Red River…now they are recognized and protected.

    seeing is believing…

    ole bub and the dawgs

  10. kittenz responds:

    Although there is no “known” black color phase of Puma concolor, they have been reported by locals for literally hundreds of years in the eastern USA. I believe a black or at least a very dark color phase exists. Of course, even the tawny cats can look very dark in some lighting situations, and maybe what a lot of people are seeing is a tawny cat, backlit or in shadow. But there have been too many reports of black pumas, from too many reliable witnesses, to dismiss them all.

  11. sasquatch responds:

    It could be a jaguar. They ARE known to have a black phase. There was a common color phase Jaguar caught by a motion camera in the mountains above Tuscon recently. Why couldn’t a black one be wandering in the AZ desert?

  12. Trapster responds:

    I deal with this stuff all the time, but I get a more direct perspective. People pay me to catch “the ten pound squirrel, the fox the size of a golden retriever, the 10 foot long black snake.” The difference for me is I typically catch the animal the people have described within a couple of days, and they always say the same thing, “that’s him, but wow it looked so much bigger when I saw it.”

    I put less and less credibility in people’s quick observations. Admittedly this has eroded my belief in bigfoot or other terrestrial cryptids seen near human development. Unless they are not physical objects. And I’m not ready to go down that road.

  13. Sky King responds:

    “youcantryreachingme Says:

    Oh dear. Thylacines don’t have stripes. They have bands!”

    Well, if you know of any that are looking for a bongo player or alto saxophonist, would you let me know?

  14. youcantryreachingme responds:

    Lol.

  15. CryptoInformant responds:

    Hmmm… Wow! Melanistic big cats are “bogus”?! Gee, I guess Discovery’s In Search of: The Loch Ness Monster was right, our eyes are as faulty as those of a certain crazy guy I’ve heard of who honestly thinks he’s a glass of orange juice. Sheesh, that’s a scary thought, in fact, scarier than the melanistic big cats roaming my cousin’s neighborhood in OK, even digging in the trash, and letting out the typical puma scream when people camp out in their front yards. So, either we’re glasses of orange juice, or, w/ the big coyotes w/ and black pumas, OK is not the middle of crypto-nowhere.

  16. Ohtar responds:

    “Babb pointed to a common case of mistaken identity in Arizona. “As soon as we hear ‘black panther,’ we know that is bogus,” Babb said. No such thing as a black panther (except for members of a radical movement in the 1960s), exists; and only four of the spotted variety, known as jaguars, have been recorded in Arizona in modern history. Yet the idea of the big black cat persists. ”

    This whole paragraph is contradictory. While no black Jaguars have been confirmed to exist in Arizona, at any point, the fact that Jaguars do exist here, and that there have been confirmed cases of Jaguars in South America being black, means that Black Panther sitings aren’t necessarily bogus. Any legitimate scientist would give such claims at least an honest investigation, rather than dismissing them as complete figments of the imagination. I know people misinterpret what they see all the time, and the lighting (or lack thereof) can mess with your eyes, altering perception, but there is a MAJOR difference between being a skeptic and being a pig-headed fool. A skeptic requires actual proof, but keeps their mind open. This guy however isn’t a skeptic. He reminds me of the people who refuse to accept the existance of Giant Squid. If you put a body in front of him, with a genetic analysis proving what it was, he would still persist that it’s a misidentification or a hoax.

    As far as Jackalope sightings go: what is a Jackalope? It’s a Jackrabbit with horns on it’s head. Well, rabbits can contract a disease where they develop horn like growths on their bodies, reference. So a Jackalope sighting isn’t exactly as fanciful as this guy makes it seem. And while a misidentification, it is not somebody misinterpreting what they see or somebody being crazy. They see a Jackrabbit with horns, and that’s pretty accurate to what is actually seen.

Sorry. Comments have been closed.

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