During the last couple of hundred years, scores of people have claimed they saw the mysterious, jet-black animals. These days, people even post alleged sightings on the Internet.
Scientists, however, have yet to get a single piece of physical evidence, such as the body of a dead one or even a clear photograph, and remain skeptical that such an animal exists.
California biologists recently have looked into reports from homeowners in San Luis Obispo County who claim to repeatedly have seen what looked like a black mountain lion stalking prey in a field across from their rural housing development.
And this time, they have video.
A homeowner in the area said he captured the animal on videotape several times, and provided the video to the state Department of Fish and Game, which brought in a lion expert from the University of California, Davis, to join the department's own biologists for a video viewing.
The video is shot at extreme long range so it is hard to make out details - much like the famous footage of an alleged Bigfoot sighting 30 years ago - but it's sufficiently clear that it has biologists stroking their chins with curiosity.
"The video is very persuasive but it's not definitive," said Lee Fitzhugh, the mountain lion expert with the UC-Davis cooperative extension.
Dr. Ben Gonzales, a wildlife veterinarian with the state Department of Fish and Game, reviewed the video tape with colleagues in Sacramento and pronounced it "pretty indefinite."
"You've seen those video tapes of 'Bigfoot,' " he said. "They're blurry and distant. It's like that. You just can't tell."
But Steve Torres, a senior biologist who directs mountain lion research for the department, said while the video was "inconclusive," he would not dismiss the notion that there may be black mountain lions, or that the film depicts one.
"There's often color morphs that are anomalies in wildlife populations, such as albinism or melanism, which is an extremely dark animal, like you'll see in a squirrel once in a while and other animals," he said.
"With respect to cougars, it's something that could happen in a natural context but I'm sure it would be extremely rare. You can't rule it out," he said.
Dale Woodson is the man who first saw the creature, and shot the video. He said he shot at long range because he's afraid.
"The grass is high," Woodson said. "You can barely see (the animal's) head through the grass. The thought occurred to me that it's probably not the wisest place to be."
Woodson said he has seen the animal seven times, the first time last summer, the morning after he had noticed a small herd of deer bedding down on the hillside. Deer are a main food source for cougars, which are a protected species in California.
"I was making a phone call," Woodson recalled. "It was early in the morning, about 7 o'clock, and I saw the silhouette of a cat as it was moving up the ridgeline.
"I looked at it and instantly knew that it was something I'd never seen before. So I ran inside and got my wife and daughter up and dragged them to the window so they could confirm it.
"I looked at it and thought, my gosh, a mountain lion. I gave the binoculars to my wife and it was she that first called out and said, 'That's not a mountain lion. Mountain lions are kind of a gold color. This one is pitch black.' And I grabbed the binoculars and said, 'Yeah, you're right.' "
He ran and got his video camera, but said he was only able to shoot about 4 seconds before the battery went dead. The next time he saw the animal - about two days later - he said he was prepared with a new battery.
"On the second time, I captured about 15 seconds worth of video," Woodson said. He alerted his neighbors, two of whom also have told him they have seen the animal, one just about a month ago.
"It's no little kitty," said Mitch King, who lives across the street from Woodson and said he saw the animal once.
"It's some kind of cat. It's got that flat face. And it's got a big, long tail," King said.
Fabled U.S. Black Mountain Lion Filmed
- Like a four-legged version of the fabled Bigfoot, black mountain lions are the stuff of popular legend. [Original headline: Black mountain lions?]
Sacramento Bee via Rocky Mountain News / CO | By Steven Capps - December 5 2000
