People in the South Point Apartments on Roydon in southeast Houston are getting letters from complex management that warn them about a possible black panther on the prowl.
Residents have reported a large, shiny black animal lurking around the complex's Dumpster.
"I'm just afraid," one resident said. "I just wish they'd find out if it's real."
People showed News2Houston a letter that the South Point Apartment management sent out.
It warned residents that a dangerous animal is roaming loose.
"Whatever it is, somebody needs to get out here and get back there and do some tracking to find out what it is because of several people said they saw something that looked like a panther," resident Darryl Smith said.
Some residents are concerned for their small pets. They wonder if a predator like a panther was abandoned in the fields behind the complex, but others said that they don't believe the big cat sightings.
Patricia Pillow said that she has seen the four-legged creature.
"I heard a large commotion, and then I saw a domestic cat run up the tree, followed by this very large animal," Pillow said. "He had a very large tail, and he also roared."
Pillow doesn't know if it was a panther, but said that "it was very large" and "much too big to be a domestic cat."
Houston, We Have A Large, Shiny Black Animal On The Loose
Residents of an apartment complex are on alert Friday after word of an exotic animal possibly on the loose came out. [Original headline: Houston Panther Sighting Prompts Alert
Residents Worried About Big Cat Sightings]
The Medina Gazette / OH | Christine Sima - April 6 2001
