Lions with similar DNA touted to be Barbary’s in zoos around the world are likely mixed descendants. Barbary lions were huge! 600 pounds and over 6 to 9 feet long with a defining dark mane on it’s head and chest with a light colored body — think Scar from Lion King, only not as skanky. My gosh they were a magnificent species. Sadly the reason for their extinction was un-restricted hunting.
The story struck a chord with me, it reminded me of my own “sighting” over 40 years ago of the thought to be extinct Eastern black panther. I was working at a tiny country store in Dorchester County when a young man that I knew pulled up and came in. I saw his tailgate was down and figured he must have a deer on it which wouldn’t have been unusual, a lot of the local fellows paraded their deer on the way back from a successful hunting trip.
“What did you bag today?” I asked him after I rang him up for his drink.
“Come look.” he answered
There were no customers in the store so I followed him out of the door. When I stepped past the porch column I saw it, that mythical sleek black cat on the tailgate and gasped. I ran my hand across it’s body. It was still soft and subtle. I was speechless and fought back the tears that were threatening to spill down my face. I was both the saddest and luckiest girl to have seen it but I wish more that I spied it darting between pines in the straw covered terra-firma rather than lifeless on the back of a pick-up truck.
There is no question, no doubt whatsoever that it was a black panther. And no, it was not a melanistic cat or mistaken identity. It was in full sun beneath my hand. Jet black with no mutation of color anywhere. It had a lithe slinky body and long tail. My guess is that it weighed 60 - 70 pounds or thereabouts. It’s black coat was very shiny. It’s eyes were open and the most beautiful aqua color.
I looked up at the young man in disbelief. He didn’t act proud or chatty and maybe even became a little solemn when he saw my reaction. I think he wished he hadn’t asked me to come look. He moved the panther back and shut the tailgate. Of all of the questions to ask, the only thing that came out of my mouth was “What did you kill it with?”
He pointed to his bow hanging in the truck over the back window.
I sympathized with the young man as he pulled off and I walked back into the store. I thought of the Mockingbird that I killed with my brother’s BB gun when I was 9 or 10 years old. I don’t think I believed that I could possibly even hit it when I pulled the trigger. I was sure that it would fly away and I would talk about how close I got to it or something of that nature. But — no. It fell to the cool sand under a oak tree and I buried it there. I hoped that when the last handful of dirt covered it I would never think of it again —but that wasn’t the case. I was sick and heartbroken for the longest time and it still bothers me to this day. What in this world made me do that? To show my brother that I was a better shot?
The night after I saw the panther I called my Dad. He told me that he had heard of local hunter’s spotting them since he was a little fella but had never seen one or heard of one being killed.
If this had been present day I am sure it would have been all over social media. The tiny little country store would be a busy convenience store today with every person there snapping a pic with the camera. The headlines would read “Young man kills phantom thought to be extinct black panther, maybe the last of its species.”
I am glad it didn’t go that way, it would have done no good. I believe with all of my heart that he wishes he had not reached into his quiver for that arrow. It was possibly an impulse reaction from the adrenaline induced by seeing the magnificent animal.
Even though we lived in the same town and still know each other, it is something that we have never mentioned again. I did however reach out to him several years ago when there was a sighting of a panther near Edisto Beach. I told him that we both know they are/were out there. I didn’t hear back from him and didn’t really expect to. I don’t worry about credibility with telling the story. I know it’s a few notches shy of saying I saw Sasquatch but — it happened. The truth is always stranger than fiction. I did see an Asian Black Panther up close and personal for a photo shoot in NC once. It was definitely NOT that Panther. It was much smaller, but with the same features.
In the early 70’s my parents received an urgent request to hurry to my grandmother’s house. When they arrived my cousin was sitting in the living room with his rifle between his knees looking proudly at his kill. Stretched across my grandmother’s tiny living room was a Bald Eagle. It’s wingspan was nearly 7 foot across. My cousin showed no remorse for killing the eagle which was actually still on the endangered species list in the 70’s. He bragged about what he was going to do with the feathers and talons.
I have to admit that I didn’t feel a bit sorry for him the next year when he lost a toe on a hunting jaunt. A rattlesnake crossed his boot and the dumb ass shot his own foot.
I am not against hunting legally at all, on the contrary. I anxiously await a freezer of venison as I write this. But I would never, ever again in my life pull the trigger on an animal that I wasn’t going to eat with the exception of poisonous snakes. And — other than the Palmetto Bug, (roach on steroids) I can think of no species that I would want eradicated from the planet.
My kids would chime in here and say “What about those two hamsters?”
They were accidents and that’s a story for a different day. As I look at the photograph that started this morning of retrospect I found myself in the seat with the pilot in 1925, far above the now extinct Barbary lion as he looked through his lens at what he believe was the last of it’s species. I know how he felt.
I think of the still quiet body of that Eastern Black Panther on the tailgate of a truck and how it felt to my hand. I wish that it too would have been shot by a camera like the Barbary Lion that day as well as the Eagle and the Mockingbird.
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