The one at Fausse Pointe was verified as wild and the report was published in Southeastern Naturalist, here is the link to the presser
http://www.mountainlion.org/newsstory.asp?news_id=170
Mike Carloss is a biologist with LDWF now
The one in Shreveport was of domestic origin, there was one on a trail camera a couple years back (can't remember where) that was verified as wild as well.
For the record, everyone of my in-laws over 40 years old in Union and Lincoln Parish have seen or HEARD a black panther
How does one tell a black panther by sound? My aunt had a black one pass in front of her on I-20, and my my uncle had one jump across the road in front of him in Tensas. Not denying any of this, as cougars are real and do come through Louisiana and one is probably here right now, as they do not know state boundaries when they travel, BUT my uncle also swears that he went through a time warp in Tensas Parish and I can not mention that without telling the story (story below)
I really do believe him with the cougar as there was another guy with him and they were not drunk, but were leaving the camp to go get more beer for the evening.
The time warp story is a good one. Its 12 miles from I-20 to the water tower in Crowville where one turns to get to our camp. He and a buddy turned off I-20 and looked at their watches and said something about the time and how they were going to get there in time to hunt the evening. Lets say its 2 pm. They get to the water tower and both look in amazement as its only 2:06, which means they would have been going 120 mph in his old truck which couldn't have happened, so the ONLY logical thing that could have happened is they went through a time warp
Interesting enough, I was overseas with a dude from Newellton and for some reason we got to talking about this story and he turned a shade of pale and told me a similar story about the same stretch of highway
