Black Pumas From Terry Colvin

Posted to my email from Longtime FOZ associate and "Dark puma" witness Terry Colvin:

I found this piece in Pursuit dealing mountain lions with melanism.

Terry

ps: Poor photocopy so there will be garble

BLACK PUMAS

BLACK PUMAS
In our October 1971 issue we yelled Help! on the
question of melanism in pumas (otherwise called
cougars. panthers. painters, mountain lions. and
heaven knows what else!). We cannot say that we
have been deluged with material. but we have received
quite Enough to indicate that melanism -the occurrence
of black pumas in an otherwise tawny-coloured 'race'-
is in flact quite widespread and is possibly increasing.
Member #210 promptly came through with two refer-
ences, noting that .. Stanley P. Young and Edward A.
Goldman's ~ (Dover Edition, 1964) mentions a
couple  of sources  black pumas. A specific case of
just such a cat having been killed in 1843 in the
carandahy River section of Brazil is cited. as well
as a vague reference to specimens of South American
pumas (black, of course) being taken 'from time to
time'. In Victor H. Cahalane's Mammals Qf North
Ameril~ (Macmillan Co., 1961) this great one-liner is
found on page 272: 'Melanistic or black cougars are
known; cougars of Florida seem to run strongly to
that "freak" color'."
Our major source of information, however, is Bruce
S. Wright, who is Director of the Northeastern Wild-
life  Station of the University of New Brunswick,
Fredericton. N.B. Mr. Wright has written one book
about pumas, entitled The Ghost  of  North America,
and is at work on a revised edition. He cites a book
by William Thomas. Great cats I Have Met; Adventures
ill Two  Hemispheres (Alpha Publishing Co .• Boston.
1896. p. 75-76), and in addition was kind enough to
send us a copy of a paper he presented at the 36th
North American Wildlife Conference in March, 1971,
the Symposium on the Native Cats of North America.
In this he devotes a section to melanism. as follows:
"No black specimen of Felis concolor has ever
been collected in North America [Unless you count Costa Rica],
 but one has been shot in Brazil (Young and Goldman. 1946, p. 58).
The repeated mention of black specimens seen in daylight
at close range demands some explanation. I once
believed they were caused by the specimens being
wet. To test this I went to Vancouver: Island and
followed a government cougar hunter until he killed a
large male. I took the fresh hide and suspended it by
its edges and filled it with water and left in overnight.
The next morning I photographed it in color from all
angles. I could not make it appear black.
"My next thought was that they must be backlighted.
However. a check on the position of the sun at the
time of these reports proved this theory ,untenable.
"I have now no alternative but to accept the word
of the eye-witness that there are black specimens of
Felis concolor in northeastern North America and that
they are not particularly rare (about 7% in New Bruns-
wick and Nova Scotia.)" '
Mr. Wright appends a table detailing no less than
20 black pumas seen at close range in daylight 'in
New Brunswick. Quebec, and Nova Scotia between
September 1. 1951 and August 2. 1970, and notes that
as many more were not included because the circum-
stances were such that positive 'identification' of
the color was impossible, though he adds "There is no
reasonable reason for disregarding these descriptions".
We also asked Lennie Rue -one of the~ very great
naturalists in this country; see National Wildlife and
International Wildlife for examples of his animal pho-
tography- if he had any references to black pumas.
Lennie has a truly incredible library 'on natural
history. with emphasis on North American mammals.
but could not come up with a single reference. On the '
other hand, he pointed out ~hat there is a claim from
Borneo for a black Clouded Leopard (Panther'a nubulosa)
believed by many to be extinct, and that there is even
a book called The Black Lion! We know of ~any albino
tigers; has anyone references on black ones? Black
leopards are quite common, and black jaguars are not
rare, though most seem to come from a fairly limited
area in the Guyana Massif. '
And, just for the record, one of our subscribers
tells us that some five years ago he talked with a
chap from El Salvador who stated calmly that he
occasionally hunted Bengal Tigers-"Tigres Bengalis"...
across the border in Honduras (not British :Honduras);
he said they had multiplied there since some escaped
years ago from a circus, so. if someone tells you he
hunted Bengal tigers in Honduras (provided you can
get into that country safely -and out again). he is
not necessarily a liar!

Terry W. Colvin
Ladphrao (Bangkok), Thailand
Pran Buri (Hua Hin), Thailand


http://www.messybeast.com/genetics/mutant-pumas.html

1820s-black-puma-print

Historical print of a dark-coloured puma, similar in most respects to to the more modern sightings,

[I probably DO need to reiterate, reports of known species do not qualify as subjects for Cryptozoology, whether you admit to the colour phase they  come in or not. or whether they seen are outside their normal range or not. And also I should mention that black jaguars are known to cross over the border of the US and Mexico occasionally.     -DD.]

Ivan Sanderson's Copy of the Report on Tim Dinsdale's Loch Ness Monster Film

Peeking at Ivan's SITU files.
http://thebiggeststudy.blogspot.com/2011/04/peeking-at-ivans-situ-files.html

From The Biggest Study site, arranged and presented by "The Professor":

This will just be a brief note. I think that when I'm "peeking" at Ivan Sanderson's files, I'll use a picture of him "peeking" at the Minnesota Iceman. Today's peek will be at a piece of evidence for the Loch Ness monster. I'm not going to do any analyzing, so it's up to you.

What we're looking at will be the study of the Dinsdale film. [Tim Dinsdale is in the picture above]. I have several very good cryptozoologically-inclined friends [they themselves are not crypto-beasts as far as I know, but suspicious characters nonetheless], who have written some of the best works in the field [George Eberhart, Jerry Clark, and Henry Bauer; I've had a long and collegial correspondence with Gary Mangiacopra as well.] All these guys are interested in Loch Ness, but perhaps no one more than Henry. I've asked him why he thinks that the Monster is real. This is a particularly intriguing question to me since Henry Bauer is one of the most intelligent men, and hardest "sells", that I know.

Henry gave me three reasons at the time. One was the plethora of credible witness testimonies from people he had talked to himself. Another was the occasional mysterious sonar reading. But the big deal for him seemed to be the "Dinsdale Film". This consisted of around 1500 frames of 16mm film shot by Dinsdale in 1960. It seems to show some object making a wake in the loch, but what else can one say?? To try to get a bit "else to say", Dinsdale talked the UK's Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Center into analyzing it. Of course he gave them the original to work with. Much has been claimed for the results of the JARIC which followed. Some folks have seen them as not compelling; most folks see them as "proving" that some large animate object was swimming in the Loch that day.

Shuffling through Ivan's SITU file on Loch Ness, I turned a page and there was what seemed to be an original copy of the JARIC report. How Ivan got an original who knows?? Note, even, that it says "copy 1 of 2" !! Well, knowing that some of you are "romantic explorers" and enjoy seeing the original stuff, I felt it my duty [and pleasure] to scan it and let you look for yourselves. The three-page "thing-itself" follows.

Please read into the report what you see, of course; I am hardly an expert on this. I DO know that it has always been hard for me to "see" much in the documentaries which replay Dinsdale's film. Apparently, it was a bit hard even for the JARIC to do so. But, as you read, they DID see something.

What the report SAYS that their analysis was able to see was a "solid, black, approximately triangular shape". This of course doesn't mean that the "swimming" object WAS a "Black Triangle" but the thought does send one reeling for a moment ... but I don't want to get Henry mad and try to turn Nessie into a UFO, so I'm going with a solid swimming thing that just happened to present a sort-of triangular aspect as it swum away. The speed of this "thing", as Sanderson would have labelled it, was good as a small motorized boat, and the "above water size" large enough to cause a puzzle. But I'm out of my depth [pun sort-of intended] and you should just think it through as you will. My only goal here was to give you another rare chance to see the stuff "behind the stories" for a change.

A swimming Black Triangular USO?? Call Carl Feindt!!! Just joking Henry --- don't throw me off your Xmas card list.

[I have taken the liberty of re-posting the report pages below at a larger, readable size. It definitely reads as if it means to EXCLUDE the possibility that what is being filmed is a boat and "Animate Object" is understood to mean "alive." My conclusion is that the "Living animate object" shown in the Dinsdale film is a Long-necked Sea-serpent of probably good average size, and that this individual Long-necked Sea serpent was living in the Loch at least as of 1960. It is possible that this same individual animal was living in the Loch in the 1930s, and  that same individual animal does NOT have to still be living in the Loch NOW for this to be true.  - Best Wishes, DD.]

Shipton Track Cast-The Real Deal

A cast of the Shipton Footprint found in the SITU effects after the headquarters closed down: My indications for the differing contours of it (generalized) are shown at the right. It is quite obvious from the drawing that Sanderson made and published in his appendix B (reprinted below) that he is illustrating the contour breaks shown in the cast and not as they are shown in the photo of the contour breaks in the text as longitudinal lines which run up and down the length of the imprint in the middle of the sole.
A version of this photo was posted on the Southeast Sasquatch Association's blog in 2008:
http://southeastsasquatchassociation.blogspot.com/2008_10_08_archive.html

Sanderson plainly speaks of having seen and handled a "Plaster cast" in the text of his book and some quotes are reprinted below. When I was at SITU headquarters in 1977, what I saw in storage in the library was not a plaster cast but a slab of concrete with the print in the center, in a storage box with carrying straps attached, looking for all the world as if it had been pried out of the lot in front of Grauman's Chinese theatre. I imagine it was portland cement: it was definitely more permanent than any ordinary plaster of paris footprint cast.

Sanderson, Abominable Snowmen, p 279
Also, it is manifest that Mr. Peissel has never seen an imprint or a cast of the foot that made the medium-sized [or Meh-Teh] tracks. They are positively shocking when first seen, being absolutely enormous—and the gaps between the separated toes are enormous too, which could not happen physically if the whole was enlarged by melting and regelation

p 348-349
The Meh-Teh or classical "Abominable Snowman" prints of the Himalayas, at first sight look just about man-sized but, when you handle a plaster cast of one, you get a profound shock. The thing is positively enormous and in some respects rivals the Oh-Mah prints which, though longer, look almost delicate and which are certainly in comparison most "refined." These things, as may be seen from the depiction of an impression of one alongside that of an ordinary human footprint
are grotesque, and bestial. They also show features that, though not at all apelike in fact, digress from the human pattern most widely. They have an enormous big toe; but they also have an even more enormous second toe; and both are widely separated from the other three little toes, and they curl curiously inward toward them. This thing is not human at all.

APPENDIX B, THE IMPORTANCE OF FEET

(1) HUMAN Adult (West Caucasoid). Imprint in clay mold. (2) HUMAN Adolescent, 14½ years (West Caucasoid). Wet imprint of left foot on hard surface. (3) HUMAN CHILD, 10½ years (West Caucasoid). Wet imprint of left foot on hard surface. (4) HUMAN Infant, 21/2 years (West Caucasoid). Wet imprint of left foot on hard surface.
(5) HUMAN Adult (Cromagnon Man). From clay floor of cave in France. (6) HUMAN Adult (Southern Amerind). From mud of river bank Chishue, Patagonia.
(7) SUBHUMAN (Neanderthaler). From moist clay floor of cave, Toirano, Italy.
(8) ABSM (Guli-yavan type). From a sketch of track in mud, Kirghiz S.S.R.
(9) ABSM (Meh-Teh). From photo of cast made from print in snow, by Eric Shipton. (10) APE (unknown form). Sketch made by Charles Cordier in the Congo (over-all, 30 centimeters). (11) APE (Lowland Gorilla). From photo of cast of foot. (12) APE (Chimpanzee). Outline of extended foot from plaster cast.

p 474
The Meh-Teh tracks and prints are, in fact, by far the most puzzling of all, and especially since such persons as Shipton, Bordet, and others obtained clear photographs of them taken from directly above. Here is obviously a bipedal creature of considerable size and weight that inhabits the Himalayas and the ranges north of the Tibetan Plateau. It was the original "Abominable Snowman" and it comes out as the last "abominable enigma."

Emphasis in all cases was added by me.
The statement about the tracks reported by Bordet is untrue. As Napier points out, they are hardly like Shipton's tracks at all (Bigfoot p 48), and neither are the ones reported by Tom Slick or anybody else. The tracks are definitely unique and in fact we can go one better and say the TRACK (Singular) is unique because we have no good proof the other tracks in the same trackway were even good matches for it.

Here to which shows the exact same features in the exact same places that the negative boxed cast (mold) owned by Sanderson and each individual positive cast made from it. Both molds and casts are reproductions of the original footprint and what is more, they are very definitely the same footprint because of the very unusual features such as the "Trefoil" if this is indeed an overprinted footprintof a fox, which is what it looks like

The "Shipton Track" produced by Taylor Made Fossils is a sculpted recreation of the Shipton cast, designed to resemble the photograph, but which includes none of the special features which the actual cast of the footprint shows. This is also inthe same orientation as the footprint in the photo: all real casts are oriented in the opposite direction because the positive cast is flipped over from the negative mold

This is a photograph that recently turned up on Richard Grigonis' site and I recognised it immediately,. When I was staying at SITU headquarters in 1977, shortly after Ivan T.  Sanderson's death, Steve Mayne and Marty Wolf were in residence and they were experimenting with making latex casts (positives) of the large footprint casts stored in the boxes, on the theory that the latex copies were much more easily handled and transported.  the time abnd I saw the latex copies being made and handled them when they were fit to do so. Along with this track cast positive done in latex, there were also samples of the Westmoreland County PA "Bigfoot" tracks because that was an investigation that was also going on at the time. Those latex positives were illustrated in PURSUIT and the photo of them from Grigonis' blog were run here on the recent Skunk Apes blog entry.

 And the photograph of the actual Shipton footprint cast in cement in the box was printed in an earlier issue of PURSUIT, in July of 1971 (Vol 4, No3). The photo is on the bottom of page 73 and the caption reads, "Imprint of right foot of the "Yeti" taken from a plaster cast made by Eric Shipton in snow on the Menlung Glacier in 1951, on his Reconnaisasance of the route to conquer Mount Everest" This is a direct statement by Sanderson himself as to the origin of his casts, both the negative in storage and all of the positives which were subsequently made from the negative. And the British Museum (Natural History) is also stated to house a duplicate copy of the footprint cast made by Shipton.

This is a photo of a wall decoration that used to hang in Ivan T. Sanderson's house: it was based on a positive cast from the negative footprint in the box and is identical to the latex version made later as to its contours, but this one was cast in bronze ( the positive cast was used as a template to recast the bronzed copy, I imagine, since it was also an exact duplicate) Ivan Sanderson had several metalized items hung up to decorate this same wall, among them was the shell of a nautilus, I distinctly remember that one. This photo is also from Richard Grigonis

Below are some copies of the original 1951 footprint photos that all of the discussion is based on

See also Bobbi Short's summary of the Shipton Track photos at Bigfoot Encounters: http://www.bigfootencounters.com/images/shipton.htm

Some More New England Sea-Serpent Notes

SOME MORE NEW ENGLAND SEA-SERPENT NOTES

The picture at the top of the page was used as an illustration to represent the New England sea serpent of the 1800s. Unfortunately, I think it owes more of its design to the oarfish (right), a recurring candidate for sea-serpent reports in general. The blunt head and big eye would be the more important factors in making that determination: the colouration is wrong but Bernard Heuvelmans has said that in some sea-serpent reports the silvery sides might reflect the colour of the sea rather than show the true colour (these reports are also possibly oarfishes because of the feature).

A summary of sea-serpent reports from a New England newspaper, clipping from Ivan Sanderson's files. Interestingly enough the 'serpent' seems to be of plesiosaur design with a prolonged tail although the text basically re-tells the story of the 1817 Massachussets Bay 'flap' of sea-serpent reports. The last-mentioned Reverend Cummings had a sighting represented in the Von Ferry blog article just posted as being a "Caddy-like" sighting, presumably a moose. I don't know how many moose there may have been around Penobscot Bay in the early 1800s, but they were fairly common in much of New England up until the 1840s, at which time their range basically retreated to the north (such as in Maine, where such reports have been going on all along).

This is the Delia SS sighting off of Maine in 1818, a report which otherwise sounds much like the Pauline SS Whale-fighting-a-giant-squid sighting. Heuvelmans says of this sighting "Was it a squid or a hoax? the latter choice seems more probable."

In this case the prominent whale's tail said to be at the end of thirty feet of 'serpent' tail could be a misinterpreted view of a giant squid's tentacle. Or else it could be that a sperm whale has a type of very long, very thin whale caught head-end in its jaws and it is belabouring the smaller whale to death. If this is so, the same thing may have been sighted two or three other times in other places. The long, thin whale might be a kind of beaked whale developed along the lines of a zueglodon and we have some residual reports of this type after ruling it out as a candidate of the multi-humppd type. It would be the kind of beaked whale reported as a corpse by the Emu in the Pacific: about 60 feet long but with ribs only two and a half feet long, a ribbon-whale. The skull of this creature was definitely the skull of a type of beaked whale, or so the official report from the museum goes.

This last piece of evidence was also from Ivan Sanderson's files and I saw it back in the 1970s when the SITU library and files were still intact. I have restored it somewhat around the edges (scrapbookers, don't listen to the people that tell you to use rubber cement!). This copy comes from The Greatest Study. This page illustrates what was reported to be a film taken by a fisherman in Maine and viewed by an SITU member to be recorded in the files. I never knew what to make of it because the 'blowing' seems to come from some place on the upper neck well behind the head. Presumably that was a mistake, and it may have been there was another creature swimming parallel to this one but obscured on the far side, but far enough back that its blowhole was that much out of sync. And even though the creature was seen and filmed from fairly close to, I think it was based on a small school of dolphins. The view of the head front-on looks a great deal like a head-on view of a bottlenosed dolphin to me. This does not necessarily mean that the dolphins represented in the film are of a known species (if they actually are even dolphins); the lead animal that is best seen appears to have a sort of ragged top edge where the fin would be.

If it is really one snake-like creature as supposed, then the position of the blowhole makes no sense anatomically because it would seem to be well back of the rear end of the skull.

Best Wishes, Dale D.