Big kitties in Pasco just might be panthers
By JAMES THORNER
Published April 4, 2005
I got the call again two weeks ago as I've gotten it for years.
They spotted "the big kitty" again.
My caller wasn't referring to a tabby on a Tender Vittles binge. He was talking 100 to 150 pounds of tawny, sinuous wild cat.
Yes, a Florida panther, loose in Land O'Lakes.
Again.
I'd always chalked up the stories to Sasquatch fever. You know, well-meaning people who see a big animal dash through the dark and draw the wrong conclusions.
By a leap of the imagination a black bear becomes a bigfoot, a giant squid a sea serpent.
Reassurance didn't come from the Internet either. Lo and behold, one of the first Web sites that popped up when I searched for the Pasco County panther: The Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization.
Seems a bigfoot commentator latched onto the local panther story a few years ago. It's worth quoting a section in full:
"When are these people gonna stop telling "US' that we are seeing something else! ... I know what's in them there woods and don't need no ... ****** with a degree trying to tell me I'm lying! I've seen these cats in Mississippi, along with other hairy-ape type creatures, and I'm not seeing bears and house kats!"
David Crouch, a retired firefighter from Land O'Lakes, emits a light-hearted laugh when he hears his story's become a hit with the Friends of Sasquatch. He's got the unperturbed confidence of a man who knows what he's seen and seen what he knows.
The latest panther stalking his swampy property off Lake Patience Road he's glimpsed three times. Long-tailed, of unknown color, the big cat lurks in pockets of pine and cypress west of U.S. 41.
The most thrilling run-in: Crouch and his girlfriend chased the cat through rows of orange trees in his neighbor's grove.
Another time, the panther was preparing to pounce on an unsuspecting domestic kitten. So much for feline solidarity.
Anyway, that's Crouch's story.
In 2001, he helped persuade a state wildlife biologist to investigate previous Pasco sightings, then heard his claims labeled as unverified at best, hogwash at worst.
Ninety-nine percent of the time what people are seeing is a long-tailed bobcat, dog or coyote, said Gary Morse of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
No offense to Crouch, but scientists need hard proof before they become true believers. Give them reliable photos, a trail of paw prints or tell-tale panther droppings.
Crouch is weary of trying to persuade doubters. He'd just as soon let the cat stay where it is, free from harassment.
"Well, I could have proved it plenty of times," he says in his Old Florida drawl. "But I don't care about proving it anymore."
Here's the point where we take a sharp turn into new territory. I'll take a deep breath first and shield my ears from ridicule. There's a chance - just a chance - Crouch could be right.
For years wildlife experts assured us that panthers, since they disappeared from most of the southeastern United States, never crossed the Caloosahatchee River near Fort Myers.
Then the unthinkable happened two years ago: a young male panther, 112 pounds, was hit by a car on Interstate 4 near Tampa. People spotted another cat near Sarasota, farther north than it should have been.
Since that day, biologists appear more open-minded about Central Florida sightings, less prone to dismiss callers as backwoods fantasists.
Morse admits that "occasionally there's probably a panther in the area" but it's most likely a solitary male cat ranging north of the Everglades to find an elusive mate.
The only reliable panther habitat is South Florida. Enough female cats live in and around Collier County to establish a breeding population of about 80 adult panthers.
The last confirmed Pasco panther sighting was filed by Morse himself. In the early 1980s, he was fishing on the Mitchell Ranch in southwest Pasco and watched for 30 minutes as the tawny cat climbed a tree about 30 yards away.
The ranch has since become the sprawling Trinity neighborhood. Crouch's panther, if that's what it is, probably pokes about on other ranches near his house, some of which are close to being developed.
Who knows? The cat could turn out to be a pumped-up bobcat. The odds say it is. But if you spy a beige-looking cougar crossing Lake Patience Road, best not get out of your car.
He's big. He's hungry. And he hasn't gotten any girly action since he left the Everglades.