BigGameHoundsmen.com

I was watching a show last night on the History Channel called Monster Quest. They talked about there beeing lots of sighting of Black Mt Lions.

The show also showed some trail cam pictures of wild Jags in Arizona. They say that there are at least 4 different Jags, but dont know if there are any females to make them a breedable species. They say they think they came up through Mexico. I never new this but they said Jags in the past were native to areas from the Grand Canyon South, before they were all killed out.

Anyway just curious if any of you have ever seen any Black Lions or Jags ? It would be pretty cool to get one treed.

I have seen pics of black jaguars. Never seen spotted or black in the wild, maybe one of these days...supposedly lions genetics make it very hard for them to be melanistic they are more likely to be albino or spotted (from what I have read). However they can cross leopards with m. lions and have young that survive and are healthy, the cross is not very successful between m. lions and jaguars. Supposedly because leopards and m. lions share some genetic charcteristics...which then brings me back to why then are lions not supposed to carry the gene for melanism when leopards do??? Kind of a rabbit trail but interesting anyway...I have never seen a black mountain lion. I have seen several that were dyed black by taxidermists. Here in CA jaguars used to come up as far as the central valley but they were never very common past San Diego. Another interesting note is that in the right light you can still see the spots or stripes on a melanistic cat of any species.

I remenber awhile ago on this forum, someone posted a link that showed pictures of a hunter from either AZ or NM who thought he turned his hounds loose on a lion track but when he got to his dogs he saw that instead of a lion being there, his dogs had bayed a jaguar up. They were some really cool pictures.

There are a few Jags that come up out of Mexico. These have been treed with dogs, and photographed. I have never saw a black lion, never know a lion hunter that has seen a black lion. Never saw a picture of one, either on a trail cam, or in a tree above the dogs. I've seen more proof of big foot than black lions.

A few years back the AZ jag made the cover of Full Cry mag.a very cool pic of dog bayed on jag in the rocks......cooter

Your all talking about Warner Glenn and his daughter Kelly Glenn-Kimbro with their pack of walkers. He even wrote and put together a pictorial book of the hunt and some photos he has taken over the years of Jags including the Full Cry cover.

http://www.jaguarbook.com/

As for Black mountain lions fairy tales maybe

I used to live close to Mr Glenn.Furnished hay for him.He told me a story about hunting some young dogs that bayed a coyote,I don't remember if the dogs killed the coyote or Warner shot but he tied the dogs to the coyote and made them drag it back to the house.This was his method of breaking them from chasing them.Thought this was pretty interesting.Quite a houndsman Iam sure he could tell stories that would keep your attention. Chuck

from the reading i have done, melanism exists in lions (cougars) but is expressed as a chocolate color rather than black.
Jags were originally found across the southern USA in small numbers. the last known in the SE atlantic states was killed in GA in the 1750s.