The Eastern Panther: Mystery Cat of the Appalachians

Patrick Colgan is the former executive director of the Canadian Museum
of Nature.

Gerry Parker is a retired East Coast wildlife biologist and the author
of The Eastern Coyote (1995). In this book, he turns his attention to
the eastern panther, which has likely been extinct for decades. He
reviews the natural history of the panther, its demise with the advance
of human settlement and programs of predator elimination, its occasional
attacks on humans, the subspecies to the west and south, existing
mounted specimens, and ongoing reports of sightings.

With extensive quotations from other sources, and poetry, the text is
more lore and social history than science. (On matters of factual
exactitude, the specific portion of the Latin binomial for humans is
erroneously given as “sapian” and “sapien,” and the title
“klandagi, lord of the forest” is often used without an etymological
source.) There are some black-and-white photographs, notes, and a
bibliography.

For Parker and a small coterie of pantherites, this species clearly
provides a haunting memory and the enticing possibility of a continuing
presence. Unfortunately, the presentation of this book—a litany of
mounted specimens and reported sightings—does not make for interesting
reading.