Strange black cat?

[mungojeerie]

Driving through Chilliwack last December on a long stretch of straight road, I see an animal approx 200yds ahead of me enter the road. I'm clipping along at 80-90 so that gap closes fairly quickly.

It briskly crosses the road and enters the bush right beside the gates to the mministry of defense property.

Theis is the weird part. Instantly I'm confused. Its medium sized, maybe like that of a big bobcat, It's got long lanky legs like a cat. A short face like a cat, no prominent muzzle like a canine. It's tail is strange it's about 12" long sticks up at about a 35 degree angle and is slender looking. It moves like a cat, it's gait is that of a cat but the entire animal is jet black!

I find my brake and come to a stop just on the shoulder to where it entered the bush hopin to get a better look at it and maybe even a pic, can't see it anywhere and instantly plug in my phone to my stereo open an animal sounds app and play a bobcat in distress sound to see if this critter is curious enough to let me see it again.

No such luck. Any ideas on what it could be? If it didn't have such a long tail and wasn't jet black I'd have settled on bobcat. A few people have suggested to me it could have been a hybrid between a black house cat and a bobcat. Anyone ever heard of that?

[Buckmeister]

Hmmm, I was just wondering about hybrid cats the other day. We hear of hybrid dog/wolf, dog/coyote, etc..., but I have never heard of any cat hybrids. Interesting.

[1980skywalker]

You were tired, it was late, it was a cat, close to residential areas?

[BlacktailStalker]

The long lanky legs would make me think it wasn't a cat, maybe a young black wolf but your eyes saw best. The wonders of the woods!

[mungojeerie]

Yeah here in Pitt Meadows/Maple Ridge I have seen several hybrid coyotes... Often they look like a cross with a German shepherd. But I've never heard about cat hybrids... For some reason canine hybrids seem more believable/feesable than cats. Such a big difference in size etc.

[mungojeerie]

No it wasn't late it still pretty early and I wasn't tired, I was jacked because I just finished loading my last buck of the season in my car :) it was way too big to be domestic and the legs were longer.

too small for a wolf, plus no snout and the tail was way off.

[Livewire322]

Jeuvenile black cougar perhaps!?

[springpin]

Jeuvenile black cougar perhaps!?

That would be a jeuvenile African American cougar!

[Foxton Gundogs]

From Wikipidia
Attempted or unconfirmed hybrids

Mandalan jaguar (http://www.huntingbc.ca/w/index.php?title=Mandalan_jaguar&action=edit&redlink=1) (proposed name): domestic cat/jaguarundi (http://www.huntingbc.ca/wiki/Jaguarundi) (Puma yagouaroundi)
Domestic cat/Canada lynx (http://www.huntingbc.ca/wiki/Canada_lynx) (Lynx canadensis)
Domestic cat/bobcat (http://www.huntingbc.ca/wiki/Bobcat) (Lynx rufus): There are reports of bobcats breeding with domestic cats, but such matings have never been successful because the two species are not interfertile. [3] (http://www.huntingbc.ca/forum/#cite_note-3)
Domestic cat/Pallas cat (http://www.huntingbc.ca/wiki/Pallas_cat) (Otocolobus manul)

Domestic cats have not been hybridized with ocelots. An offspring of an ocelot female (born August 2007), believed to have been sired by a domestic Bengal male, is awaiting genetic analysis.
The Jaguarundi Curl is not a Jaguarundi hybrid. It is a short-legged domestic breed developed from REFR's Highland Lynx breed

[huntinnewbie]

There is an African Serval cat lost in the Aldergrove area but it isn't black and don't think it would make it all the way to Chilliwack. It has been gone long enough to make the trip and the size you reported is right. There about the size of a Border Collie.
However with the few sitings of this cat it would seem that it is living on the acreage surrounding CFB Aldergrove between 264th and 272nd St.
On another note we were camping up by Chillwack Lake and a member here was running his hounds on Bobcat. I watched one run across the road and it also seemed to be black and it was very early in the morning and just starting to get light. However the tracks in the snow showed it was a Bobcat.

[Brew]

Yeah here in Pitt Meadows/Maple Ridge I have seen several hybrid coyotes... Often they look like a cross with a German shepherd. But I've never heard about cat hybrids... For some reason canine hybrids seem more believable/feesable than cats. Such a big difference in size etc.

I know the coyotes you are talking about. My trapping instructor has one mounted at his house. He sent DNA of the coyote in and it turns out they are their own species of coyotes only native to maple ridge and Pitt meadows. Pretty neat I thought.

[mungojeerie]

Yes tricky shadows did cross my mind at the time. However that could not have been the case in this spot. And it was about 2:30pm on a gorgeous day so there was still lots of light.

I trudged through deep snow for kilometers up there last year just for something to do one day, brought the rifle and a predator call with the idea I might try to call in some coyotes in a cut.

Along my way I cut several sets of small cat tracks that I assume we're bobcat and two sets of cougar tracks, one if which seemed so fresh I was a little nervous. Lots of clifs and rock bluffs overhanging that road, I was alert.

No animal sightings that day though.

[bccanadian]

That would be a jeuvenile African American cougar!

Awww....you beat me to it....:-D

[Argali]

Was it a fisher?

[mungojeerie]

Nope not a fisher... Though I did see both a marten and a huge fisher while hunting in region 5 this year, both very cool sightings :)

Brew, you serious about the yote thing here in ridge meadows? If so that's pretty cool. I've got iphone video somewhere of one of em. I pulled over on the side of the road by the pitt meadows airport and watched one right off the road pouncing and eating rodents one after the other.

[BCHunterFSJ]

Are there melanistic (black) cougars? If there are this sounds like one to me (a juvenile I'd guess).

[mungojeerie]

Maybe... with its tail hacked off lol

[olympia]

quick everyone, to the batmobile with yer guns...yeehaw

[laredo318]

Probably a zombie cat.

[sawmill]

Chupacambra.Definatley.

[hunterdon]

Are there melanistic (black) cougars? If there are this sounds like one to me (a juvenile I'd guess).

Funny you should mention that. About 38 years ago on a return trip from Arizona with some friends one night, my friend who was driving my car at the time, had taken a wrong turn. We ended up going down a dark and lonely highway in Colorado. The highway signs said highway 666. I kid you not. There is a highway numbered 666, or at least there was 38 years ago. Anyways, after about 100 miles of nothing but rolling hills and sheep, (we actually had to stop a few times as they passed across the highway,)we finally came to a very small town.
We gassed up and headed back to the main highway. This time I drove. After about a half hour drive out of the small town, I noticed something ahead right in the middle of the highway. As the car approached and travelling much slower, it became very clear, that it was no black sheep, as I initially thought. It was sitting right on the dividing line of the highway and didn't want to move. Finally, while driving my car at jogging speed, the animal finally got up and simply stood on the opposite lane of the highway. I got an a REAL good look as I drove slowly by that animal no more than 6 feet away, and it was a very large black panther. I guess you could say a black phase cougar. I have since spoken to a former Colorado resident who confirmed that they have seen there from time to time.
My brother also had seen one in the northern Ontario bush one night. One night before bedtime, he slipped out of the cottage to water the flowers (the natural way) and heard a noise nearby. He shone the flashlight in the direction of the noise only to see a black panther just 10 feet away. He just about had a heart attack. Since then he avoids watering the flowers after dark.:-D

[mungojeerie]

Hey Brew.... I dug up some video footage of one of the hybrid coyotes I came across in Pitt Meadows... this one was down by the airport, but I've also seen them on Harris Rd north of Lougheed and on 203rd close to airport way.

http://youtu.be/2DxxHaS0c1U

[Darksith]

Si...is that u? Black panther?

[308Lover]

The size has me a bit confused, but Google the Fisher as a possibility.

[Bowzone_Mikey]

it was a Pug crossed with a collie

[Sofa King]

sounds like you just had yourself a sasquatch sighting.
report this to bfro and they'll be labelling this story as valid proof. haha.
it's eyes were glowing too, weren't they?

[Rock Doctor]

Could ba a "Main Cun", an old friend of mine breeds them, they can get up above 15lbs and reach almost 4ft long (Head to tail). They have tufts of hair on the ears like a lynx, come in all colors, long and short haired, and some have "half Docked" tails.

RD