Linda Case, age 12, of Edneyville, N.M, for her question:

Are there any panthers in North America?

There is a certain big, handsome cat who is a true native of the New world. He is descended from the whopping cats who helped drive out the huge reptiles giant bears and sloths that inhabited our land in the dim distant past. Through the age: he has played a vital role in the balance of nature, for he hunted and kept down the deer population  who would otherwise have eaten up all the. greenery.

But we 'nave outlawed this useful citizen and given him a string of aliases as though he were a criminal. He is known as the puma, the , cougar, the painter, the catamount, the mountain lion and the panther. The true panther of the old world is a leopards either black or spotted, and our native panther resembles this ‑cousin of his very strongly except in color. At one time he roamed his homeland from southern Canada to Patagonia.

When the land was settled, the farmers and ranchers had a good enough reason to hunt the panther. For he is a big game hunter and he attacked their sheep and cattle. He is not hard to kill., for when he is attached he tends to climb a tree where a man with a gun can get a clear shot at him. He has been driven back from most of his former range and we find him only in a few wild, remote areas* They are American panthers in the Western mountains and in some of the  prairie hills where deer still abound. There are panthers in the dense Everglades of Florida and in some of the tangled forest of Louisiana. And  the big, beautiful cats arc still. quite plentiful in parts of Mexico and South America,

The handsome fellows furry coat varies from golden color to greyish brown, depending upon where he is found. He measures six feet plus a long furry tail ands like all cats, he ,is a bundle of trigger fast, powerful muscles, He, can leap 20 feet, spring down from a 60 foot cliff without bruising a paw, or swim a mile wide river. such a powerful animal could be a dangerous foe to man ‑ if he chose,

Luckily, he very rarely chooses to fight us. There are tales of his, attacking men, but they are rare and most of them not too reliable, His feelings towards us seem to be mixed; he fears us and he is intensely curious about us. He will prowl around a dcserted camp with great interest, then slink off into the bushes when he hears the sound of a returning human.

This does not mean that we can rush right up and make friends with a wild panther; far from it„ He is almost sure to misunderstand us, especially after what we have done to his relatives. He is not a safe animal to deal with but, taken as a kitten, he has been known to turn out to be as loving as a pussy cat, which of course is exactly what he is.