#137 Bigfoot, Panthers, And Polar Bears

I drove down to Ocala National Forest, traveling more than 220 miles that day. I saw many tracks as Ocala has a lot of sand roads and trails. But no Bigfoot tracks. I saw a vulture flush ahead of me on one of these roads and in driving up to where he flushed, I saw that he had left a big wing feather. I got out to take it as a momento of the trip and immediately noticed that the area around the feather and the feather itself stank. I have almost no sense of smell so it must have really stunk. I looked arouind to see if there was somebody dead lying around but saw nothing. The odor must have come from the vulture. I did not take the time to ask anyone about Bigfoot but took a picture of the big foot of the day: a bear track. That track appears a couple of postings before this one. I thank my son for putting it on.
I drove from 1 to 9 p.m. and when I got home there was one poop and four pees on the floor. In a couple of days, I drove up to Lake Palestine, looking for tracks on the road into the lake. Then I drove for a total of four hours on the roads in Osceola Forest looking for tracks. I found several turkey tracks along the side of the roads and was surprised how far the tracks continued. There were also some deer tracks and as I passed a side road I saw a big turkey on it. I decided that since what I had seen was big, black, and shiny, I had better go back and make sure it wasn't a black panther. I turned around and went back. As I turned into the side road, the big turkey turned in the road and ran for the jungle-woods. I hailed a truck and a Ray Richards stopped. He had lived in Osceola Forest all his life, fifty years. He had never seen anything that would lead him to think of a Bigfoot existing in the area. "You know the rear tracks of a bear are quite long, and that is probably what people are seeing when they say they saw a Bigfoot track," Ray commented.
"Eighteen inches long?" I asked.
"No," he replied,"Not that long.
We talked for about half an hour, window to window in the middle of the road way out in the jungle-woods. After a while, he remembered one incident that could be a Bigfoot encounter: "A hunter in Lulu (a small village about ten miles away) was on his stand before there was any light and heard loud crashing coming toward him. Then he heard a growl several times, and then the creature crashed away from him. The hunter thought it was a bear."
"But bear don't crash through the woods. They are timid, quiet animals," I observed. I can think of only two animals who habitually make a great deal of noise in the woods: the nine-banded armadillo and Bigfoot. Of course, the armadillo, weighing less than ten pounds, can only make so much noise compared to a 400 to 800 pound Bigfoot if they exist.
Ray Richards related several panther stories: " When I was a boy, I saw a dark but not quite black panther approaching the fenceline to the cornfield. The big cat actually put his front paws on the top of the fence, standing on his hind feet, and looked around as cats will do. His tail was about a yard long. When he saw me, he disappeared. I ran for Dad, and we put two dogs who ran bobcats on the panther's trail. They smelled the trail and headed for the truck ( meaning they were very scared and wanted to hide under the truck.
About two years later, I saw an almost black panther on the property and put two dogs who would run anything onto the trail. They ran the cat and treed him in about two hundred yards. All I had in the truck was a cattle prod, but I took that and went toward the treed panther. As I approached the tree, the panther saw me, and he leaped out of the tree, disappearing into the woods. What a sight that was to see him leaping out of the tree! To Be Continued.
I interrupt Ray's stories about Osceola Forest, dogs, and panthers to give you something I read today: "According to the leading polar bear biologist, Dr. Mitchell
Tower, Department of the Interior, Government of Nunavut, 'of the thirteen populations of polar bears in Canada, eleven are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct or even appear to be affected at present." This is on page 143 of Christopher Horn's book, "The Politically Incorrect Guide To Global Warming And Enviromentalism." Horn recognized that the Artic ice is getting thinner but does not believe there are now large open areas of water appearing.Peter "Two-Guns" Nickerson, MS, MSW at peternickerson12@yahoo.com.