Two Florida Bigfoot Stories & Two Black Panthers `

I heard these two stories from an Alachua County (Florida) worker. I asked him for any Bigfoot sightings by him or his friends, and he replied, " I don't believe he exists."
"It is hard to believe, isn't it?"
"My sister-in-law and her grandmother swear they saw one."
"What was the situation?"
"They live in Pensacola and said they saw one run through the backyard. Both of them swear they saw it. They ran for a camera, but it was gone."
Then a second story came to him: "A friend of mine swears he saw one on the main road in Hawthorne (Florida, just east of Gainesville). He was about five feet tall, with arms down to the road, standing on the main highway, just looking."
"I've read a report about one stealing chickens and appearing before a family in a mobile home just a half of mile from the pulp mill in Hawthorne. Apparently, they left because of it," I told him.
Recently I was having lunch outside and asked two other guests if they were hunters.
One said yes so I asked The Questions. His story was: "We put out a trail camera by a corn feeder. A black panther came in, and we got a picture of him eating the corn."
"That's very unusual," I commented. " A cat eating corn."
'I know. Maybe he wasn't eating the corn. Maybe he was just smelling it."
"Did you get a good picture?"
"No, just his head."
This took place about six months ago in Gilchrist County, Florida.
I received the second story at a grocery store. The lady, a sixty year old Jehovah's Witness, said, "This happened when I was only ten and lived in Maine, but it is still vivid in my mind. My father was a deer hunter, and we drove into the woods, parked, and waited to see if there were any deer. A black panther walked right in front of our car."
"How far away was he?"
"Twelve feet. My father whispered, 'Panther!' We also saw a bobcat and two deer."
Note: Bobcats are known to follow panthers hoping to get some of the panther's kill.
Having seen what the Enviromental Protection Agency did to humans in the Pacific Northwest, denying their jobs as loggers, by using the Spotted Owl for an excuse and more recently seeing what the EPA did to the farmers by drying up California's Central Valley to farming, I understand better the bias against recognizing the black phase of the panther as existing. Humans don't want to be prohibited from logging, farming, hunting, and developing through the efforts of the EPA to "protect" the endangered panther. I think this is another reason to elect conservative Republicans as Liberals and even country-club Republicans are more inclined to vote for utopian ideas that only make sense of an emotional basis. If people really cared about you, they wouldn't just offer emotionality but reasoned arguements that include facts, unintentional consequences, and trade-offs. Instead, liberals yell "Free games and grain!" and the ignorant yell back "Yay!" never thinking that there is no free lunch. Even the "free lunches" in the Western saloons were contingent upon you buying liquor. Conservative Republicans are much more likely
to preserve your rights to log, farm, hunt, and even develop in panther woods. Maybe a President Perry will take the little Caesar attitude out of the Enviromental Protection Agency.At any rate, the field guides need to start showing the black color phase of the panther. It's really ignorant of them not to and indicates that they are much too politicized instead of professional. Happy trails.