Foley, Ala. — It’s like a bunch of caterwauling, all the talk that goes on about cougars, panthers and black panthers in the state of Alabama.

The experts, namely, the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, say a cougar hasn’t been seen in the state in decades, perhaps a hundred years.

Yet, people see and hear things. They do so right here in the Foley area.

Leslie Lassitter, environmental manager for the City of Foley, said she has received numerous reports of “black panthers” being seen in and around the city, particularly in the Graham Creek area. People have also reported an animal sound that isn’t unlike that of a woman screaming.

“The experts are very adamant that black panthers don’t exist here,” said Lassitter, who has been looking into the half dozen or so reports that she has heard locally about “black panthers.”

She notes that Fish and Wildlife officials tell her they get calls at least once a week from somebody in the state telling them a “black panther” or “cougar” or something has been spotted somewhere.

Lassitter points to an Outdoor Alabama article of late entitled “Panthers in Alabama: Fact or Folklore,” the article on the official Web site of the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

The article notes that the “last hard evidence that a big cat existed in Alabama was in the 1940s.” And, since no Western or Florida panther has ever been known to be black, what people could be seeing is the jaguarundi, an animal native to Central and South America.

According to Lassitter, the jaguarundi is a “medium-sized wildcat” that is very elusive.

They are not aggressive animals, and there are no reports of a jaguarundi attack on a human. In Mexico and South America, the jaguarundi feeds on chickens and small mammals like possum and raccoon.

“They do hunt during the day,” Lassitter said of the jaguarundi, which exists in the Texas-Louisiana area and perhaps in Florida. There is evidence that approximately 40 jaguarundi once escaped into the Florida wild, Lassitter said.

Black is one of the color variations of the jaguarundi, which has a small head and long, flattened tail, Lassitter said. She notes a jaguarundi could be nearly six-feet long from head to tip of tail, although the animal would typically weigh 20 to 30 pounds.

And that blood-chilling scream?

“They have several vocalizations they make,” Lassitter said.