Elusive panther spotted in southwest Elgin

March 24, 2009
By DAVE GATHMAN dgathman@scn1.com

ELGIN -- The elusive Plank Road Panther, or a similar animal, apparently was spotted Monday afternoon just west of Randall Road, between Elgin Country Club and the Otter Creek Shopping Center. The sighting gave what may be the first accurate indication of the mysterious animal's size.

Cinda Menke, an employee at a store in the shopping center at Randall and Route 20, said she was locking up a back employees-only door to the store about 1:10 p.m. Monday when she spotted a black animal on the other side of a harvested farm field behind the center. The animal was walking along a line of trees and bushes at the east edge of Weldwood Drive, an exclusive residential street that runs between the farm field and Elgin Country Club.

"I always check out there when I lock up the back door to see if somebody might be out there," Menke said. "I see deer there very often. But when I saw this thing, if I had been a cartoon character, my eyes would have bugged out. It was a black cat, but it seemed to be the size of a Labrador dog."

"I called my co-worker, Joanne Mallory, to look and she agreed 'that is no dog,'" Menke said. "Then it went behind the trees and disappeared."

A search by a reporter and photographer about 20 minutes later found no panther. Paw prints from some large cat- or dog-like animal could be seen on muddy ground outside a derelict, fire-damaged shed on the east side of Weldwood Drive. Searchers noted that not far from where the animal was seen, the street dead-ends in dense, marshy undergrowth that lines both sides of Otter Creek.

But because the cat was standing in a narrow tree line, the witnesses were able to estimate its size. Menke said the animal's body and tail almost exactly filled the distance between a certain tree and a piece of white litter, which turned out to be an empty fast-food bag. When that spot was examined up close, the distance between the tree and the bag was found to be 7 feet.

A large black or dark-colored cat similar to a cougar, leopard or jaguar has been seen by many people between last summer and January in the Plato Center-Udina area. A photo of it was taken in November by an automatic camera set up by a hunter. But because it was hard to tell how far the animal was from the camera, it was difficult to estimate the animal's size based on that picture.

"I always check out there when I lock up the back door to see if somebody might be out there," Menke said. "I see deer there very often. But when I saw this thing, if I had been a cartoon character, my eyes would have bugged out. It was a black cat, but it seemed to be the size of a Labrador dog."

"I called my co-worker, Joanne Mallory, to look and she agreed 'that is no dog,'" Menke said. "Then it went behind the trees and disappeared."

A search by a reporter and photographer about 20 minutes later found no panther. Paw prints from some large cat- or dog-like animal could be seen on muddy ground outside a derelict, fire-damaged shed on the east side of Weldwood Drive. Searchers noted that not far from where the animal was seen, the street dead-ends in dense, marshy undergrowth that lines both sides of Otter Creek.

But because the cat was standing in a narrow tree line, the witnesses were able to estimate its size. Menke said the animal's body and tail almost exactly filled the distance between a certain tree and a piece of white litter, which turned out to be an empty fast-food bag. When that spot was examined up close, the distance between the tree and the bag was found to be 7 feet.

A large black or dark-colored cat similar to a cougar, leopard or jaguar has been seen by many people between last summer and January in the Plato Center-Udina area. A photo of it was taken in November by an automatic camera set up by a hunter. But because it was hard to tell how far the animal was from the camera, it was difficult to estimate the animal's size based on that picture.

"I always check out there when I lock up the back door to see if somebody might be out there," Menke said. "I see deer there very often. But when I saw this thing, if I had been a cartoon character, my eyes would have bugged out. It was a black cat, but it seemed to be the size of a Labrador dog."

"I called my co-worker, Joanne Mallory, to look and she agreed 'that is no dog,'" Menke said. "Then it went behind the trees and disappeared."

A search by a reporter and photographer about 20 minutes later found no panther. Paw prints from some large cat- or dog-like animal could be seen on muddy ground outside a derelict, fire-damaged shed on the east side of Weldwood Drive. Searchers noted that not far from where the animal was seen, the street dead-ends in dense, marshy undergrowth that lines both sides of Otter Creek.

But because the cat was standing in a narrow tree line, the witnesses were able to estimate its size. Menke said the animal's body and tail almost exactly filled the distance between a certain tree and a piece of white litter, which turned out to be an empty fast-food bag. When that spot was examined up close, the distance between the tree and the bag was found to be 7 feet.

A large black or dark-colored cat similar to a cougar, leopard or jaguar has been seen by many people between last summer and January in the Plato Center-Udina area. A photo of it was taken in November by an automatic camera set up by a hunter. But because it was hard to tell how far the animal was from the camera, it was difficult to estimate the animal's size based on that picture.

See photos at: http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/couriernews/news/1491954,3_1_EL24_05PANTHER_S1.article