Step back in time features news items from The Daily Star 25 and 50 years ago.
25 years ago
Feb. 11, 1987
DEPOSIT _ In the past two months, a couple of Deposit residents said they have seen a black panther in the Deposit area _ but a state official said there never has been a substantiated sighting of a large cat in that vicinity.
When returning home late one night two months ago, Lynn O'Connor said she was pulling into her driveway on Columbia Lake Road in Deposit when, not more than 20 feet away, she saw a large "sleek and beautiful" black animal.
"It was about 10:30 p.m. when my headlight beams shone on a jet black animal with yellow-green eyes that was between my house and milk shed," Mrs. O'Connor said. "When he saw me he leaped and took off. He was very fast, faster than a coydog. It wasn't like a lion, but moved like one. It wasn't ratty looking. I have never seen one like it before. It was smooth and shiny looking."
Bill Morley, who has been driving a school bus for Deposit Central School since 1981, said he saw the animal in the Cannonsville Dam area around the Mormon Hollow or Dry Brook road in the beginning of January.
"I stopped the school bus and we watched it leap and run into the woods," he said. "I'd say the panther was at least 90 pounds."
Neither Morley nor Mrs. O'Connor said they had reported seeing the black panther to conservation officials.
Quentin Van Nortwick, regional wildlife manager for the Department of Environmental Conservation in Stamford, said he has no idea what the people have seen.
"I don't have any knowledge of black cats or black cougars in the area," he said. "I never have been able to substantiate large cat sightings."
Van Nortwick said people could be seeing large black house cats.
