No, we aren’t talking about one of the members of the Florida Panther’s hockey team, who happen to be on an insane run in the NHL’s Stanley Cup playoffs right now. It would be pretty comical to imagine right winger Matthew Tkachuk running through a Florida swamp though.
Instead, we are talking about an actual Florida panther, as in the animal, causing quite the scare for this woman who managed to hold onto her phone and take this shocking video.
Tina Dorschel was walking through Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in Naples, Florida when she found herself in an up close and personal wildlife encounter.
The sanctuary is a natural protected wetlands area that features a boardwalk, observation tower, and obviously from this clip, native wildlife.
The shocking video shows Dorschel walking along the boardwalk area of the sanctuary, when all of the sudden she hears the “pitter patter” of someone approaching on the wooden walkway. However, much to her surprise (she says “oh s**t” multiple times in the video), it wasn’t a someone, but rather a something that was running her way.
She somehow manages to keep the video recording as a large panther comes running right by her on the boardwalk. As it passes her, the animal momentarily loses its footing as it turns a corner of the walkway.
The panther then goes running off in the opposite direction as Dorschel continues to stay frozen in place. It’s clear that the woman’s “fight or flight” response kicked in, and she landed in the “too shocked to move an inch” category of the scale.
I mean, what is she supposed to do? Dive into the swamp and marsh where there are probably all kinds of snakes and alligators? She didn’t have many ideal choices in the moment, and standing still and cursing seems like it ended up working out pretty well.
Some people in the comments are upset at her for not turning the phone horizontally to film the encounter. Yeah, like you are supposed to be thinking of the quality of the video during a potentially life threatening situation such as this one.
Better make sure you get a good angle of the Florida panther ripping you to pieces!
That just goes to show you how people can manage to get mad, or find reasons to be angry, at just about everything.
Tina could have died, yet people are just saying “smh Tina, you couldn’t have turned the phone to a landscape orientation?”
The video is linked below, and the description of the video went as follows:
“On March 29th, Tina Dorschel from Naples, Florida was walking through the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary when she spotted an unusual suspect.
A Florida Panther came running out onto the dock! Florida Panthers are a rare sighting for anyone, especially a close encounter!”
Louisiana Bobcat Easy Makes Huge Jump
Holy moly…
Now granted I’m not familiar with the World Record long jump for a bobcat, but this has to be pretty close.
Filmed in Pecan Island, Louisiana, even these crab fishermen were blown about by this display of athleticism:
“We were just out fishing for blue crab in Pecan Island, LA and this huge bobcat came out across the weir.
I grabbed my phone thinking he was about to get wet, but he surprised us all.”
According to National Geographic, a bobcat can jump about 10 feet and just from the eye test, that gap looks bigger than 10 feet.
This fella cleared it with ease…
Two Bobcats Scrap In Texas Front Yard
Texas is a special place.
Aside from the incredible country music, you never know what you might see… maybe it’s a jacked kangaroo, or truckers fighting, or an evicted dude obsessed with Bud Light, OR in this case, a pair of bobcats going at it hard in a family’s front yard.
The person filming said that the bobcats squaring off in the neighborhood “were walking down the street from house to house to marking their territory,” beating the piss out of each other along the way.
Blink, and you might miss it.
These Texas cats are not messing around.
