Genuinely fascinating if true. The Ozarks region throws up big cat sightings more than most people realise, and there's a running debate about whether these are escaped exotic pets, remnant populations nobody's officially catalogued, or something weirder altogether.
The "size of a Labrador" description is one that comes up repeatedly in British big cat reports too, particularly around the Scottish Highlands where I'm based. Black colouration, low build, longer tail than a domestic cat. Witnesses almost always underestimate size because there's nothing familiar to compare it against in the landscape.
What I'd want to know is whether there were any tracks, any livestock disturbance nearby, or any smell reported. People don't talk about the smell but a lot of big cat encounters apparently come with a distinctive musky odour.
Has anyone actually got a photograph or trail cam footage from that area? Even a blurry one would be worth posting up here. The pattern of sightings matters more than any single account and if we can start building a rough map of where these reports are clustering, that tells us something useful.
