Australian Big Cats

[FlickStick]

I've been almost obsessed with the the notion of large, Panther sized felids in our bush for quite some considerable time now. I've read every sliver of information on the subject, every eye witness account i can find, and even found a whole book on the subject. I have never seen one myself, but a few years back when I was living on a small property (surrounded by cane fields, densely wooded hill ranges, and bigger cattle properties) in northern QLD, I remember the neighbor telling me how one of their cows (Brahman) gave birth at night, and the next day they found its new born calf dead. But get this, the calf was 20ft high in a gumtree, wedged in a fork in the branches. This area was crawling with packs of big, vicious wild dingo crossbreeds (which I had been stalked by numerous times), but no dog can put a calf up in a tree like that. We had two big dogs, a fully grown Rhodesian Ridgeback/Irish Wolfhound cross, and a younger purebred Irish Wolfhound. They were both big strong dogs, and regularly chased packs of wild dogs away, and protected the young calves. But every now and again, at night hours after the sun went down, they'd start going crazy, running around between our shed (which we lived in) and a small creek about 80m away. We regularly had wild dogs try and stir them up, but on those occasions you would hear the wild ones howling and snarling as well. But in these occasions it was just our two dogs going off. It was really unnerving, considering whatever was outside could easily come into the shed, as we had no doors and all the rooms were open to the rest of the shed. Eventually things would settle down and it fell eerily quiet. Now I'm living in central Vic, Australia's hotspot for these sightings of big cats, and Im really interested in it. Just wanted to talk about it, without a family member or friend thinking I was a loony haha. Anyone else here interested in these big 'cats'?

[yellow door 1]

There was thread on cats a while back

http://breammaster.com/forum/showthr...ighlight=CIDER

[olistevo]

I'm also interested in this subject, mainly because I have seen multiple sightings.

On the way to one of my favourite fishing destinations there is a long white road, and every now and then a large black figure appears (I know straight white roads are hypnotic but this is a real thing)

On a few occasions I've gotten pretty close to this cat, it's about the size of a large domestic dog and I've seen it mauling on kangaroos before. What puzzles me the most about this creature is how careless it is, I've know wild cats to be extremely skittish but the way this thing moves is crazy. It's a really slow/sluggish moving creature when it moves out the way for cars. It just does not care.

I came across it while going for a jog one day as well and it didn't move so I turned around and didn't get to close.


Also a lot of stories on about the south west cougar, I think dowelly had a thread on it.

[Bronco T]

I've had a close call with a cougar or two in my younger years on one occasion it turner out to be a very enjoyable experience

[RyanW]

When we lived in Lower South west region of Western Australia my Dad was the agriculture protection board officer for some of that region for a long time! A farmer had been losing a lot of sheep, lambs and Rams included enough to where it was a concern!

He had actually managed to organise a dart gun for them to use if they did see something as they believed what ever was doing was not a fox or wild dogs due to the way the animals were killed and eaten. Didn't end up finding out what happened with it all but have herd alot of stories! A lot of land out there and thick dense bush for a decent animal to hide!

[Piranha]

My grandfather spotted one while hunting deer in the vic high country above myrtleford around 20 years ago, he had it in the cross hairs for a few seconds but could not bring himself to pull the trigger. He described it as being black and twice the size of a german sheperd with the stride of a tiger.

[olistevo]

I remember reading something about a few guys getting ready to log the nannup pines and they watched a big black cat run down the hill. They described it as flowing across the rocks, similar to water

[stella fella]

Here is some real life footage of an enormous black cat that got into someone's kitchen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLFn_wD2B8I

[FlickStick]

Wow this thread exploded! Although Ive never seen one myself (although I hope I do) I believe something of a feline nature is out there, even if it isn't a cat. Some people believe a lot of the sightings could be contributed to Thylacoleo Carnifex, the Marsupial Lion, which once was the apex mammalian predator in Australia. It supposedly died out about 35-40 000 years ago. Quite a number of witnesses reported that the catlike creature they saw had characteristics of a marsupial, some even said that what they saw was definitely a marsupial, extremely similar to Thylacoleo Carnifex. There is a fascinating book in the subject of Australian big cats, in which an interesting account of the "blue mountains warrigal" is told.

[manno]

Im just surprised people spend any amount of time contemplating these "big cats" at all really. Ok, cats are shy but they aren't invisible... If they ever existed there'd be more physical evidence than camp fire stories and a handful of blurry photos of what are obviously just feral black cats.....

Actually its not a complete surprise. After all. Plenty of people claim to have spotted ET......

[spooling89]

This was shot in 2005 with a a tail length of 26" long but was DNA tested and found to be a unit of a feral cat..
I've seen some mindgy looking wild dogs and some big feral cats whilst hunting, I think big feral cats is the answer with the majority of images looking like they've been taken with a potato and with the amount of hunters/farmers out there yet not one shot or any carcass's found of the so called panther.

[boogzlen]

I have seen one,just before the sun came up coming back from fishing most of the night,narrow 4wd track,this thing run across the road just as I was changing radio station,looked back up and just seen the back half of it disappear into the bush on the side of the road,this thing was as big as the mastiff in the tray,dark black with this awesome purple shine to it and a tail the size of a yabby pump my dog was in a cage on the tray but always barks when she sniffed out something,always,cats,pigs,foxes she used to let you know she was onto something,I stopped where I seen the cat,looked back at her and I had never seen her so frozen with fear I think it was,in her life.this dog would charge into scrub from the back of the tray and rip into pigs no hesitation,me and my mate jumped out with the machete haha,opened up the dog crate to put the pup on the lead but she would not get out,never once in her life did she hesitate to get out of the box but she wouldn't.it was then both me and mate looked at each other at the same time and said "stuff this" so to speak and hightailed it back into the car haha.
So yeah I'm a firm believer in big cats in Oz

[Mick]

Originally Posted by spooling89

This was shot in 2005 with a a tail length of 26" long but was DNA tested and found to be a unit of a feral cat..
I've seen some mindgy looking wild dogs and some big feral cats whilst hunting, I think big feral cats is the answer with the majority of images looking like they've been taken with a potato and with the amount of hunters/farmers out there yet not one shot or any carcass's found of the so called panther.

That thing is no bigger than a large cat, there are non cropped pictures about that show the guy and the bike are a long way back from the hanging cat.

I have no doubt there are large cats about as a result of released animals. In the 70's animal parks were a big thing and when the popularity declined and animal welfare groups swung in to action most closed up shop. Here in NSW two of the bigger ones were the African Lion safari and Bullens animal world.

I remember playing on a golf coarse near one of them in the mid 2000's and an early start would always be met with lions roar, echoing in the distance, as they were waiting for their morning meal. This was roughly 20 years since the park closed, so the big cats were still doing ok.

The location of the park gave direct access in to 700, 000 acres of Blue Mountains National Park and with both food and water plentiful, I'm sure any escaped or released animals are doing well.

[PM79]

I've yet to see a single photo or video that shows anything other than a feral cat or dog.

It's funny how photos and videos are always out of focus and/or cropped to distort scale.

[matt jorg]

I've experienced one....
Shouted me drinks all night and was approx 40 years old and had dark long black hair, anyway my mate remembers it jumping on me and mauling me but I woke up the next day without a clue as to what happened that night.
No scratches or injuries...
Got home ok at least.