Pawprints 'belong to a dog'
Sue Newman
August 18 2006
The large pawprint and piles of faeces that were the only evidence of the mysterious black cat’s passage through the Ashburton District have been dismissed as the feet and the faeces of a dog.
MAF biosecurity investigation officer Caleb King said that conclusion had been reached after consultation with staff at Orana Wildlife Park.
When the print and droppings were reported to MAF last week, Mr King said his first reaction was that the animal was something other than a cat.
The pawprint came complete with unsheathed claws, typical of a walking dog, he said.
“A cat on the other hand has retracted claws, unless it is hunting.”
Final say in identifying the evidence lay with Orana Park, and spokesman Nathan Hawke said there was no doubt that the evidence was canine in origin, not feline.
“That’s not to say we do or don’t think there is something out there, it’s just that our only concrete evidence is of a dog. Most of our opinion on this has been philosophical, if it was a large cat could it survive, and yes it could. It’s not our stance to debate if it is there or not,” Mr Hawke said.
Large black cat sightings were not rare and were not restricted to New Zealand, he said.
In what will be a disappointing turn for black cat hunters, MAF has decided to pull the plug on future excursions to the Ashburton District to check out sightings.
MAF had made several forays into the district over the years to check out reports of the black cat, but none yielded any evidence, Mr King said.
Future calls made to MAF about cat sightings will simply be entered into its database, and kept on file.
“Our brief is to protect New Zealand and we’ve investigated enough of these over the years to indicate going to the site and looking is really not that rewarding, we don’t find footprints or evidence at the places where people have seen it.”
Any future sightings of the cat should still be called into the MAF biosecurity line – 0800 80 99 66 - but unless there is overwhelming evidence of the animal, they are unlikely to spark a MAF investigation.
http://www.ashburtonguardian.co.nz/index.asp?articleid=7760
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