Wildlife expert goes for feral cat option
Susan Sandys
Saturday, 9 September 2006
Sightings of a large black cat roaming Mid Canterbury are likely to be of large feral cats, rather than the district being home to a panther, says a wildlife expert.
Graham Petrie, Christchurch’s Orana Park head keeper of exotic animals, said domestic cats which had spent a few generations in the wild can become quite large and feral cats are more of a problem now in New Zealand than they ever have been.
“Any species that lives in the wild, it’s really only the big and strong that survive,” Mr Petrie said.
“This is what’s happening in New Zealand.
“Animals sometimes get smaller in captivity, but in a wild situation there’s always a chance things get bigger because the big will survive.”
Mr Petrie has viewed photographs of a large black cat walking stealthily along a stock track in the Pudding Hill area taken by Methven hunting guide Al Kircher almost two weeks ago.
“It’s a feral cat, that’s all it is,” Mr Petrie said after studying the digital images.
Feral cats are domestic cats – Felis silvestris catus - which have adapted to living in the wild, hunting prey and eating dead animals, and posing a threat to native birdlife.
Mr Petrie also said he was starting to get annoyed by the sightings reported by some people – “We are hearing people saying it’s the size of a mountain lion. This is the stuff that’s starting to irritate us.”
Mr Petrie has visited Mid Canterbury with MAF in an unsuccessful search for evidence of any such large panther-like creature.
Mr Petrie said the Mid Canterbury sightings may very well give legendary status to “New Zealand’s Loch Ness Monster”, but until someone brought in a black panther which had been caught in a trap or shot, or some other evidence which could lead to DNA identification, experts would not believe the cat sightings pointed to anything other than feral cats.
Nevertheless, the legend of Mid Canterbury’s mysterious black beast lives on.
Andrea Thompson is bar manager at Mayfield’s Panther’s Rock, named in honour of the black cat, first sighted in the district in 2001 at Mayfield.
Mrs Thompson said the legend was very definitely alive in the area.
“There’s people still coming in who have seen it. They just say ‘we saw this big cat’.”
Mrs Thompson also believes the cat is a feral cat, and she should know, having come closer than most to Mid Canterbury’s famed black beast.
In an incident reported in the Guardian at the time, Mrs Thompson last October witnessed a large black cat dragging a lamb about 20 metres across a paddock away from its mother on her neighbour’s property at Mt Somers.
The mother was bleating and headbutting the cat, but the cat did not let go of its prey until screaming and yelling from Mrs Thompson. The cat jumped over a one-metre-high fence to make its escape, leaving the lamb with bite marks to its head.
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