Location: Coffs Harbour
Event: Panther Sighting
Date: 1979
Source: Cherrie Waterhouse
My Mother was getting the property ready for sale, we had a large dam, and to make the property ready I was sent out to different chores around the place. The water for the house came from the dam at that time, and I was sent down to start the diesel pump to get the water to the house. I found footprints in the mud. I ran back to the house to get Mum to come and see them too.
We went back to the house, and she called the newspaper, who came out and took photos of the prints. There had been lots of sightings of the large black cat, but a lot of people said it was a dog, but there was no dog in the area big enough to make those prints. Anyway, they leave different prints, they have different pad marks.
The tracks went around the dam, and you could see where it went to the edge of the dam to drink, then went back into the bush. The prints were 5 to 51/2 inches across, and they were basically round. We did have feral cats in the area, but there was a story that a black panther had escaped from a circus.
I remember a friends Arab Stallion had the back leg ripped open. On another property two goats had been ripped apart and eaten. My pet lamb was killed, and it hadn't been stuggling as it wasn't at the end of it's tether. There was no sign of a struggle. A lot of people said it was dogs, but dogs make a noise, there was not noise, the lamb was just grabbed.
One of the butchers at Coffs Harbour also told the story of standing outside his house, watching a kangaroo go through his bottom paddock, and saw the panther come out grab it and pulled it back into the bush. He also relates a tail of startling it, and it taking off up into a tree, dropping a branch down on top of him.
The same butcher has made claims of seeing a Tasmanian Tiger. It is fairly common to hear reports of the Panther and Tasmanian Tiger being seen together.
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