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Grampians Leopard is not a cat
Eugene Duffy
Friday, 9 December 2005
AN unusual Grampians skull has thrown up another mystery for Wimmera naturalists and bone hunters.
Marnoo resident Kim Guest found the 30 centimetre long skull in the dry bank of Moora Moora Reservoir about 18 months ago.
Ms Guest, 17, said her rural background meant she knew it was not a sheep or cow's skull.
She said she kept a collection of skulls at home to sculpture and knew immediately she had found something interesting.
Her father John Guest has consulted with the Department of Sustainability and Environment and is awaiting results from the Melbourne Museum about the possible species of the skull.
"The experts believe it might be a large marine animal, possibly a leopard seal," Mr Guest said.
He said the teeth structure, including small front incisors, indicated an animal built to grip fish and not chew.
But Mr Guest said he had little idea how a large sea creature could find its way into the Grampians reservoir.
He said it was unlikely to have swum up the Glenelg River but might have received some help from fishermen who caught it at sea and brought it along on a yabbying trip.
The leopard seal is the largest and most ferocious of the Antarctic seal family that can weigh up to 600 kilograms and reach more than three metres in length.
The Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service reported on average only five of the animals made it from Antarctica to the Tasmanian coastline a year.
Horsham Department of Sustainability and Environment natural resources management officer David Brennan said the skull was more likely to belong to an Australian fur seal but could not explain how it reached the Grampians.
He said the animal might have been dumped there some time ago and hoped information from Museum Victoria would shed light on the age of the animal as well as how long it had been there.
http://wimmera.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=news&subclass=local&story_id=444932&category=general%20news&m=12&y=2005
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Loaction: Grampians, Victoria
MATT NEAL
March 28, 2007
LARGE cat-like footprint photographs published in The Standard earlier this month have inspired more Grampians panther-spotters to come forward.
Warrnambool couple Isobel and Arthur Peart were returning home from a Grampians holiday when they saw what they believe to be a panther on the side of the road.
``I don't care if nobody believes me - it was real,'' Mrs Peart said.
``We were driving back to Warrnambool from Halls Gap (and I saw) a black puma climbing up the (embankment) on the right-hand side of the road.''
She said the creature was just three metres from the car but when they turned around it had disappeared into the scrub.
Mrs Peart described the animal as having a shiny black coat and being lean like a greyhound. ``Its tail was a cat's tail and it was a long one,'' she said.
The Pearts immediately returned to Halls Gap to report the sighting.
``I thought people would say `oh yeah, pull the other one' (but) everybody was interested,'
' Mrs Peart said. ``They said there hasn't been anything seen up here for years.''
Warrnambool man Rod Horwill took photos earlier this month of large cat-like footprints on the shore of Lake Bellfield, inspiring Mrs Peart to come forward.
http://the.standard.net.au/articles/2007/03/28/1174761522320.html
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Truth is out there
09 March 2006
Blue Mountains researcher Michael Williams is determined to prove big cats do exist in the region.
IF you've seen any abnormally big cats in the Hawkesbury, Blue Mountains or Penrith areas, then call Michael Williams.
Mr Williams, from Hazelbrook, has been researching big cats for the past five years and is obsessed with proving they really do exist.
Despite numerous scat and DNA samples, track casts and photographs, he said many people were sceptical about the existence of big cats because a body had never been kept by farmers.
``Until we've got a body on the table we're not going to convince people,'' he said. Mr Williams said the cats were mainly black with leopard markings, grew as long as 1.3m and weighed up to 40kg.
There are many theories as to how the cats became so big but Mr Williams believes it was caused by a mutation or cross-breeding with a mountain lion.
He said he saw a big cat once through a nightscope but ``hundreds of credible sightings'' had been recorded in Australia over the years, including in the Hawkesbury's Grose Vale.
Some of the Blue Mountains sightings have been in Glenbrook and Springwood and large prints have been reported in Bilpin, Faulconbridge, Grose Vale and Lithgow.
Grose Vale resident Christine Coffey has been researching big cats for the past eight years and keeps a database on sightings on behalf of Hawkesbury Council.
She said there were 160 people on the database who had seen a big cat, and she had seen one 15m from her home.
``When you've seen the enormity of it, it puts the wind up you,'' she said.
Ms Coffey said goats and sheep had been found dead in trees and cubs sighted, indicating the cats were breeding.
She said the NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) would not acknowledge their existence without ``scientific evidence''.
A spokesman from the DPI said all reports of alleged big cat sightings were taken seriously. ``Investigations have not conclusively proven the presence of free- ranging exotic large cats in NSW,'' he said.
``In October 2003 the NSW DPI completed a four-month investigation into the possible presence of large cats outside Sydney.
``While the report found no conclusive proof that such animals exist, the NSW DPI continues to investigate new evidence as it is made available.''
If you have seen a big cat or taken any photographs, videos or casts from one, email Mr Williams at
Ms Coffey also urges Hawkesbury residents who have seen a big cat to contact Hawkesbury Council.
Penrith Press, March 9, 2006
http://www.penrithpress.com.au/article/2006/03/09/249_news.html
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Experts agree - it's a big cat
Rebecca Lang
Wednesday, 23 August 2006
A GROWING corp of scientists and naturalists believe there are big cats roaming the Australian bush.
And they think the Hawkesbury region, the greater Blue Mountains and areas around Lithgow could be home to a breeding colony, right on Sydney's doorstep.
They are joined by a similarly expanding group of politicians and residents who are demanding the State Government foot the bill for conclusive DNA testing.
Many want the State Government to issue warnings to those living in regional and rural areas to alert them to the presence of the large predators, which some claim are responsible for missing dogs and mauled livestock.
Hawkesbury Mayor Bart Bassett said the State Government needed to act on the community's concerns.
"We definitely need investigation into DNA on what's been collected, not to scare people, but to encourage people to be more willing to report sightings, if the department acknowledged there were large cats in national parks," he said. "And if the DNA is proven, there should be a trapping program."
Dr Johannes Bauer, a wildlife ecologist from Charles Sturt University, was asked by the Department of Primary Industries to look into sightings in the Hawkesbury area. He concluded there were big cats.
Dr Robert Close, an associate professor of biology at the University of Western Sydney with an interest in big cats, believes there is something to the hundreds of sightings in NSW.
"I've got an open mind about it," Dr Close said. "Some of the reports seem to be fairly compelling, as are some of the kills."
Dr Keith Hart, a Rural Lands Protection Board veterinarian who has tracked leopards in Africa, has examined many carcasses and casts of footprints and is convinced there are leopards here in the Hawkesbury.
Hawkesbury psychologist Dr Tony Jinks, who works at the University of Western Sydney, saw a black leopard in 2002 in Kurrajong Heights.
"I recognised it immediately as a black leopard," Dr Jinks said. He did a sketch of the animal he saw and reported his sighting to the then-Department of Agriculture to be greeted with the words "oh, so the fire didn't kill it then?"
In 2000, David Pepper-Edwards, a recently retired big cat expert formerly with Taronga Zoo, identified a large animal track cast taken in Grose Vale as "possibly that of a puma".
Bill Atkinson, from the NSW Department of Primary Industries Agricultural Protection Officer, concluded in his own report: "Nothing found in this review conclusively proves the presence of free-ranging exotic large cats in NSW, but this cannot be discounted and seems more likely than not on the available evidence."
He quoted a report by Dr John Henry from Deakin University in Victoria, written more than 20 years ago (updated in 2001), that supported the case for pumas in the Grampians and elsewhere.
"If there are pumas in the Grampians – and we believe there's a strong case for that – then they would have bred up, they would have then moved out into adjacent suitable habitat," Dr Henry told ABC radio in 2004. "That's the Great Dividing Range. So they would have moved into the vicinity north of Ballarat, across central Victoria."
While the department maintains it is taking the issue seriously, most reports are never acted upon due to the time factor involved. Mr Atkinson said in many cases he found out too late about sightings to collect meaningful evidence on-site.
Despite the hundreds of sightings in NSW, a 'cone of silence' and a culture of ridicule prevails where the big cat is concerned.
Real or imagined, we'll never be the wiser unless the State Government takes a proactive approach in dealing with the issue.
http://www.hawkesbury.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=news&subclass=general&story_id=504175&category=General&m=8&y=2006
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By VANESSA WILLIAMS.
31 January 2003
Herald-Sun
VICTORIA'S legendary big cat has again stirred excitment at Healesville. Retired car worker George Jurriaans and his wife Ruth saw what they believe was a black panther last Saturday. "I've seen feral cats before and it was too big to be one of those," Mr Jurriaans said.
The feline was resting under a bush on his 2.4ha property. Mr Jurriaans said the creature's tail, with a rounded end, looked as long as its body and danced and bounced as it moved. The creature showed no fear when it noticed the Mr Jurriaans and his wife.
The sighting follows two Queensland boys' close encounter at their grandparent's Healesville property on December 28. Chris McLaren, 15, said the animal was smaller than a horse but bigger than a dog and made cat-like sounds as it attacked another animal.
The legend of a big cat has circulated in Victoria since the end of World War II. One story has it that US servicemen released a female panther and cubs into the Victorian bush. But another legend says the big cats escaped from circuses or zoos.
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