BigCats
BigCats
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Location: Proserpine, Queensland,
Date: September 22, 2008
I have found some more very interesting info. that will probably interest you.
On thursday last when I was passing the Proserpine Entertainment Centre, I saw that an "Agforce", (Qld. cattle producers' organisation as far as I know), Annual State Conference was being held there, &, delegates to this conference were taking a rest break outside this building.
To my surprise, they had a trailer, like those towed behind small buses used by tourist operators for luggage, &, on the the side of this trailer were photos of pest annimals, such as pigs, foxes, etc., &, a black panther with large white fangs. These photos had the caption "Have you seen these annimals ?"
I immediately asked a delegate if panthers really do exist in Australia ,as I had heard during the last 15 years, because, the National Parks & Wildlife Services deny any knowledge of them when I have phoned them about these annimals.
He replied that they definately do exist, &, he knows that the N.P.W.Ss. deny their existance. I assume that they don't want the entrance fee revenue from the Nat. Parks to decrease due to people being scared to visit Nat. Parks because panthers may live in them.
You can verify that Agforce Qld. list them as a pest annimal by phoning them as an interested member of the public. They will probably give you details of where they know that panthers live & how many they estimate live in these areas.
I told this delegate, &, a little later, a female delegate, that an ex Victorian National Parks Service ranger had told me approx. one year ago, that when he was a ranger several years previously, they had 150 panthers that they had captured, in a compound in Vic.- the decendents of those Regimental Mascots of Australian-based U.S. troops, that they let loose in our bush at the end of W.W. 2., after being ordered to shoot them as they were not to take them back to the U.S. when they return there.
These troops apparently could not kill their mascots that they had brought from the U.S. with them.
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Australian Yowie Research - Data Base
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Legend of the big black cat lives on
Michelle Nelson
Monday, 18 September 2006
The legend of the big black cat is alive and well. First there was one panther-alike creature reputed to be prowling the district, but yesterday morning two of the beasts were seen together.
When Wakanui resident Jessica Sculley glanced over to see what had startled a mob of sheep in an adjacent paddock, she was suprised to spot two very large black cats.
Mrs Sculley described the cats as at least the height of a fox terrier, and is sure at least one of the animals is the subject of recent “panther sightings” across the district.
“They were not as big as everyone said they were, they weren’t the size of labradors – and they weren’t panthers, but they were very large for feral cats,” said Mrs Sculley.
“I have a big cat and these were much bigger than that.”
Mrs Sculley said she was sitting in her car at the school bus stop with her two sons at 8.10am when she saw the cats.
“I noticed the sheep mob up and take off across the paddock. The cats seemed to take fright when the sheep mobbed up and bolted, they both wheeled around and ran across the paddock together.
“They disappeared into the tree line along the roadside and all the birds flew up in the air,” she said.
Mrs Sculley said the cats’ gait was unusual, rather than lope they appeared to trot powerfully toward the shelterbelt.
“Their tails were longer than normal cats and the same thickness right to the end.
“I drove along the tree line. I couldn’t see them but there was nowhere else for them to go. There was a paddock on one side and the road on the other. I would have seen them if they’d come out, you couldn’t have missed them,” Mrs Sculley said.
She contacted MAF and spoke to incursion inspector Graham Mackereth.
She said Mr Mackereth had suggested trucks dumping landfill on the other side of the paddock might have frightened the cats out of the shelterbelt.
“He said there could even be a pair of cats with kittens,” she said.
Yesterday afternoon Mr Mackereth would not be drawn on the subject of a breeding pair of cats living in the area, but said he was making arrangements for an examination of the area around where Mrs Sculley had seen the animals.
He said it was unusual, but not unknown, for feral cats to be seen out together during daylight hours.
“They are usually solitary animals,” he said.
Mr Mackereth said he was hoping to enlist the help of knowledgeable locals to investigate the latest sighting.
Recent sightings of a large black cat in the area of the Ashburton River mouth and the foothills have refuelled the black panther legend started in 2001when the animal was first spotted near Mt Somers.
Last month witnesses described seeing a cat-like animal the size of a labrador dog.
A biosecurity investigator and a large cat specialist from Orana Park checked out those sightings and concluded the animal was probably a large feral cat.
http://www.ashburtonguardian.co.nz/index.asp?articleid=7942
© Copyright AYR
Australian Yowie Research - Data Base
www.yowiehunters.com