Australian Big Cats

A very large puma was hit recently between Prescott and Ash Fork, Arizona by a car.
Marshall and Barbara Rader said that on a dark night in early December, they were driving north on Highway 64 about halfway between Williams and Valle when a huge cougar leapt in front of their Ford F350 truck.
While the Raders didn't weigh the catamount, it took three men to lift it and everyone who saw it estimated it weighed 200-220 pounds, Marshall Rader said. Its paw was about 8 inches across, and it was more than 7 feet long from head to tail. He could see its head over the hood of his truck.

Thanks to Wayne for this great report.

Place: About 20 kilometers south of ^%$#@ on the *&^%$# to *&^%$ Road in NSW.
Incident: I received a phone call from a very good Mate of mine (deceased now). Before I go on I must say that my Mate was hardly scared of anything. Being an ex-bikie and an adept master of Ju Jitsu and I must say a damn fine gunsmith. This man as I said before was hardly scared of anything; anyway he went onto say that there was something down in a gulley close to the house.
He stated that something not native to the Australian bush was growling and screaming from this gulley. He also said that the dogs that he had cowered in their kennels all night and never said a word. They would generally let them know if there was a stranger or an animal close to the house by barking.
He went onto say that the dogs started barking at something about 7.30pm that night after initially hearing a scream. Once the dogs heard this scream they shot back into their kennels and stayed silent the rest of the night.
He said that this went on the whole night in sporadic stages. He said that this put the wind up him and his wife so bad that he had a gun at every door and window and never got a winks sleep the whole night.
After talking to him I put my rifle in the vehicle and drove to his place arriving their about 8.15am.
I then spoke to him at length about the noises and the possibility it could have been a group of drunken youths or a fallow buck in rut. He said “no” to all of my suggestions and further said that the screaming and growling had only stopped 5 minutes prior to my arrival.
The gulley in question was about 150 meters from the house in a northwesterly direction that was covered in heavy timber and blackberry bushes. The gulley was about30 meters deep and ran about 150 long. At the western end of the gulley there is a thin crop of blackberry bushes.
Making my way quietly and cautiously down into the gulley, I made use of the timber for cover and made sure that I had the wind/breeze at my back, but as everybody knows wind has a tendency to swirl around down into a gully. So I selected a large tree and sat back against it and waited and watched.
About 20 minutes later the birds went quiet and the wind/breeze stopped. I had the distinct feeling I was being watched, and that feeling directed my eyes towards the blackberry bushes to the west.
I saw a black shadow lying low behind the bushes and it was silhouetted by the green grass behind it. Distance was about 30 meters. I had already chambered a round in the rifle but had not closed the bolt. On seeing the shadow I kept perfectly still for what seemed an hour just looking above and to either side of this shadow trying to pick up any movement; the flick of an ear, the twitch of a tail; nothing. It just laid there.
So, very slowly I started to raise my rifle, at the same time I carefully pushed down on the bolt of my rifle. The next thing it was up and gone in two bounds back up to the top of the gulley and gone.
I realized that the breeze had come back and the birds were singing again.
I have studied big cats most of my life. They epitomize the feline breed by their grace, strength, speed and their deadliness. This was a big cat of the black variety. I still get the hairs rising up on the back of my neck every time I think about that incident.
I didn't tell the couple what had happened until a week later, because I wasn't sure that what I had seen was true, such was the impact it had on me.I went over to the place where I had seen the animal. The ground was grassy and no prints were found, but when I felt the ground where it laid and watched me, you could definitely feel the warmth if it's body on the grass.

This animal has the gracile shape often seen in Australia.
At first I thought it was a melanistic asiatic golden cat.But the size was all wrong.
Turns out it is a P. p. delacouri, the Indochinese leopard.
And this bit about Melanism is vey interesting.
"Another explanation is that about 70 percent of selective pressures associated with the biological environment involve microbes and diseases....The types of receptors used for coat colors are also used by viruses to enter cells,” O’Brien says. Recent studies have shown that coat-color genes also affect the immune system. It is plausible that some of these color mutations are adaptive—relics of historic epidemics.

News
Big cat believer
Aleks Devic
10 January 2008
The Echo


A LORNE resident who was a big cat sceptic has now converted after her close encounter with what she is certain was a black panther.
Big cat researcher Michael Williams said reports of sightings during the last six months have been in a similar area and there was a chance some "researchers" who have no evidence of anything will call them "panthers".Most people dont know there is no such animal zoologically speaking and there is no evidence of 'panthers`,ie, melanistic leopards/jaguars in Australia anyway.Big ferals for sure are out there though."Helen Stewart was at her farm in Winchelsea when she spotted the black cat about five weeks ago ``dead on'' 11.05am.
"I still get that yucky feeling in my stomach when I think about it,'' Mrs Stewart said.``It was quite scary because when I first saw it, I was like, what the hell is that and then I said `oh my god, it is a big black cat'.
``Its body was the size of a black labrador and the tail was so long it just dragged along the road and usually dogs' tails stick up in the air.'
Mrs Stewart said she saw the panther from about 20m away and it came from inside a nearby canola field."It just stood there, it didn't move or look side ways and then it just loped off," she said.
``I was a disbeliever but I shouldn't have been. I tell you I was pretty shaken and am not a sceptic any longer.''
Mr Williams said the latest sighting corresponded with several reports mid last year of a big cat was in Inverleigh.
``What's happening is anyone guess.Why speculate and try and come across as an "expert" on an animal we cannot prove."Mr Williams said there were 320 reports in his area alone (NSW)and scoffed at the supposed 52 big cat sightings often quoted by one unemployed local big cat "enthusiast".Williams then stated "our data base is used by the local government.His..has always been around the same figure for about 10 years which is odd....so I doubt it exists outside his head" he said laughing.

Odd looking cat on Darren Naish web site.
Probably the best animal web site on the net.
Have a look at the cat.

A fast moving cat like animal was seen on this farm.The horses and ducks went crazy straight after it went through the property.
The owners dog returned a few minutes later with this gash(now stitched up).
Was this the cat.?

The Advertiser
08 January 2008
Mystery deepens

HARCOURT’S big cat mystery gained pace at the weekend as dry weather and freeway construction were believed to have flushed the elusive feline out of hiding.
An eyewitnesses siting on Sunday and unexplained paw prints discovered beside a farm dam have added credence to the belief a large wild cat may be stalking the area.
Coliban Water bailiff Dennis Clapham spotted the large animal while on his way to turn on channel water for Harcourt Valley Vineyards shortly before 7 am on Sunday.
‘‘I was driving up Milford Road when I saw this big black cat as it was just emerging from the long grass,’’ Mr Clapham said.
‘‘I saw it and it saw me, then it took off like a scalded cat.’’
Mr Clapham said from a distance of less than 100 metres he estimated the animal to be about 60 cm high and with a body length of up to a metre that moved with a distinctly feline quality.
‘‘I was a bit sceptical to start with, but the more you listen to people around here, and hear anecdotally of mauled sheep or kangaroos chomped in half and dragged halfway up trees, it makes you wonder what the hell it is.’’
He added: ‘‘If feral cats can get that big, then I’m scared.’’
Harcourt Valley Vineyards owner Kye Livingstone said his brother had first sighted the paw prints at the dam’s edge on the weekend, but had suspected them of being a neighbour’s dog.
But, he said his neighbour’s dogs tended to wander off together and the single set of prints, each measuring eight centimetres across, indicated something much larger.
‘‘I didn’t believe it to begin with, but whatever it is, this is something a fair bit bigger than my pup,’’ he said.
Mr Livingstone said the paw prints added to many local stories, and he would like to see a register made of the collected evidence of something living in the area.
‘‘At this time of year when we are irrigating, the water goes down quickly leaving the mud exposed,’’ he said.
‘‘It would take quite a bit of weight to push down into that mud.’’ Mr Livingstone said roadworks in the valley appeared to be bringing the animal further out of the bush.
He said the Calder Freeway route had eliminated some of the small farms and dams at the rear of this property, and could mean the animal was coming further out in search of water.
‘‘The thing is there is probably plenty of food about with roos and rabbits, but it is water which is the problem.’’ One Harcourt resident who moved as the freeway came through, Michael Warrend said he suspected his dog encountered the cat on his former property, which adjoined the bush of the Castlemaine Diggings National Park.
‘‘My small blue heeler cross will get a hold of a snake and go after anything, but one day he chased something down the water race,’’ he said.‘‘But he came bolting back and went and sat in his kennels for two days.’’ Mr Warren believes the animal could be the descendant of a released wildcat, or the product of 20 to 30 generations of interbreeding and adaptation of feral cats, capable of producing an animal of this size.‘‘Whatever it is, it is big,’’ he said.

14 November 2007
Western Australia
Coupan sighting



The infamous local cougar, or ‘coupan’ was sighted at a Karridale vineyard last Wednesday.
The vineyard manager, who did want to be identified, spotted the big black cat running across the property at high speed.

Shocked, he yelled out to a worker but by the time the worker looked up the cat had gone.
Scouring the area turned up no footprints or other evidence, but the man is convinced it was the Karridale cougar on the property.“There’s no way it was a feral cat,” he said.
“It was like a big jungle cat.”
The man estimated the cat to be about 70 metres from where he was standing.
“At that distance you could see it was a big animal,” he said.
Stretched out at full gait he guessed it measured 2m from tip to bushy tail.
“I saw it side on and that’s why I knew it was so huge,” he said.
“It stood out amazingly.”
The man has only lived in the area for six months and had heard about various big cat sightings in Australia, but not the Karridale cougar.
“I used to think it was people just drumming up tourism, but now I’ve seen one,” he said.
“I don’t know how it got here, but it’s definitely here.”
Recent sightings of the coupan include some in 2004, when people saw such an animal at Ellensbrook Road and Carters Road.

We are currently trying to find out some more information about a big cat sighting with photos out around Mudgee last week.The local TV station supposedly had a short clip in their evening news.

9 January 2007

The Press (Christchurch) NZ

Folklore suggests there is a large, black, panther-type animal roaming Mid Canterbury.Now it seems the black beast may have some competition. A huge ginger feline has been spotted stalking hill country further north in the Waimakariri Gorge.
Four hunters reported such a cat gracefully padding along the hills above the gorge as they jet-boated upriver during the Christmas-New Year break.
They could not believe their eyes, so they used the telescopic sights on their rifles to get a better view. Their eyes were not failing them.
It was a huge ginger cat slipping easily among the rocks and tussock.
"It was its tail and the way it moved that gave it away," one of the hunters said.
The cat was about 1m in length and above knee-high to a man. Its tail was about 8cm in diameter and long.Another hunter said it was a "once- in-a-lifetime" thing. There was no trace of the cat on repeat visits.
The hunters said they were stunned at its size.
They were reluctant to reveal the exact location, apart from saying they were heading up the gorge towards "moa country".
Department of Conservation biodiversity programme manager Mike Ambrose said yesterday that he would be surprised if there was an "African plains-type" animal roaming the hills above the gorge.
It was not unusual, however, to come across some large feral cats, particularly if there was a habitat nearby that treated them well.
"Feral cats, depending on their home range, can grow large. It would be no surprise to find a few in the Waimakariri Gorge. There has probably been a feral population of cats there for years," he said.The sighting of the big cat follows periodic sightings over the past 15 years of a large, black, cat-like creature ranging from the Mid Canterbury foothills to the Lindis Pass far to the south.
An attempt is being made to catch the beast on camera by Dunedin-based Mark Orton and film partner Pip Walls.