Australia’s Anomalous Animals
Update: Big cat sightings

Part 1: The Big Cats

Australia is widely known to have the largest collection of deadly creatures in the world. We have the largest variety of deadly snakes and almost one in every two types of Aussie spider has venom that can kill a person in a very short time.

Apart from our northern crocodiles which have been known to grow to 30 feet long and the introduced species of wild dog (the Dingo), wild boars and the Asian water buffalo which inhabit the mid to northern regions of the continent there are NO LARGE DANGEROUS NATIVE ANIMALS.

In the western parts of Victoria (Right down the bottom of the mainland) where I was raised, the only troublesome animals are rabbits and the occasional fox.

My dad taught me when I was quite young to hunt rabbits responsibly and we supplemented the family table with them.

While hunting one day around 1965, I was crossing an open grassy valley with a 2 or 3 acre wildly overgrown forested patch in the middle of it. I was truly amazed and even a bit scared when an extraordinarily loud squealing yowling sound came from the forested patch.

It sounded as I would expect a fight between a mountain lion and a wild pig to sound.

I quickly moved away from the area and climbed the hill nearby. On looking back I saw an animal loping away from the area and up towards the far side hills. It appeared to be the size of a wolfhound dog and was brindle/tan in color but was moving with a definite catlike motion. I have no idea what it was BUT……

Since the end of the second world war at a spot called Mt Zero on the far northern end of the Grampians Mountain range (about20 miles from where I saw this animal...See Map), there have been numerous accounts cattle and sheep being mauled by big cats and many sightings of both black and tan coloured mountain lions/panthers. Local gossip has it that US forces based in the area during the war let their mascots go loose when they were shipped home, but there has been no evidence brought forward to support this.

Several other places in Australia have reported sightings of panther like animals. They have been seen south of Melbourne on the wild scrubland peninsulas at Wilsons Promontory and in other mountain areas in the Victorian Alps.

The National Parks and Wildlife Service was so concerned about numerous sightings and attacks on local dogs, goats and sheep around the Upper Grose Valley, in the Blue Mountains just west of Sydney, in 1997 that it appointed a team of rangers to go to the location to investigate. They found nothing and the case remains open.

If these big cats actually are “accidentally misplaced” animals and have bred in the wild, then these areas they have been seen in would suit them admirably. Other sightings of big cats however are not so easily explained.

Mildura, in the far northwest of Victoria is a flat irrigation orange grove farming and rivertown and is fairly highly populated with farms and orchards as well as vineyards.

In 1989, a lady I know and her husband were on holiday and were spending a few days at a caravan (trailer) park, on the South bank of the river, just out of town.

At around 3AM, they were awakened by a loud squalling yowling sound near the park's rubbish bin area.

They both went to investigate and were amazed to see, in their torchlight, a light tan color large cat, nearly waist high, but looking slightly emaciated and definitely wild. They saw it for only a moment but said “it was unmistakably a cougar” No doubt about it.

Locals in the area were not surprised to hear of the sighting, as it had happened before. To my knowledge it has never been reported. (strangely enough just recently two police officers officially reported a silver disk UFO hovering over the river near that same point). With the population around the area, I doubt anything could live in the wild around there without being seen everyday and trapped in very short time.

Consider, … to breed, a big cat must have a family group and it would not be unreasonable to expect there to be at least 5 or 6 cats in the area. This would greatly increase their risk of sightings or capture.  No, I believe there is something other than a reasonable explanation for those specific type of sightings, and for sightings of the other anomalous animals.

Brad Mildern
August 1, 2002

 UPDATE:
Additional Information, dated December 13, 2002:

"The big, black cattle killer"

By DANNY BUTTLER,
Environment Reporter
13 December 02

WHAT is black, furry, can jump about 6m in a single bound and mutilates cattle? It could be the world's largest feral cat, a wild dog with a taste for fresh meat. Or even a yowie.

But ask farmer Ron Jones and he will tell you it is most likely a panther -- the legendary big cat that has eluded hunters and photographers for more than half a century. Mr. Jones said the evidence of the panther's existence is lying dead in a paddock on his South Gippsland farm.

In the latest attack, a heifer was killed and partly eaten "like it had been cut with a carving knife." It is not the first time the dairy farmer from Binginwarri, near Foster, has caught sight of a creature he says is definitely not a dog and is too big to be a feral cat. "I've seen about a dozen of them now . . . when they're sitting on their backsides, they're about three foot six from the ground to the top of the head," he told ABC radio. "When they take off they sort of go in big loping bounds. They cover about 20 feet every bound -- they're about eight feet, roughly, from the tip of their nose to the end of their tail."

Having shot at the mystery beast several times, Mr. Jones said it was unmistakably feline. "It's definitely a cat the way it moves," he said. "Where a dog stands and tears at it and leaves a jagged wound, these wounds are just as though you'd cut the meat out with a carving knife."

Persistent panther sightings have fuelled the imagination of Victorians for more than half a century. Despite proving harder to photograph than Howard Hughes, the existence of the big cats has never been disproven by authorities. The wild cat legend started on the other side of Victoria, after US servicemen stationed in the Grampians during World War II, were rumoured to have released a female black panther and several cubs into the bush.

Other stories include big cats that have escaped from circuses or zoos. A "Department of Sustainability and Environment" spokesman said there was no evidence to confirm or deny a panther killed the cow this week.