A gargantuan 17-foot-long, 1.2 ton hammerhead shark caught off the eastern coast of Australia last month has been purchased by a shark aficionado who plans to display it in his Hervey Bay museum. Big cat sightings in the Otways- Geelong Advertiser - March 29, 2010
http://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/article/2010/03/29/159131_news.html
Jeff Whalley
Freedom of Information documents have shown Parks Victoria continues to receive reports of sightings. These reports are not from people heading straight to the media for publicity. These are reports from people quietly passing on their experiences to the powers that govern our forests.
The countless fuzzy photos, animal carcasses and footprints not only stoke claims of the big cat's existence but also sharpen the criticisms of sceptics.
This week the Geelong Advertiser will take a closer look at the legends and see if we can put any flesh on the bones of our very own popular urban myth.
The latest sighting was by Otways resident Connie Whistance who captured some grainy vision near Binns Track on the edge of the Otway National Park
"It was there for a good 15 to 20 minutes," Ms Whistance said. "It looked down like it was eating something and eventually it went back into the swampland."
So what are the theories?
Well, the stories about what the Otway big cat is are as varied as the numerous sightings of the animal.
One popular legend my own mother used to tell me was that the big cat was a cougar that was a mascot for visiting US troops who set it free after World War II.
There are other theories for the supposed existence of big cats in forests up and down the country's eastern seaboard. One is that they escaped from circuses in the 19th century, another that they were brought in by gold miners around the same period.
Now, some theorise any over-grown feline beast could be a distant relative of the thylocoleo or marsupial lion, a fairly large and imposing carnivore who treaded the Earth at the end of the pleistocene era.
Not all authorities are sceptics about big cats in Australia.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported in 2003 that it was "more likely than not" a colony of "big cats" was roaming Sydney's outskirts, and Dr John Henry from Deakin University wrote more than a decade ago of the possibility of cats in the grampians.
Scientists from the University of Sydney have trained a group of quolls to associate cane toads with feeling sick - a process called "conditioned taste aversion".
An interesting little anecdote has come to light in recent months about a filmmaker who created his own Tasmanian Tiger in the 1970s.
In the world of amphibians, it is the equivalent of finding the Tasmanian tiger. A species of frog presumed extinct for nearly 30 years has turned up in the Southern Tablelands. The yellow-spotted bell frog was once ubiquitous in the northern and southern tablelands of NSW, but was almost wiped out after the chytrid fungus arrived from Africa in the early 1970s.
It was found alive and well in 2008 by government researcher Luke Pearce, who was searching for a native fish, the southern pygmy perch. Instead, he spotted the bell frog, which has distinctive markings on its groin and thighs.
Read more here:
OK, not strictly Australian, but one of its authors is!To this day, sightings of the Black Dog are common through the region and form an integral part of local folklore and myth. At the same time, the history of the legend itself tells its own tale of the town of Bungay and how the community has responded to crisis through local folklore and myth.
The book traces the rise of this story from its origins in the trauma of the English Reformation to the contemporary era where it has become a central part of Bungay’s communal and civic identity and a colourful and intriguing aspect of local folklore.
AN out-of-place monkey was picked up on CCTV footage crossing a Darwin road. (Pic from NT Department of Lands and Planning)
Following the sightings, the Northern Territory environment department issued a warning for people to stay clear of the animal.
All registered monkeys have been accounted for.
The department says the roaming monkey could have been brought illegally to the Territory from Asia and could be carrying exotic diseases, such as rabies.
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Updated
Video footage taken in the Otway Ranges National Park at the weekend is being examined to determine whether or not it is that of a giant cat.
There have been unconfirmed sightings of a panther-like creature in the forest for many years.
Vision captured yesterday by a resident of the Otway Ranges appears to show a black cat-like animal walking through a paddock.
Mike Williams runs a website dedicated to Australian big cats and says the footage is too shaky to draw any conclusions.
"It's a large blue-eyed animal that could be bigger than a domestic cat," he said.
"It's just really hard to tell. If the witness is quite correct with the observation it could be quite interesting and hopefully more video will come out of the same area."
He says 80 per cent of Australia's big cat sightings are generated by central Victoria residents.
Mr Williams says he thinks there is more than one breed roaming the State's forests.
"If I was trying to give you a hypothesis, the most simple one would be one species of cat," he said.
"But the problem is they're showing several different colour variations of coats. So I have been forced to say there is more than one species of cat, which makes it even harder for me to try and prove."
>>>Also read the original story here...
THE discovery of large paw prints on a Humevale property has sparked speculation of panthers living in the Whittlesea bush.
The indentations, about 100mm in diameter and resembling big cat prints, were found in the driveway of Colin Hill’s home, invigorating Whittlesea’s own big cat legend.
“There was a set of tracks at the bottom of the driveway that crossed the yard and disappeared down into the valley,” Mr Hill said last week. “They were definitely a cat print and were as big as my fist. Judging by the size, I’d say they had to belong to a 50-80kg animal.”
It was not the first time Mr Hill had come across such tracks.
“Before the bushfires, I found another set of tracks down near a dam on the next property,” he said. Those prints were photographed, but the pictures were destroyed in the Black Saturday bushfires.
Mr Hill said they resembled the prints of a large cat with long claws. “The animal has used its claws to help lift itself out of the mud and the prints were unmistakable,” he said.
Two years ago, he shot and killed a small jet black animal with yellow eyes which he believed at the time to be a feral cat. Now he said it might have been a panther cub.
“At the time I didn’t even think about it, but I’ve never seen a cat with yellow eyes,” he said.
“After seeing the tracks, I wonder if it had been something else.”
Victorian big cat enthusiast John Turner said it was difficult to determine what had made the prints.
“They are interesting but not definitive,” he said, adding that they might have come from a large dog.
Mr Hill was convinced they were not from a dog.
Mr Turner has been attempting to uncover the big cat myth for 25 years and runs the website bigcatsvic.com.au, dedicated to Victorian sightings.
He said there had been a number of big cat sightings in the Whittlesea area in the past five years.
Most sightings described a jet black leopard-sized creature with yellow eyes in or around farmland or on roadsides.
The big cat theory is one that is common throughout Victoria, with about 400 reported sightings in the past five years.
Some believe the creatures are offspring of black panthers brought over by US soldiers during World War II as mascots that escaped into the bush.
Others think they may be an unindentified Australian predatory cat.
Many discount the big cat theory entirely, claiming the creatures could simply be feral cats or black wallabies.
http://whittlesea-leader.whereilive.com.au/news/story/humevale-s-big-cat-mystery/
