TALES FROM THE ANTIPODES

Tania Poole - Central Victoria

So I’ve heard many people mention to me that they have seen things. Big Cats are an extremely common sight here in Central Victoria. Thylacines are more fascinating, but then Yowies and Bunyips are even more exciting! People who have spoken to me are local people yet cover an area from Horsham to Gippsland. I’m yet to speak to some more people I have on my list, so they will come when they come. Josie is a new friend of mine, and she told me about this sighting at a Yule feast, so I decided to make her the first interviewed.

Interview with Josie Harris

Tania: Where do you live?

Josie: I live in Ballarat now, but my family is from Amphitheatre, which is on the way to Avoca. It’s the start of the Great Divide.

T: So is that the Pyrenees area?

J: Yeah, the mountains look the same as the Pyrenees in France. A lot of it is original growth. It wasn’t cut back when it was settled.

T: How long has your family been up there?

J: Grandpa’s farm was selected by our family, so they’ve been there since settlement.

T: How big is the land?

J: 10,000 acres – it’s quite big.

T: What, Sheep?

J: Yep, sheep, since the start

T: So, what have you seen up there?

J: It was when I was about 13, I used to ride horses a lot with my cousins. I’ve got 58 cousins – it’s a huge family – so some of my cousins and I were riding along a dirt road that becomes bitumen later on when you go into Amphitheatre, into the actual town. Just before we got to the bitumen this big cat jumped across the road, and scared the crap out of the horses and we got bucked off.

T: What did it look like?

J: First we thought it was a dog, but it was definitely a cat, cause it had a big curved tail, kind of like a dusty brown and the top was darker, don’t know if it was black or brown. It came out from behind a tree and ran across the road into the bush.

T: Do you think it was a feral or definitely a big cat.

J: It was definitely a big cat, as it was the size of one.

T: Cause of the tail? The tail and the shoulders are quite distinct.

J: Yeah, and it had a flat head, like a big cat – the flat forehead, you could definitely tell it was not a dog.

T: what time of day was this?

J: Afternoon, we’d just had lunch.

T: What year?

J: I was 13 so it must have been 1995

T: Was it in summer?

J: Yeah, summer holidays. And I’ve heard stuff from other relatives as well, a lot of people have been up in the hills, shooting and stuff, my mum swears, and mum isn’t into this...

T: Bit of a sceptic?

J: Yeah, but she reckons one day she was up in the hills shooting with dad, they just heard this massive roar kind of sound coming from the other hills cause you can often yell from one hill to the other and it echoes clearly.

T: Acoustics is good. Called Amphitheatre for a reason.

J: Yeah, its all rocky – bush with rocky outcrops. There is no one living on the farm now, but we still own it.

T: what else has your relatives seen?

J: One of my cousins thinks he saw one over in Dunnolly – sort of near Amphitheatre, near Maldon. He was at a party and something was scaring the cows outside and they went out and they reckon they saw one. And on WIN (channel 9) news a few years ago there were footprints – they found big cat footprints in the area.

T: Do you or your family have any theories about where they might come from?

J: There are a few stories – one is that some people brought some back after the Second World was or something – had them as mascots and they got away or let them go. Then there’s the theory that a guy at Miners Rest had a circus – when he retired they were pets, but got away – they’re the stories I heard.

T: What else is out there? Have you heard of anything else?

J: (Laughs) my sister thinks she saw a Bunyip. I don’t know if I believe her or not.

T: What did she see? What was it?

J: We don’t know. Mum reckons it might have been a sheep standing on its hind legs easting the trees. My sister was down at the creek one day, and she came running back and said that she saw it.

T: How old was she?

J: She was 12 – she is 18 now.

T: Did she describe it?

J: She said it was big and hairy and it was trying to hide in the trees, but she saw it and it ran off.

T: Did it run like a sheep?

J: On two legs.

T: On two legs?

J: Yeah. She thinks.

T: She thinks? Wasn’t a Yowie possibly?

J: No idea.

T: Was it brown, or what it like a sheep – a pale brown colour.

J: She said it was brown and black and furry. She said it was more furry that woolly, that’s why she’ll never to this day agree that it was a sheep. Coz she reckons it was furry. Not woolly.

T: Do you think it was like a Yowie? Like a Bigfoot?

J: Could have been. They’ve been seen sort of near there.

T: Where?

J: Just rumours – further up north, in more forest areas, near Bendigo and Swan Hill.

T: Was that on the property as well – where the cats are?

J: Yep, they live in that area.

T: Yowies?

J: Big cats.

T: You think they live in the hills?

J: The rabbit virus never really took hold – lots of rabbits up there - that’s probably what they eat. I’ll never forget that cat though. It scared the hell out of me and the horses. And the one we saw on the footage on WIN news 5 or 6 years ago looked like the same.

T: You haven’t heard of any Thylacines in the area?

J: Only further south, near the Otways.

T: And the Grampians.

J: That’s certainly a hotspot.

T: Thanks Jo!

Of course after hearing about her sister’s sighting, I thought this interview was far from over. But then I’ve not yet met her sister, except for a short phone conversation and an email but she has not replied to my request – so I am not sure whether she wants to be interviewed about it, or whether it really was just made up by her. Josie seems rather dubious about her sister’s story, so I am not sure what to believe.

Expat platypus on the sales block

Trust those Victorian to stuff things up - literally.

We stumbled across this moth-eaten example of Victorian taxidermy for sale on Ebay recently for a meagre $A1658. View the listing here.

For animal lovers and those enamoured with the macabre alike, the world of taxidermy offers some rare and unusual treasures.

Taxidermy was, and still is to some degree, considered a necessary evil by museums.

We've heard anecdotal reports of Australian museums regularly refreshing their exhibits when some animals get a bit ratty looking - largely due to poor storage and preservation.

And here's some taxidermy trivia: one of the founders of the taxidermy movement, if you can refer to it as such, was an American woman by the name of Martha Maxwell. Strangely, for someone obsessed with skinning and stuffing animals, she was actually a vegetarian!

Is this the Emmaville Panther?

Is this the Emmaville Panther?

That's what the folk over at the Invasive Animal CRC are wondering, after they received these eye-popping photos of a mummified monster moggy discovered underneath a farmhouse near Canberra in the ACT.

Well, tongue-in-cheek we suspect! While we're sure they're curious as to how a domestic cat could get so big - its dried mummified husk measures @ 20 inches from nose to the base of its tail (one imagines it was a reasonably hefty beast in its prime) - we're reasonably confident they don't really believe it's the sort of 'big cat' being sighted across Australia.

But it's one bloody BIG cat - and when compared to resident CFZ moggie Otto's generous proportions, it does give one more than 'paws' for thought - even if it is only a few inches longer than your average moggie.

What tickled us was the debate over whether this crusty corpse was that of a dog or a cat. It's clearly the latter - perhaps it's time for an education campaign to help people identify everyday animals!

Read more here: http://www.invasiveanimals.com/invasive-animals/panther.html

Left: Otto the great, living large.

Australian BIG Cats

 
Meoooooowwwwwwwwww!

The launch of CFZers Mike Williams and Rebecca Lang's book, Australian Big Cats: An Unnatural History of Panthers, is getting closer.

Read more about the book here - www.australianbigcats.com.au

Stay tuned for the big launch!

Seen a strange Australian animal?

Have you seen a strange Australian animal?

Let us know - send your sighting report and pictures/links to:

cfzaustralia@yahoo.com.au

We're interested in hearing about rare, endangered and extinct animals indigenous to Australia - and out-of-place animals as well.

Rare Golden Brushtail Possum a mum again

You don't see too many of these in the wild - and there's a reason...

Sydney Wildlife World’s rare Golden Brushtail possum has been rearing its latest joey, Stella.

The baby Golden Brushtail Possum has grown in the pouch over the last four months from the size of a jellybean.

Mum and dad Cascade and Boags (yes, after the beers...which must make Stella - Artois!) have already bred successfully once before. Foster, the first joey, left the pouch in November last year.

Found only in Tasmania the golden colour is the result of a genetic mutation. They are hypomelanistic; meaning they have little melanin in their skin, in fact the only place they have it is in their eyes which is why these animals have black eyes as opposed to true albino animals; who have pink eyes.

Did you know?

• The Tasmanian Brushtail has three main colour variations; silver grey, black and gold
• Their natural and preferred habitat is forest, where they nest in tree hollows
• They feed mainly on leaves of trees and shrubs and enjoy succulent herbs, grasses and garden plants; they occasionally scavenge meat
• The brushtail possum communicates by sound and scent; ferocious screeches and guttural growls are often used
• They have a hand-like back foot for grasping and a strong flexible tail for curling around branches
• Like many of our native animals, human and domestic animals threaten this species

CFZ OZ off to the UK Weird Weekend 2010

Buy tickets online here: http://www.weirdweekend.org/ticket.htm

Monster shark set for museum display

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.
Read more about the monstrous endangered shark, believed to be about 40 years old, at http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10638826

Big Cat sightings in the Otways

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

While wildlife experts are still pouring over footage captured in February, claiming to be of the legendary beast, it is fair to say high-quality images of a big cat are as hard to catch as the animal itself.

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.

Quolls taught how to survive

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".

Before releasing the quolls into the wild, Professor Rick Shine, Stephanie O'Donnell and Dr Jonathan Webb fed each marsupial a small dead cane toad, not large enough to kill the quolls, but they were laced with a chemical that made the quolls feel nauseous.

Dr Webb said the quolls quickly learned to avoid eating toads.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/04/14/2871971.htm?section=justin