MordorOrc Posted October 5, 2014 #1 Share Posted October 5, 2014 http://www.smh.com.au/environment/animals/sydney-panther-legend-surfaces-in-goulburn-after-couple-photograph-predator-on-property-20141004-10qa0o.html This does appear to be a large cat although I am not sure it is a panther. However, considering that past evidence indicates that there are some extremely large feral cats in Australia, one could imagine that those would give people the impression of panther-like physical characteristics. The state government should re-open or at least look back into these claims of large cats in the area as they could pose a potential threat to livestock and humans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrLzs Posted October 5, 2014 #2 Share Posted October 5, 2014 I'd love to do some photogrammetry on that image... I wonder if the image taker is willing to answer some questions and also take some more pictures with that camera both at that same focal length and also wider to get the 'lay of the land'. A visit to the site would also allow a decent investigator to pin down the size precisely. As it is, it could simply be a domestic cat size - we don't have enough info... Sadly I live a thousand or so kilometres to the north.. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taniwha Posted October 5, 2014 #3 Share Posted October 5, 2014 (edited) Is looks similar to this black cat filmed in NZ. Thought to add: Both dont look like a large cat to me. Edited October 5, 2014 by taniwha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oppono Astos Posted October 5, 2014 #4 Share Posted October 5, 2014 Not my part of the world, but curious what those spikey grasses are, and what height they would normally be expected to grow to at this time of the season 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taniwha Posted October 5, 2014 #5 Share Posted October 5, 2014 Not my part of the world, but curious what those spikey grasses are, and what height they would normally be expected to grow to at this time of the season Yes good point and there is what looks like a rock ( greyish patch ) near the cat, that surely could be measured for comparison. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Q-C Posted October 5, 2014 #6 Share Posted October 5, 2014 (edited) gotta love the title, no room for speculation Black is sure a convenient cat color to claim Big Cat, as opposed to house cat. Do people report non-melanistic (with visible and easily identifiable jaguar or leopard patterns) as well, over Australia as they do "black panther" variety? A nice close-up of one of these black cats might be enough to reveal jaguar or leopard patterns among other identifiable traits? Then again, so would a body. Edited October 5, 2014 by QuiteContrary Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenemet Posted October 5, 2014 #7 Share Posted October 5, 2014 I'm thinking large housecat from the shape of the head, ears, and tail. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dharma warrior Posted October 5, 2014 #8 Share Posted October 5, 2014 The image is that of a cat but the photo gives no indication of it's size. It would have been a simple thing to have a person stand in the same spot and take a photo for comparison. More than likely just a black house cat 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crypto-ufologist Posted October 5, 2014 #9 Share Posted October 5, 2014 110% is good enough for me. Totally legit 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Hammerclaw Posted October 5, 2014 #10 Share Posted October 5, 2014 (edited) Barn cat, big but no puma. Blurry pictures of black barn cats and carcasses that look like they were scavenged by dingos and vultures. Black leopards and pumas are rare in their normal range. Big cats may exist as releases from exotic pet owners or pets that escaped. They may even be breeding in the wild--but these look like shots of out of focus ordinary cats. Edited October 5, 2014 by Hammerclaw Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Wearer of Hats Posted October 5, 2014 #11 Share Posted October 5, 2014 carcasses that look like they were scavenged by dingos and vultures. One of which we don't have on the mainland anymore (and certainly not this side of the Great Dividing Range) and the other we've never had. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PersonFromPorlock Posted October 5, 2014 #12 Share Posted October 5, 2014 (edited) Kitty is passing a nice rock that could be used to give its size. But lots of ordinary cats - especially toms - are given to dramatic stalking around, and that's what I see here. Edited October 5, 2014 by PersonFromPorlock Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Hammerclaw Posted October 6, 2014 #13 Share Posted October 6, 2014 One of which we don't have on the mainland anymore (and certainly not this side of the Great Dividing Range) and the other we've never had. Semantics. Here the term vulture and buzzard are interchangable albeit incorrectly used. While the threatened dingo may not be present, the author of it's genietic demise, ferile domestic dogs, probably are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
back to earth Posted October 6, 2014 #14 Share Posted October 6, 2014 Now, thats a feral cat .... they scavage in the wild ... Now if 'tiddles' can get this big at home - imagine what a hard working 5 generation feral well fed cat is gonna look like. ... and if he happens to be black ... I have run into one ... they aint pleasant ! ... and no ... dont try to pat him! (There is also that old story about the soldiers that had a panther as their mascot and it escaped into the bush ... could be BS ... dont know ) ??? ) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
back to earth Posted October 6, 2014 #15 Share Posted October 6, 2014 I spotted, I dont know what , one night, it was on the bridge going over the river and bolted along the bridge with me behind it in the car. Pretty big, like a medium to big sized dog but with clearly marsupial hindquarters ... the only thing I can think of is a unusually very large quoll with no markings . They arent supposed to be that big and the normal sized ones are rare and endangered. It had a shorter tail too (that could have been due to an accident ) but no spots ??? ... but it was something ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Codenwarra Posted October 6, 2014 #16 Share Posted October 6, 2014 Yeah, right. Supposed to have been brought to Australia by US troops in the 1940s. Must be the longest lived cat ever. Anyway I thought it was supposed to be in the bush near Mount Larcom, around 1300 km to the north. Sure gets around for an old cat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrLzs Posted October 6, 2014 #17 Share Posted October 6, 2014 (edited) Kitty is passing a nice rock that could be used to give its size. But lots of ordinary cats - especially toms - are given to dramatic stalking around, and that's what I see here. Perzackerly! Surely, if these folk are serious about investigating their 'sighting', they would have done the obvious, namely take another photo from exactly the same spot, but this time with a person standing at precisely that location - the features like the grass tufts and rock would make that trivially easy. Perhaps they *have* and would rather not show the results - call me a conspiracy theorist... Here, kitty, kitty, kitty... Goulburn tourism is down, I hear.... Added: BTW, I've sent an email to the "Senior Investigative Writer" who penned the article, asking if the article will be followed up or (heaven forbid) actually investigated, making the same obvious suggestion to him... I shall report back if anything useful comes from that, but shall not hold my breath having learnt my lesson before... Edited October 6, 2014 by ChrLzs 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Capt Amerika Posted October 6, 2014 #18 Share Posted October 6, 2014 We have Black Panthers in America as well. They are usually spotted near polling stations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PersonFromPorlock Posted October 6, 2014 #19 Share Posted October 6, 2014 Perzackerly! Surely, if these folk are serious about investigating their 'sighting', they would have done the obvious, namely take another photo from exactly the same spot, but this time with a person standing at precisely that location - the features like the grass tufts and rock would make that trivially easy. Perhaps they *have* and would rather not show the results - call me a conspiracy theorist... Here, kitty, kitty, kitty... Goulburn tourism is down, I hear.... Added: BTW, I've sent an email to the "Senior Investigative Writer" who penned the article, asking if the article will be followed up or (heaven forbid) actually investigated, making the same obvious suggestion to him... I shall report back if anything useful comes from that, but shall not hold my breath having learnt my lesson before... You have to remember that the purpose of journalism is to provide entertaining filler to space out the ads. Expensive fact checking of a good story doesn't improve it if it's true, but can ruin its usefulness if it turns out not to be. So it's no longer done. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
back to earth Posted October 7, 2014 #20 Share Posted October 7, 2014 Yeah, right. Supposed to have been brought to Australia by US troops in the 1940s. Must be the longest lived cat ever. Anyway I thought it was supposed to be in the bush near Mount Larcom, around 1300 km to the north. Sure gets around for an old cat. Was that where the American army buried the brand new , unused, crated, disassembled and packed in grease WLA Harley Davidsons ? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrLzs Posted October 7, 2014 #21 Share Posted October 7, 2014 24 hours have elapsed, including a full working day, and no response to my email to Eamonn Duff, at Fairfax media... I invited him over here, also... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rafterman Posted October 7, 2014 #22 Share Posted October 7, 2014 That looks a lot like housecat to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
back to earth Posted October 7, 2014 #23 Share Posted October 7, 2014 (edited) Oh poor kitty. Why would he kill it? Are you being serious? Do I need to educate someone whose sig says ' we love being green' about Australia's rare and endangered exotic and ever decreasing marsupial population .... ? Is it 'greeness' or sentimentality ? If its the second I recommend a google image search of ; sugar glider, bilby, bandicoote, ... Here is an entree and just in case you didnt make the connection Edited October 7, 2014 by back to earth 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigjonalien Posted October 8, 2014 #24 Share Posted October 8, 2014 they migrate between goulburn and wisemans ferry thru the mountains generally, but their are few of us that protect their movements. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Codenwarra Posted October 9, 2014 #25 Share Posted October 9, 2014 Was that where the American army buried the brand new , unused, crated, disassembled and packed in grease WLA Harley Davidsons ? Hmm. One crated Harley Davidson motorcycle was supposed to have been found in a shed in Cairns, sometime in the late 1960s or early 1970s, when it would have been at the most 25 - 30 years old, not excessive for even a lightly used motorcycle kept out of the weather. Not buried. I was told this by a colleague over 40 years ago, I don't have to believe it but it is not beyond the realms of possibility. When my parents bought a house in Gympie in 1960 there were two motorcycles and a small tractor with caterpillar tracks on the property. These were later claimed by the actual owners, I never knew who they were, I was just a kid. So exactly how does a motorcycle forgotten in a shed, possibly bought as war surplus by the original owner of the shed and never assembled defy rationality? The region around Mt Larcom is about 980 kilometres to the south-east by south of Cairns. I do not see any connection between the stories, but I don't have to believe either of them. Motorcycles do not die of old age, cats do. Cairns to Goulburn is about 1900 km. Not much connection there either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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