This was back in 93 while I was still in the Army. This happened while I was on an exercise; my unit was supporting a couple of other units. We had helicopters that were tasked to provide casualty/medical evacuations. We weren’t playing the “Tactical” game, so we essentially sat around playing cards and drinking waaay too much coffee. A very boring 6 weeks.
Anyway, after about the 4th week myself and one of my bosses took off for a 2 hour drive into town to get some junk food. About 30min down the track we drove up a gentle left hand climb and over a small crest, and to our amazement, a very large black cat. I slowed down to about 20kph as we passed it on our left side. It had just walked across the track and was heading off to the left, I can’t say off into the bush, simply because the bush consisted of a few trees and ankle high grass, so vision was not impaired.
We both had rifles stowed right next to us, however, neither of us even thought about them…a whole lot of good blanks would do anyway, apart form pissing it off entirely.
The cat (walking) was about 2m in length from its nose to the end of its tail, stood about 60cm to its shoulders, its head was a bit bigger than mine, the paw prints it left were roughly 10cm in diameter, and it must have weighed between 60kg to 90kg. At a casual walk (Slinky gate actually) it covered 50 to 65 cm in stride length.
Just to clarify a point that may be thrown my way in scepticism. At this time in my career I had served 9 years in the Army, I had completed two tracking courses, and had worked in a Reconnaissance cell for several years, so judging the size of an object at 20 or so feet wasn’t really an issue. At this time I had spent months in the Malaysian Jungles, and had seen many cats in captivity, but at no time had I ever seen something like this in overseas, let alone in Australia. It wasn’t feral cat either, sometimes we were asked to cull (Shoot) these animals in specific areas where they had grown sometime quite large (9-13kg lean).
The answer to the question of “How did they get here?” is really quite simple. During the lead up to, during, and after the Second World War, US troops were using Australia as a training ground prior to deployment to Europe, Africa, Asia, South Pacific etc. These types of animals have had a long history as mascots. 5/& RAR in Holsworthy had a Tiger for years, until it was deemed to be politically incorrect to keep such a large animal on a dog chain. Naturally, quarantine laws would have prevented such animals from being returned and PERHAPS, the lesser dangerous ones were released rather than put down. Logical?
Well, there it is.
Cheers
