Creatures, Myths & Legends

Giant paw print sparks Australia big cat debate

By T.K. Randall
March 1, 2020

Image: Black Panther
Credit: Davidvraju / CC BY-SA 4.0 (adapted) For many years, the legend of the Blue Mountains panther - a mysterious feline that has been sighted by numerous witnesses across a large area of New South Wales - has continued to endure.

Now a local exploration group known as Blue Mountains Explore has claimed that it has found actual physical evidence of the creature in the form of a giant paw print situated in a remote location.

Group member Kobe Bryant remains adamant that the stories are all true.

"It's definitely out there and it definitely exists," he said.

"You can't get out there with a car, so we had to take our bikes and walk. Usually when you go to the more popular tracks you see [shoe] prints everywhere or branches have been cleared. It was very clear no one had been out there."After documenting the find, the explorers contacted the Australian Hunting Association for advice and were reportedly told that it was unlikely that the prints belonged to a native species.

If there really is an exotic big cat roaming the wilds of New South Wales, it's possible that it (or its progenitors) escaped from a circus or were released by an exotic pet owner.

Some have even suggested that the creature could be a Thylacoleo - a supposedly extinct species of giant carnivorous marsupial that roamed Australia thousands of years ago.

As things stand however, it remains unclear exactly what the mystery creature could be.

Source: 9news.com.au

Tags: Blue Mountains, Panther, Big Cat