Safe from big cats

By EMMA SUN
A GOVERNMENT study on the existence of big cats in Victoria has come back negative.
There have been several reports of a “panther-like” animal in the hills in past years, but a report released by the Department of Primary Industries and the Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research found there was a lack of hard evidence to substantiate that a population of wild big cats existed in Victoria.
Agriculture and food security minister Peter Walsh said no big cat has ever been detected in wildlife.
“The study concluded the most obvious explanation for many of the reported sightings of big cats over the years is that they were large feral domestic cats,” he said.
“Some preliminary DNA evidence also cannot be entirely dismissed but it is not sufficiently conclusive to prove beyond reasonable doubt the identity of an animal.”
Tecoma resident Jeff Dickinson said in a letter to the Mail of the possibility that people have mistaken the black wallaby for a big cat.
He said the black wallaby had similar features to that of a cat, and its behaviour was very close to the descriptions given through personal accounts.
“Many of the descriptions I’ve read and heard from panther witnesses could just as equally apply to a description of the black wallaby – waist-high, dark fur colour, long tail, roundish ears, long bounding leaps up to 10 feet,” he said.
“Having seen Black Wallaby moving at high speed through the forest understorey with legs blurring, body in horizontal position and long tail trailing out behind them, I can easily understand why some people might believe that what they have seen is a big black cat.
“I for one up to a few years ago kept an open mind about panther possibilities but after watching a Black Wallaby in Sherbrooke Forest sitting at the side of a track with its long tail flicking in a very cat-like manner, I started to think there might just be something else behind these sightings.”
However Boronia resident Nick Costello said he had personally seen the creatures and was also part of a group that conducted a study on them in the 1980s.
“Not having studied this material in detail, conservative minds will always err on the side of caution and attribute the clues to known animals,” he said.
“However, a local wildlife-research-group conducted a detailed study in the Dandenongs in the 1980s and the clues they found led them into direct contact with panther-like animals several times.
“How do I know? I was one of the researchers and I saw two of these creatures at close-quarters.”
For more information on the assessment, visit www.dpi.vic.gov.au/bigcatstudy