Have you ever seen something like a big cat in the bush?

[mav Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close mav]

HI All,

Just thought I would start a strange phenomena thread, you know the wtf was that kind of thing. Have you experienced something unusual whilst camping or driving at night in the outback or country regions? Maybe a big cat story or a Yowie or two.

I will kick it off with a big cat sighting my wife and I had in the Sand Hills near Newcastle, it was about 8 years ago now but I still remember it as clearly as if it were yesterday. We were leaving early from our house in Corlette on our way back to Alice after one of our vacations. We had just entered the Sand Hills from the Bobs farm end and it was around 3 am. Just as we got to the top of the rise into the Sand Hills I noticed a large animal walking along the side of the road, it was heading the same way we were going so I slowed right down to a crawl and drove behind it. I could not believe what I was looking at, there in front of us was what could only be described as a lioness. It was a very large cat its shoulder height was to the top of the white road markers and it had the same lethargic gate of a lioness. I guess we annoyed it enough in the end for it to stop and turn toward us and that is when we could clearly see it was not just a large feral cat but it was a member of the big cat family possibly a lioness or cougar.

I remember decades back about a story that made the local paper at the time of a large cat that had terrorised a family at Bobs Farm one Sunday afternoon. They were having a BBQ out the back when they spotted it coming down from the Sand Hills and running full speed for them across their paddocks. They barricaded themselves in their house and it tried to get through their back door. I remember seeing the photos, of the claw marks it left in the door, in the paper.

Makes you wonder where these things come from and why they are not seen by more people, I mean the thing we saw was huge.

Cheers

Mav

[FlyNdrive Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close FlyNdrive]

Re: Have you ever seen something like a big cat in the bush?

Whoa! A cat ate my baby!!

Too Soon?

Well we have large cats up here in the states. I was raised in San Diego that has Cougars (not like the Gold Coast ones) and at school one day a year we had training on how to act when encountering one. There were always stories on the news about hikers or joggers who went lost and scattered bones were found several months later. If a child was lost in the woods there were large teams that went out to find them ASAP because of the fear that the cougars would get them.

-Ben

[Spurio Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Spurio]

Re: Have you ever seen something like a big cat in the bush?

I think just about every large non urban area has a big cat legend. The nsw/vic alps, brindabellas, pigeon house (or whatever they call it now), the yerranderrie (sp?) wolf, the barrington big-cat, the guy fawkes bear (yowie) ...........

The stories (legend) explain the occurrence from the animals either escaping or being released from captivity (zoo, circus), apparently this was a common occurrence in the early-mid part of the 20thC. If the owners could no longer afford to keep them?

the current line of thought is, all the animal that were released, all those years ago, are now either dead or very old.

I haven't actually seen in the flesh, any true cats from the Big Cat family in Australia (other than in zoos) but I have shot and trapped some massive feral cats (i.e. shoulder height ~ 60cm and shoulder width +15cm) which we sent down to Sydney for further examination. All of them have turned out to be second generation, well fed and built feral cats.

As for big cats existence, about 15 years ago I saw some damage that only a big cat could have done. The dimensions and depth of the scratch marks far exceeded any a large feral cat could have inflicted.

[mav Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close mav]

Re: Have you ever seen something like a big cat in the bush?

Whoa! A cat ate my baby!!

Too Soon?

Well we have large cats up here in the states. I was raised in San Diego that has Cougars (not like the Gold Coast ones) and at school one day a year we had training on how to act when encountering one. There were always stories on the news about hikers or joggers who went lost and scattered bones were found several months later. If a child was lost in the woods there were large teams that went out to find them ASAP because of the fear that the cougars would get them.

-Ben

Me and a mate came across a cougar in Sequoia N.P. in California back in '82. We had never seen one before, it lept on to the road in front of our car as we were going up to Kings Canyon to stay the night. That was also the first time we had ever seen a bear trap. There were quite a few of them parked around the N.P.

[FlyNdrive Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close FlyNdrive]

Re: Have you ever seen something like a big cat in the bush?

guy fawkes bear (yowie) ...........

OK, Off topic, but tomorrow is Guy Fawlks Day (Bonfire Night). Do you celebrate it there?

Me and a mate came across a cougar in Sequoia N.P. in California back in '82. We had never seen one before, it lept on to the road in front of our car as we were going up to Kings Canyon to stay the night. That was also the first time we had ever seen a bear trap. There were quite a few of them parked around the N.P.

Whoa! Close to home. I was probably there at the same time.

-Ben

[Spurio Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Spurio]

Re: Have you ever seen something like a big cat in the bush?

The general populus of Australia probably have no idea why any one would want to burn an effigy of Guy Fawkes or his plans for 36 barrels of gunpowder or what the bristish did to him once they caught him.

Nah in Australia, history really only starts after Europeans settled Australia, the +50 000yrs of Aboriginal heritage doesn't mean much to most either. But with our convict heritage we like to gamble, even in really bad economic times, so the nation closes down for a horse race on the first tuesday in November.

As for the connection with the Guy Fawkes River National Park in Australia, there is probably some connection (it is in the New England Area) but I have no idea. It is however one of the last remote wilderness places in NSW. i.e. there are very few dirt roads or walking tracks in the park

[Guest Close Guest]

Re: Have you ever seen something like a big cat in the bush?

One of my mates captured video footage of a panther in the Grampians area. Was all over the news for a few days.

I have some pics of a hunter another friend knows that shot a big cat (all 6 foot +) except the "experts " then said it was just a large moggy. I'll dig out the pics from the old Hard drive and post them up when I get a chance.

[mav Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close mav]

Re: Have you ever seen something like a big cat in the bush?

One of my mates captured video footage of a panther in the Grampians area. Was all over the news for a few days.

I have some pics of a hunter another friend knows that shot a big cat (all 6 foot +) except the "experts " then said it was just a large moggy. I'll dig out the pics from the old Hard drive and post them up when I get a chance.

Cool, I would like to see those if you can find them.

[S.W Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close S.W]

Re: Have you ever seen something like a big cat in the bush?

I've never seen anything other than very big (60 cm at the shoulders) feral cats.

However, there have been reports in the South East of South Australia many years ago of a Cougar being sighted. The story is that there was a U.S Army battallion stationed down that way during World War II and their mascot was the Cougar so they had one as a pet. At the end of the war when it was time for them to head home they couldn't take the Cougar with them and it was released.

It'd be long gone these days, but I guess it could have bred with some feral cats to produce some large cross breeds?

[ntp Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close ntp]

Re: Have you ever seen something like a big cat in the bush?

Whoa! A cat ate my baby!!

Too Soon?

You cracked me up. :lol: :lol:

[Black Prado Chick Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Black Prado Chick]

Re: Have you ever seen something like a big cat in the bush?

About 2 years ago my partner and I were out camping at Loch Sport (down near 90 mile beach in victoria). All night I was trying to tell him that there are hog deer around the area but he didnt believe me so we went for a late night drive into the bush, ended up finding 7 of them in this one spot walking next to this dead end road..... he was shocked about that, so I continued to tell him about a story I heard when I was younger about a puma spotted in the area, but I wasnt too sure if that were just a myth....

Well we continued back to the campsite from out little drive when...... all of a sudden we spotted some "orange" eyes (i have never seen orange glowing eyes on any animal before) glarring at us thru the bushes so we stopped and turned the car towards it so we could get a better look....It was HUGE!! Definetly from the big cat family, and it looked to be black, although it was dark and hard to tell but we could see that it didnt have any markings and it was straight black in colour. We sat and looked at it for ages stunned as we were just talking about sightings in the area..... We kept starring at it for a good 10 minutes trying to decided whether we were game enough to get out of the car to grab the torch from the boot, but we just didnt have the balls :lol: But eventually we gave up and continued back to camp, and might I say I had a rather sleepless night that night as I was worried that this big cat would come tearing thru our tent at night but it didnt end up happening, but I still havent camped in that spot since our little sighting..... and still to this day we wonder what exactly it was we were looking at.

[Snowy FNQ Member Find all posts View Profile Close Snowy FNQ]

Re: Have you ever seen something like a big cat in the bush?

A strange topic but by coincidence, yes I have seen something like a big black cat in the rainforest, above the Mowbray Falls near Port Douglas in NQ.

I only saw it for a fleeting glimpse through the jungle, but it was an animal that leapt like a cat and it was definitely black.

This was back about 1992 and now thinking back it could have been a Lumholz Tree Kangaroo, but they are more like a monkey than a cat. The creature I saw definitely was cat like and big, not a feral.

:?:

[ntp Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close ntp]

Re: Have you ever seen something like a big cat in the bush?

Well... there was this one time... at band camp... :lol: :lol: :shock:

[Snowy FNQ Member Find all posts View Profile Close Snowy FNQ]

Re: Have you ever seen something like a big cat in the bush?

So any "Band Camp" Stories? :lol:

[IRON-PAWW Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close IRON-PAWW]

Re: Have you ever seen something like a big cat in the bush?

Band Camp?? :roll: I wish the big moggie would eat those movies........ :lol: :lol: :lol:

You'd be surprised how big domestic cats actually get. Once all the different breeds escape and begin breeding in the wild it's the bigger ones that naturally survive. I saw a very large black cat right in the middle of Perth in a drainage reserve once. I couldn't believe my eyes as it was the size of a say a medium dog. But it slinked off into a large drainpipe as soon as I tried to get closer. Exploration drillers also come across all sorts of introduced wild animals in the bush including wild domestic cats that seem to be reverting back to some type of larger "basic" cat once all the interbreeding begins to weed out the features that are bred into certain moggie lines. Wild German Shepherds and other household dogs and cats are all out there, if you listen to the stories told by some exploration drillers and geologists. You wonder why the beilby is having a hard time of it... that is why. Those wild cats and dogs need to be shot.. every stinking last one of them.

Now there was this crazy old geezer we knew about once that was convinced he'd seen Tasmanian Tigers in the bush up near a town called Moora. He lived by himself and swore that there were Tassie Tigers in the bush near him. So no-one else had the bushcraft skills to get close enough to see them was the thing. What he saw I have no idea...... but who knows........