New South Wales Panthers – www.new-south-wales-big-cats
Australian Big Cats is devoted to the study and analysis of unusually large big cats in Australia.At first glance the whole idea seems ridiculous.Australia does not have any native big cats that survived into the modern era.We did have a highly specialised group of killer marsupials called Thylacoleo or Marsupial Lion, whose size range varied from house cat size up to the size of a lion.But they vanished around the end of the pleistocene. So why would anyone believe we have animals that appear to look like melanistic(black)leopards or jaguars as well as brown big cats that appear similar to pumas.
When people use the term "panther" and they are describing a big black cat, the term is in reference to the genus of panthera which the only known black cats belong to. Many people believe in big cats in New South Wales as well as big cats in Victoria because of personal sightings, or, because the volumne of secondary evidence is accumulating quite rapidly.Of course the other states received reports, especially in Southern Western Australia, but the majority of sightings come from Victoria, and New South Wales.The theories about these big cats are based around a number of ideas, each with each own strength and weakness.
*The cats are some form of felid relic from the Marsupial lion that survives to this day.
*The big cats are escaped and breeding leopards, pumas and Jaguars from circuses and private collections.
*Something has happened to Felis catus, the common house cat and it has mutated into something huge.Or, something like one of the jungle cats has bred with fcatus and we are seeing the result.
Why have large cats not been shot and brought to public attention.? Sadly, after numerous talks with shooters, with photos supplied, it appears that large black and brown cats have actually been shot over the last 100 years..but people placed no great importance on these animals.We believe that with all the attention now days on the phenomena, we will see the final proof within the next 5 years.In the mean time, it is an enduring and baffling mystery. It also took white people 200 years to "find" the Wollemi Pine.
We are pursuing the most intelligent and elusive carnivourous predator on earth.!
TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?