A ‘big cat’ near Lara, southern Victoria
After decades of sensational reportage of sightings and unusual animal kills, scats and footprints, the existence of big cats in Victoria has been declared ‘highly unlikely’by a State Government report.
The Baillieu Government released the findings of a report into the possible evidence of a wild population of big cats in Victoria.
It found that sightings of animals thought to be pumas or similar large cats were more likely to be big feral cats.
Agriculture Minister Peter Walsh said the study, conducted in Melbourne offices on past evidence rather than in the field, said there was nothing to substantiate claims big cats existed in the state.
“No big cat has ever been detected in a formal wildlife survey, shot by a hunter or farmer or killed by a vehicle and no skeletal remains have ever been found. Nor have big cats been identified in wildlife studies involving the analysis of thousands of mammalian faecal samples’’, he said.
There had been thousands of reports of big cats in Victoria over the last century but until now there had never been a comprehensive and co-ordinated attempt by any Victorian Government agency to collate the information in order to make a fully informed assessment.
Big cat researcher, Simon Townsend was disappointed. Mr Townsend supplied more than 30 years of data to aid the inquiry, including records that indicated a positive DNA test was recorded in the late 90s, which suggested a leopard had roamed regional Victoria.
“I have seen one myself within close range. On top of that, in all my analysis of stock killing, there are clear cases where dog mauling just doesn’t add up.As far as I’m concerned, they do exist.”
Victorian authorities concluding that due to the lack of physical evidence obtained in wildlife surveys that big cats probably don’t exist.
Maybe people are unreliable in what they think they see.
Back in Tasmania we have over 3000 sightings of ‘red foxes’ in 10 years and no corroborating physical evidence.
What’s the lesson for Tasmania? It seems the Victorian government decided to review the storyline and concluded it didn’t add up.
A disturbing trend indeed…could Tasmanian foxes be dogs, cats, brush-tail possums or quolls, hares, etc?
Apparently no one in Victoria could produce a puma skull from a backyard shed.
