Mystery Australian Big Cat Shot

mugley writes "The Sunday Herald Sun is running a story about the shooting of a large cat, believed to be a leopard or puma, in the Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia. Alien big cats have long been a topic of interest for cryptozoologists (and more recently, Lance Henriksen and his credit card) - is this the first real evidence of their existence?" From the article: "Mike Williams, a representative of the Centre for Fortean Zoology, a body that researches mysterious or out-of-place animals, said he believed it was concrete evidence that big cats are on the loose in Australia. Hundreds of sightings have been reported over the years and a leaked government document revealed 59 sightings had been reported in Gippsland between 1998 and 2001. The cats are said to be descendants of animals that either escaped from zoos or circuses or were released by US airmen who kept them as mascots while stationed in Australia in World War II. "

Comments

Bull

[KidSock]

From the article:

The predator charged in his direction ... He was making long jumps ... On about the third jump I shot him.

Does anyone else find this "story" a little OUTRAGEOUS? If this cat was so elusive to go undetected for decades, why would the thing decide to charge at the first sight of a human? And this guy is going to have the nerve to stand his ground and pick off a big leaping agile cat with a single shot. Yeaaaaaah. Ok.

I'm reasoning the guy probably felt a little remorse for running over a peaceful magestic animal with his truck in a drunken stupur and made up this crap story to make it sound like he was defending himself. If I were the law, I'd be grilling this guy to find out if it wasn't someone's unwanted exotic pet. Here in the US animal cruelty is considered a very serious crime.

Be proud, old man hunter...

[rinkjustice]

You just blew the head off a georgeous and rare animal (check the pic out)

Ugh. My stomach did a cartwheel.

Re:I'm sorry, but..

[Shanep]

GWB, uses guns to hunt in hunter outfits. He can barely string a legible sentence together. He fits the redneck description to me.

You are quite obviously a kid who doesent understand how the world works yet.

33 yo ex Navy.

Yeah, what Bush did was wrong. He had bad information and made a bad decision about what he should do, but that does not mean that he murdered thousands of innocent people. Those innocent people were killed by the terrorist groups, its not the US army out there blowing themselves up in an attempt to take as many lives as possible, is it that hard to understand?

I have footage of US military dropping bombs on an unidentified group of civilians in Iraq who were just walking in the street, amongst many other attrocities. Easy to find this sort of stuff on the net. The US calls a dead child collateral damage. I also have an image of an Iraqi woman being pack raped in Iraq by US soldiers. GWB does not give a fuck.

It seems that you do not know how the World works yet.

I agree that preemptive strikes against genuine terrorists is a good thing. But Iraq was not a genuine target. It will be in the future though, now that this has blown up so severely. This will never end well for the US.

If you want to do something to help our world why not try to help end terrorism instead of just crying about those who try to.

This is a truely ridiculous statement. Given that the US is merely fueling more terrorism by its current actions. Iraq had little to do with terrorism and seemingly nothing to do with 9/11. Disagree with that? Then prove it wrong. The US Govt cannot find a shred of evidence to support their actions and now officials are back peddling out of previous statements because they know this is a lost arguement.

"I've got numerous individuals on the road, do you want me to take them out?", "Take 'em out!", "IMPACT!", "Oh dude".

WAKE THE FUCK UP. DID THAT LOOK LIKE A LEGITIMATE TARGET TO YOU? WAS THAT "TARGET" EFFECTIVELY IDENTIFIED AS BEING LEGITIMATE, SO AS TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT IRAQI PEOPLE? NO, IT FUCKING WASN'T. Real combatants normally work in smaller groups in any given area, RUN between areas of no cover and generally LOOK like combatants in their movements. These were just a crowd of people casually walking in the street. Even if they were out to kill US and allied forces, where was the positive identification of this prior to the act of killing? This is the same old thing that ALL non-Americans always say. Americans shoot first and ask questions later.

Re:I'm sorry, but..

[Shanep]

Here is another one. Footage from an AC-130 gunship (A modified C-130 Hercules with mini-guns and howitzer cannon). Notice in this movie, that there is a very strong emphasis on NOT HITTING THE BUILDING CONSIDERED TO BE A MOSQUE. Note however, that people LEAVING THE MOSQUE were gunned down and that they were gunned down after the men in the AC-130 can be heard identifying the targets as having left the mosque.

The relevance of this, is that hitting the mosque would provide evidence against the US forces which would be much harder to argue against when it hits the news. It is not the people in the mosque that matter. Once they have left the mosque, it is much easier to LIE ABOUT WHAT THOSE INDIVIDUALS WERE DOING AND WHO THEY WERE.