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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. "
"... believed to be a leopard or puma..."
:-?
How does one confuse a leopard with a puma, especially when the animal in question is not running, but lying dead in front of you?
Or maybe they are talking about mysterious out-of-place big cats that alternate between two shapes
-A
"- What's so unpleasant about being drunk?"
"- You ask a glass of water."[from h2g2]
Are we sure these aren't kittens of something even bigger?
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Did you even bother to read the part where the cat charged him?
They shouldn't be there to begin with anyway. We have enough problems with feral cats, dogs, foxes, rabbits etc without encouraging even more non-native wildlife, especially carnivores, since Australian fauna have been largely without natural predators for thousands of years.
I don't know why you Americans seem to find that funny. Its pretty cold actually given its pretty likely a Dingo did eat that kid.
* Introduced Species, check
* Predatory behaviour, check
* Running unchecked in the Australian bush, check
Considering how much damage smaller introduced animals (cats, dogs, rats, mice, rabbits, foxes, cane toads, et al) have done to our wildlife, do we really want much larger ones running around unchecked? :D
I'd say not - the real question is how this guy managed to have a gun, given our mega tight gun laws
Ok, this situation is hilarious. In Australia I suppose its not only ok but ENCOURAGED by the media to be a crazy redneck shooting random wild animals? I guess they have a history of roughing it and theres dangerous animals a-plenty, but still that culture seems a little bit whacked out. Just look how happy that crazy redneck in the picture is.
I guess that at least its extremely funny, if a bit strange and creepy.
"If you put butter and salt on it, it tastes like salty butter." -Terry Pratchet, on Popcorn.
For those who aren't familiar with it, is one of the trashiest "newspapers" around. And the Centre for Fortean Zoology's whose mission statement is "At the beginning of the 21st Century monsters still roam the remote, and sometimes not so remote, corners of our planet. It is our job to search for them."
News for nuts.
:wq
this seems fishy to me. Firstly, the hunter reckons his bullet blew the feline's head apart, and from the photo it really looks like there is NOTHING left of it... would a RIFLE bullet really do that much damage? I mean, if it was a shot gun, fired into it's face, then yea, but a rifle fired from behind, passing in behind the ear and THEN blowing the head apart?
Secondly, rather than pack out this surely important find, he cuts off the tail and just takes that with him, I mean, if it were me, I'd be carrying the whole carcass out, or at least marking and burying it so they can come back and retrieve it. It's not even like he had to carry it, he could have strapped it on like a backpack (I believe this is how hunters carry deer), tied it on the back of the bike, or even towed it behind the bike wrapped in a tarpaulin or something, it was dead anyway not like he could have hurt it any more than it was.
Thirdly, the fact that he shot the thing, when it was not a threat (he says it turned away, side on), with a rifle. I've never shot a gun, rifle or otherwise, but I imagine that with a rifle there needs to be some aiming involved, he was calm enough to aim, and fire the gun, making a clean shot into the cats head... if a big cat graced my path, I think I'd be frozen stiff, hoping like hell it won't be interested in me, not tracking it with the sights on my rifle.
I dunno, this whole thing just seems really fishy to me. Not that there couldn't be a few big cats roaming the Australian countryside, but have a sneaking suspicion that this was not one of them.
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Then, I know, I'll cut off its TAIL!
Hmm, what about the rest of the carcass? Hey, I'll throw it away!
What was this guy thinking? He kills a rare "urban myth" creature (one he had never seen in 50 years hunting the outback), proving the claims of hundreds of farmers (whether he knew it or not), and the best plan he can come up with is 'keep the tail - throw out the rest'? He was hunting deer, right? He had to have some plan to carry the deer out of the wild, right?
Can you imagine the scene when he came back into town?
"Hey, see this black rope?"
"Yeah?"
"It's part of a gigantic cat I shot while I was hunting!"
"Yeah?" (Sceptically)
"Yeah!" (Brandishes tail) "Look, It was coming right at me!"
"Yeah. Right"
"No, REALLY..."
1. The Herald Sun is ... how should I put this... not renowned for its high standards of journalistic integrity.
2. A hunter shoots a 'mythical beast', takes a photograph of the carcass (but not a very good photo, it's hard to tell WTF it is he's shot) and then only bothers to bring back the tail?
Oh Puh-lease !
3. I've been hiking in places which really have big cats (national parks in South America) and the paw-prints and 'traces' (puma sh#t) are everywhere. If there was a population of big cats in Gippsland, we'd know about it.
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
...or were released by US airmen who kept them as mascots while stationed in Australia in World War II.
Am I the only American to feel vaguely embarassed to once again be seen as the descendant of a bunch of knuckleheaded yokels?
"Oh, sure, we may have released gigantic carnivores in your backyard, but we sure saved everyone's asses in WWII."
Catching and killing an animal -- the near equivalent of yeti rumours -- and then disposing of the body in a non-recoverable manner, sounds entirely improbable except in extreme circumstance. This is country Victoria, not exactly deepest Africa.
Australia doesn't have any large carnivores. It is very unlikely that if you absolutely had to leave a carcass behind (which in this instance makes the entire story sound dubious) that it would be gone the following day. This is about the time I would expect you would need to obtain assistance to recover it.
Considering the bullet went through the cat's shoulder and destroyed its skull, the cat could not have been running _toward_ the hunter. He sounds like an asshat. Put carcass in river... great idea. Let's not examine any possible mutations that might occur to a large cat in Oz.
Laws are for people with no friends.
Yes, and based on hearsay and a few vague photographs that could be of a normal housecat, hunting parties were formed, and a special organisation was funded to research the puma and bring it in. The story lasted all Summer. Nobody found the puma. But new photographs were definitely of a housecat. Of course, believers argued that this was a different animal, and the puma was still on the loose.
It's just like a UFO, really.
But who the hell shot the picture?
Not only that but he disposed of the body by "dumping it in the river." I'm no hunter but that doesn't seem like a normal way of disposing of a carcass, especially one that you might want to be able to find again later.
Considering how much damage smaller introduced animals (cats, dogs, rats, mice, rabbits, foxes, cane toads, et al) have done to our wildlife, do we really want much larger ones running around unchecked?
Some extinct Australian creatures, like the Tasmanian Tiger, would probably include humans in your list.
Seth
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Bullshit. Complete, utter bullshit, and the kind that most geeks won't know a damn thing about and simply assume to be correct.
Soft point lead bullets do expand (the term is mushroom) on impact, but the truth of your story ends there. A .222 is a varmit gun, used for shooting praire dogs out west and not much else. The .30-06 is a deer rifle, typically used with hard pointed rounds for accuracy. Soft lead rounds have a flat nose to assist in slowing the bullet, but has the unfortunate side-effect of making it less accurate. To show the differences, let's look at perhaps the two most commonly used rounds for big game hunting in North America, the .30-06 and the .30-30.
The .30-06 round is a pointed high-velocity big game cartridge and looks a bit like this. It's a non-mushrooming hard point even at higher grains for long-distance accuracy. The bullet creates an entry and exist wound of average size and kills mostly by hemoraging. Most .30-06 rifles are bolt-action with a vertical magazine that holds the rounds with their sides touching.
The .30-30 rounds is a soft flat-pointed lead high-velocity big game cartridge and looks a bit like the one on the left. You'll notice the flat-point to allow the head to mushroom on impact and the grey lead in the bullet. Entry and exit wounds tend to be larger with the .30-30 than with the .30-06 due to the mushrooming. Most .30-30 rifles are lever action with a tubular magazine in which the bullets are alid end to end in a spring loaded tube. This is highly dangerous with .30-06 and similar rounds as the possibility of the pointed tip detonating the next bullet's primer is great.
So, as some one speaking who's used both of these rounds to feel whitetail deer, it's bullshit that a shot in the chest will down game instantly. Most hunters go for a chest shot and seek to take out both lungs with one bullet. This causes mortal trama to the game and it dies soon, but not immediately. For this reason, it's recomended that you do not immediately begin tracking game that has been shot in the chest and didn't fall. Deer can run a long way with two collapsed lungs, and they will run further if they detect you following them.
In fact, I've used both of these rounds to kill hogs and coyotes as well. Shots in the chest on these animals never cause immediate death unless you're lucky enough to hit the heart with enough trauma. The only reasonably sure way to down anything instantly is to shoot it in the neck, which is my prefered way of killing as the game almost always collapses immediately. In no case does this sever the head. This is immaterial to whether the bullet is soft or hard, pointed or flat, and I back up those statements with real life experience the likes of which most /.'ers simply can't.
Just remember, it's better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
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A .222 (I don't know why you are mentioning .222 specifically, I've been using .223 in my examples) is used for both varmint AND medium sized game, including roe deer, fallow deer, and the like. Not to mention big birds and seals. This round might be low calibre, but the muzzle velocity can make up for it with a good bullet.
As the flat-point bullets are slower, they are more accurate and less prone to be affected by leaves, wind, and so forth. So no, flat-pointed bullets are not less accurate than hard-pointed bullets. In fact, it's the other way around.
So why aren't all bullets flat-pointed? Because it isn't always practical, especially for long ranges. You can either have a heavy and slow bullet, or a fast and light bullet. Both work very well under their own certain conditions.
Here in Norway, the flat-points are usually used for close-range situations, namely dog-assited moose hunting.
What are you saying here, you're using FMJ rounds when hunting deer? No wonder you don't seen a deer drop dead on impact.
Are we still living in the wild, wild west? I will just settle with "no" here and encourage you to take a look at what's offered at todays rifle market.
Whoops, wrong again. With a proper round (for example .308, .30-06 or similar with lead point) and a hit to the heart region, the shock effect could easily kill the animal immediately. This doesn't happen often, but it definently happens on a regular basis.
I don't know what kind of bullets you have been using on your rounds when torturing these animals, but I certainly hope you learned something
Aiming for the neck is one of the least recommended areas to aim unless you're at point blank range. The chance of only mildly wounding an animal by neckshot is *very* high. Neckshots sometimes strokes the neck spine and causes temporary paralyzation of the animal. Who said "drop dead"?
I haven't seen someone with such