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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. "
LETS KILL IT!!!
"It was comin' right for us!"
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The cat's head was shot off by the hunter. The tail was removed and sent to a lab.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
I don't know exactly what this is, but I can't see a Cat in it
I can see Jesus in it. How much do you think I'll get on eBay for it?
"... 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
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Are we sure these aren't kittens of something even bigger?
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The retired engineer said he lugged the cat back to his camp, but put the carcass into the river after removing the tail and photographing it.
Why oh why?
The best part of the article is this when the hunter says, "The predator charged in his direction." He's obviously been watching too much South Park. I be t the cat was running in the opposite direction and he yelled "Look out, its coming right for us", and shot it.
No , not at all . There have been numerous examples found over the years . As the article saysWhat is interesting is the cats origin , Is it a pure puma or has it interbred with other escaped cats in the bush
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A Puma Ate my baby!
I'd say more, but my guild is raiding.
It was in a superposition of states, clearly:
{ |leopard> + |puma> } / sqrt(2)
When they measure the carcass, they will of course find that it has collapsed to one or the other.
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.
* 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.
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I won't beleive anything 'till you bring me a faeces sample, and not just the faeces of someone who's seen this mystery animal!
The issue isn't numbers, it's genetic and ecological diversity.
If they were introduced by humans, they should be eliminated from Australia, since they are likely going to make native species extinct.
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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mysterious or out-of-place animals, said he believed it was concrete evidence
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
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."
Why sure it is. If you've ever played with a cat and dangled it upside down, they look just like that!
I haven't done that - I'm too interested in keeping the skin on my hands and forearms.
I think you're right about it being a cat though. It's proportions are similar to a domestic animal, and the hunter has been careful to put the carcass in the foreground where it will appear large compared to reference objects like the motorcycle in the background.
I've shot feral cats in the north of WA which were much larger than domestic cats - bigger than foxes in the same area and comparable in size to a small to medium dog. They tended to be a fairly uniform brindle colour, but every so often you'd see a ginger or black cat.
I think this is mostly a scam. The guy has shot a large feral cat, played with perspectives in the photo to make it look bigger, and will dine out on the tabloid news media for a few days until the DNA evidence shows he's shot a wild felis cattus.
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I've hiked in areas with cougars, ( nagali is the indian word it means Lord of the Forest ). I've been tracked by cats. They're big kitties and like all cats they're curious. I've woken in winter and exited my tent to find paw prints up along side the perimeter of the tent, the cat having walked quietly all around the tent. I've backtracked to find a fresh kill twenty minutes back from where I had been and had not noticed a cat ( they smell like big wet dogs ).
You can talk with multitudes of wilderness pros and not meet one who has actually seen a big cat. They're next to invisible. I've meet 5. One lay a few feet from me in the dark outside the door of an 8 x 8 cabin an airborne colonel had flown into a wilderness area. When I open the door to go for wood ( the cabin had a small firebox ), the single candle that lit the cabin cast a long light out the door and onto the cat. I was carrying an axe. I dropped the axe, flew backwards into the cabin and slammed the door ( adrenelin can give you superpowers), while the cat tore out of the underbrush and sprinted into the treeline.
In my meetings with cats only once did I know I was approached as prey. Cougars don't see us as prey.
In the hundred or so years records have been kept there have only been a handfull of lethal attacks by big cats on the west coast. Interestingly nearly all have been on Vancouver Island. The theory goes that the thick sala underbrush allows the cats to get close. Almost all attacks have been by sick or old cats.
Wild animals met with knowledge and respect can usually be party to an incredible experince (my north american exceptions would be grizzilies, polar bears and wolverines, oh and skunks). I've gotten close up and personal with wolves (very rare experience, beautiful, beautiful animals) and countless bears (most black, one grizzily and her cub very very scary).
On the other hand there is near unanimous agreement that pound for pound a leopard is the most dangerous lethal killer on the planet.
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"It looks like a big cat..." "What like a Puma?" "Yeah there ya go."
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Indeed, I have a flame point siamese (a mutt, but that's what the vet calls him), he's always on his back, in some weird pose. It's pretty funny, because he often sleeps with all fours pointed straight up. Every siamese I've known acted contrary to most other cats. He also goes nuts for lettuce. Like I said... Weird.
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Yeah, there is a good bit of aiming involved. This guy was apparently an experienced hunter, and some of those guys areinsanely good shots. When it turned away, it was actually a harder shot because it was moving side to side (bearing change) rather than coming straight at him.
He said he hit it behind the shoulder (which is about where you would aim) and the bullet destroyed the head. This implies either that the cat was running away from him, or the bullet was deflected inside the cat's body (probably by a bone or rib.)
Finally, if he was using hollow points (which is more likely in some rifles than in others) it could very easily blow the majority of the head off. So, maybe.
That paper's not very credible, though, and lots of people are saying the big cats are just myths, and he did throw away his best evidence. So, maybe not.
Interesting idea, either way.
You are probably referring to the Tasmanian Tiger. It actually was a marsupial wolf that had stripes, so ignorant humans called it a 'tiger'. The humans then proceeded to place a bounty on its head and hunt it into extinction. It was indigineous to the area. The humans were less so. Seth
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Here in the Netherlands, the country's media was recently abuzz for a while over news of a puma living in the forests here. Given the tiny nation here is not much bigger than tasmania and with 16m people, it got locals rather nervous:
details at expatica
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"And this guy is going to have the nerve to stand his ground and pick off a big leaping agile cat"
Some people do actually have the nerve to do it. Here's a video of people shooting a charging lion. Of course it didn't really work so well and it took more than one shot. http://www.big-boys.com/articles/huntlion.html (it was the first place I found the video...I don't know if they can handle the banwidth)
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.
The rugged paws and the thick furry tail coupled with black color makes it fairly obvious that this is a puma. This is also plausible because pumas has a history of being used as pets.
I can't see anything wrong with the picture. You can see both the left and right front paws, and a severed head. The anatomy seems correct to me.
The head looks like that because when you're hunting, you don't use full metal jacket, nor do you usually use hollow point. You use very heavy and expanding lead-point bullets.
These bullets has a thin metal jacket and a hole in the nose, and they are filled with lead. On impact with an animal the nose of the bullet expands voilently and creates something similar to an explosion (way more powerful than any hollow point). As mentioned, the lead makes these bullets very heavy and they sport a massive amount of energy. They are made for two purposes: to kill and to kill as fast as possible.
After the impact and immediate expansion the bullet remains partly intact and can easily travel through the rest of the animal, creating even more damage.
Here's a picture of one of the most commonly used lead points, Nosler Partition: http://www.nosler.com/images/partition.jpeg.
Lead point bullets creates awfully lot of damage to tissue, and it doesn't surprise me one bit that the head was so severed. Even with a .222/3/* you can get that kind damage with the right bullet. I assume the hunter was using .308 or .30-06 or larger ammunition, which can effectively cut a small sized human in two when hit from the right angle with the right bullet.
If you watch hunting videos where they have zoomed in on the animals they shoot, you can often see a thick red mist at the impact of the bullet. In most cases, if it was a hit in the lung/heart region, the animals drops dead on the spot. That would *never* have happened with FMJ or hollow point.
There were several large marsupials, such as the diprotodon, but I don't think they're cats. You might be thinking of the Thylacine which is also known as the Tasmanian Tiger, but again isn't a cat.
But seeing as about 2/3rds of all native australian fauna have been wiped out since the arrival of the environmental disaster known as homo sapiens, it's certainly possible that there were some cats in there somewhere.
:wq
How could this person possibly kill such a magnificent creature and discard its body without ever finding out what it tasted like?
It's the drop bears that are endangered. Those and the Yowies.
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But who the hell shot the picture?
Oh yeah, and as for that tail, mate. We didn't send that to scientists. Pesky lot, always telling us not to rape the kangaroos. Na, we fed the tail to our kids. Makes 'em grow up strong and peculiar, in proper fashion.
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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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