"Aussie Panther" thread

[VladTepes]

OK following on from my ****take thread re the tiger @ stanthorpe some interesting discussion has been generated.

There have long been rumours of "big cats" (aka panthers, aka the Lithgow cat / panther) roaming the Australian bush.

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2011/05/613.jpg

Some people swear to have seen them,.
Others are highly skeptical.
For others it's just a bit of fun.

For some it's a very emotive issue, however I strongly suggest nobody gets too defensive in these discussions.

From time to time tabloid newspapers and shows like A Current Affair run a story on it - when there are no diets to report on one presumes - and the true beleivers emerge from the darkness.

Hunt for the black panther - National - www.smh.com.au (http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Hunt-for-the-black-panther/2005/02/26/1109180165887.html)



It was the article reproduced here :
snopes.com: 'Panther' shot in Australia (http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=60;t=001091;p=1)
where a fella claimed to have shot one, along with dubious photography and even more dubious reasons as to why he couldn't produce the corpse that reiginited interest in the story.

Note the dates, interesting timing I'd suggest.

Anyway...

If you are interested GOOGLE is your friend

Look up cryptozoology for general info on cryptids and google australian panther and you could spend years.... and many have.

There are sites purporting to be scientific
Australian Panther Research - N.S.W Government Report (http://www.mysteriousaustralia.com/nsw_gov_report.html)
but don't take these at face value - subject them to your own critical analysis.

The Mysterious Australia site is full of "sightings" of Aussie Panthers and all manner of wonderful beasts....

Research of the Australian Panther (http://www.mysteriousaustralia.com/australian_panther_mainpage.html)

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2011/05/614.jpghttps://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2011/05/615.jpg



(My favourite thing about these animals is there apparent ability to bend light so they go out of focus in the presence of cameras).


Discuss.

[reubsrover]

Can't claim to hae seen one, the neighbour had a plaster cast of a similar large cat footprint to the photographed one below until his house burnt down in the '06 fires and here's my only other contribution.

My brother's camera case (about the sixe of an i-phone) next an interesting foot print in the Grampians, home of the Big Black Cat just look at our local store, it's painted on it.

[isuzurover]

Aren't there enough threads on here about BS and myths...?

I would bet all the pictures are just of feral cats, that have (in a few cases) grown lage through years of natural selection/breeding in the wild. Note there is no frame of reference in most pics - or when there is the person/object is suspiciously far back in the background.

In June 2005, deer hunter Kurt Engel shot and killed this large animal in the rugged terrain near the town of Sale, Victoria, Australia. Engel cut off its tail and dumped the body in a nearby river.

People thought that he had captured the famed "Gippsland Big Cat", believed to be mascot pumas released by US soldiers during World War II.

DNA testing, however, revealed that the creature was a very, very large feral cat

[DeeJay]

http://www.aulro.com/afvb/general-chat/70163-australian-black-panther.html

:D:D

[V8Ian]

Panthers used to be a common sight around Brisbane, they're all but extinct now though. :p

[JDNSW]

In 1966 I was waiting for a plane to arrive on a claypan in the middle of the Simpson Desert. I saw a large black animal on the other side of the claypan. Arming myself with the Toyota's crankhandle, I cautiously approached it. When I was about twenty feet away, it sort of suddenly came into focus as a normal sized cat.

What I think happened, was that with nothing familiar on the claypan to compare size with, it was not until it got close enough that binocular vision gave me a distance clue that I was able to correctly "see" its size. I wonder how many other sightings have similar explanation?

John

[rick130]

[snip]
From time to time tabloid newspapers and shows like A Current Affair run a story on it - when there are no diets to report on one presumes - and the true beleivers emerge from the darkness.

Hunt for the black panther - National - www.smh.com.au (http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Hunt-for-the-black-panther/2005/02/26/1109180165887.html)



[snip]

Discuss.

I think the journos at the Sydney Morning Herald would be more than a little miffed at being called 'tabloid' journo's ;)

The SMH is a broadsheet form the same stable as The Age in Melbourne, competing with The Australian in the marketplace as a 'respectable' newspaper. :D

and I have no dog in this fight either, but here's another SMH article On the hunt for the big cat that refuses to die (http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/on-the-hunt-for-the-big-cat-that-refuses-to-die-20100619-ynw2.html)

<edit> and more http://web.mac.com/rebeccalang/Strange_Nation/Australian_Media.html I think she might be a journo for the Hawkesbury Gazette.

[zuno555]

the panther is on this forum, right in front of your eyes!!





ricks avatar! quick get the camera!

[vnx205]

In 1966 I was waiting for a plane to arrive on a claypan in the middle of the Simpson Desert. I saw a large black animal on the other side of the claypan. Arming myself with the Toyota's crankhandle, I cautiously approached it. When I was about twenty feet away, it sort of suddenly came into focus as a normal sized cat.

What I think happened, was that with nothing familiar on the claypan to compare size with, it was not until it got close enough that binocular vision gave me a distance clue that I was able to correctly "see" its size. I wonder how many other sightings have similar explanation?

John

I have no doubt at all that a huge number of sighting of large beasts can be explained in that way.

Most people have no idea just how unreliable our perception is and how easily it can be fooled. It only takes a small inaccuracy in the estimation of the distance to give an exaggerated impression of the size.

Anyone who doubts how poor we are at judging size should take note of the apparent size of a full moon as it rises and compare it with the size it appears to be when it is overhead. On the horizon it looks enormous, yet it is really the same size and it even creates the same size image on our retina. The apparent change in size happens entirely in our brain.

The optical illusions below work because our perception is so easily fooled.

1. The cars appear to be different sizes, but are actually the same.

2. The tiny figure in the foreground is actually the same size as the figure in the background, yet it looks much smaller. The tall figure with the pipe looks the same size as the background figure, but is much larger.

3. The tabletops are the same shape and size. If you don't believe me, print the image and cut out the tabletops.

The fact that someone believes they saw something that was not really there does not mean they are dishonest, blind, stupid or drunk. It just makes them normal. Our senses are notoriously unreliable.

Most "sightings" can be explained in the same way as John's experience.

[slug_burner]

I have no doubt at all that a huge number of sighting of large beasts can be explained in that way.

Most people have no idea just how unreliable our perception is and how easily it can be fooled. It only takes a small inaccuracy in the estimation of the distance to give an exaggerated impression of the size.

Anyone who doubts how poor we are at judging size should take note of the apparent size of a full moon as it rises and compare it with the size it appears to be when it is overhead. On the horizon it looks enormous, yet it is really the same size and it even creates the same size image on our retina. The apparent change in size happens entirely in our brain.

The optical illusions below work because our perception is so easily fooled.

1. The cars appear to be different sizes, but are actually the same.

2. The tiny figure in the foreground is actually the same size as the figure in the background, yet it looks much smaller. The tall figure with the pipe looks the same size as the background figure, but is much larger.

3. The tabletops are the same shape and size. If you don't believe me, print the image and cut out the tabletops.

The fact that someone believes they saw something that was not really there does not mean they are dishonest, blind, stupid or drunk. It just makes them normal. Our senses are notoriously unreliable.

Most "sightings" can be explained in the same way as John's experience.

What do you mean? The moon is orbiting around the earth and when it is up in the night sky it is further away than when just above the horizon that is why it looks smaller:angel::twisted:

[jerryd]

Did I ever tell you the time I was fishing in Scotland :eek:

[Homestar]

I'll believe it when someone finally gets a decent video or photo of one, and a bit of supporting eveidence about its location. You can't tell me that with the proliferation of portable cameras in phones, etc over the last decade, that no one has yet to get a decent picture or video? Hmmm... I think JDNSW & vnx205's explanations on perseption are far more valid...

[ramblingboy42]

when I lived in the NT I had a whopper stopper permanently in my car so that whenever the talk turned to cats in the bush, size of barramundi, width between the eyes of crocodiles, width of buffalo horns theyd just shot, lengths of various items not to be mentioned here......I'd get the whopper stopper out. It was a length of timber about 12x50x500 with a number of holes drilled strategically from one end and marked and drilled appropriately at different points to suit the subject. A finger was placed in one end and the other was placed in the appropriate subject hole when the tall stories started. Eliminated a lot of bs and their was plenty up there. Anyone ever hear Ted Egans song "Man From Humpty-Doo"?

[Sleepy]

I've seen some BIG feral cats. Size of a medium dog. :o There used to be a skin of one displayed in Wyperfeld Nat Park. (VIC) - bloody huge. (Wasn't black though)

[Beckford]

I grew up near Emmaville NSW. To quote wikipedia;

"This is described as "one of Australia's most famous manifestations of a cryptic animal".[8] (http://www.aulro.com/afvb/#cite_note-7) It is variously said to be a large black panther (http://www.aulro.com/wiki/Black_panther) or a marsupial lion (http://www.aulro.com/wiki/Thylacoleonidae), and was sighted in February 1958[9] (http://www.aulro.com/afvb/#cite_note-strange-8) and on various occasions in the later 1950s and 1960s. There are no native big cats in Australia. One suggestion is that this beast escaped from a travelling circus (http://www.aulro.com/wiki/Circus) whose owner chose not to report the escape"

I have seen plenty of very big feral cats in Gibraltar Range National Park. On our way home through the park at Easter we pasted a dingo who was trotting along the road looking for road kill to no avail. The panthers had beaten him to it......

Beckford.

[JDNSW]

What do you mean? The moon is orbiting around the earth and when it is up in the night sky it is further away than when just above the horizon that is why it looks smaller:angel::twisted:

If you want to be pedantic about it, it is actually closer when directly overhead - it is close enough to the same distance from the centre of the earth (actually the centre of the earth/moon system, but for these purposes its near enough to the same since the moon is so much smaller than the earth), but when directly overhead we are closer to the moon by the radius of the earth compared to when it is on the horizon. But the difference is actually too small to measure easily. Try measuring the angular diameter of the moon with a sextant - it is almost exactly the same - I have done this. (the small difference is due to refraction which distorts the image near the horizon).

John

[JDNSW]

In 1966 I was waiting for a plane to arrive on a claypan in the middle of the Simpson Desert...........

John

I am in the process of scanning my slide collection. This is the claypan in question (not on that occasion - I did not have the camera then.

[Treads]

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: panther on film in Appin - Local News - News - Macarthur Chronicle Campbelltown Edition (http://macarthur-chronicle-campbelltown.whereilive.com.au/news/story/macarthur/)

YouTube - &#x202a;The mysterious Macarthur Panther appears again&#x202c;&rlm; (http://youtu.be/fs1u-FLjYXo)

[stealth]

I wonder how many people only looked at the first couple of entries on Vlads Tiger scam on this forum and have since repeated it without finding out the end of the 'stooge'. i.e. "I saw on some website that some guy shot a tiger in Queensland..."

That is the problem with bull**** 'jokes' like this. Some poor suckers take it for real and then start adding the evidence as they go in trying to shore up what then becomes their own proof. And the myths and legends grow accordingly. Look at Area 51 and the Moon Landing conspiracy theorists. Some poor souls live their whole life around this crap.

[John W]

2 people that I would normally trust say they have seen panthers. I am surprised that if they are out there to date there is no confirming evidence. I too have seen huge feral cats but not panthers
The possibilities of them being let loose by americans during WW2 or circus people is plausible but again you would think that finding proof would be easy but still there is none.

[POD]

The bloke from Noble Park would presumably have been prepared to carry home a deer, but couldn't bring home more than the tail of the panther he shot? His is one of the least credible big-cat stories.
Interestingly though, all of the (admittedly few) feral cats that I've seen have been on the small side compared to the average domestic moggy.