Otway Panther Photographed

Big cat caught on film in Otways, fueling belief that panthers roam our wild places

Quote:

A series of photos of a large, sleek black cat sauntering into the bush in south-west Victoria has reignited the long-held belief by some that panthers or pumas roam our wild places undetected. Stories about populations of big, wild cats have been talked about since the 1830s, and the lush Victorian Otways region is just one place across the country where the rumours crop up time after time. Professional photographer Amber Noseda was driving home from taking pictures of birds at Mount Sabine on Saturday afternoon when she spotted an unusual animal, which she initially thought was a black wallaby. She pulled over and started using her camera's viewfinder to focus on the animal and realised it was a large cat. "That's the biggest cat I've ever seen," she said. "It was jet black, it had a really long sleek back, it wasn't tall looking at the photos but when it was sitting on the side of the road it certainly looked a lot taller."

tl;dr It's a cat. At best, it's an unusually large black feral cat. But people will still claim that it's a panther. Something about hoofbeats and zebras comes to mind.

via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/2Uo1PtJ