/Nexus - 1805 - New Times Magazine/pages/0067/image.png)
Page Content (OCR)
dogger and the property's manager. Could these monster-sized moggies ave been responsible for the carnage? Just over 40 kilometres away, Binginwarri dairy farmer Ron Jones was also starting to lose livestock to a mystery predator, as was his 82- year-old mother on a nearby farm. Today the skulls of bovine victims dangle from a tree on his property, a grim reminder of a predator that attacks under cover of darkness. ones has seen the cat(s) countless imes, even shooting at it with his .22-calibre Magnum rifle—a weapon e believes lacks the firepower to bring down an animal "the size of a golden retriever". "I've had cattle taken within a undred metres of the house,” he old us in December 2000. "I've seen one at about 70 yards [~64 metres]... t was a big, fawny-coloured cat, which was nearly as high as a strainer post which was three-foot-six [~1.1 metres] high—it would have been about nine or 10 inches [~23-25 centimetres] wide across the chest." Jones has assembled a grisly photo album of dead livestock from properties around the area to build a case for the existence of the large cats which he believes are responsible for the strange stock deaths. The scale of predation on his and neighbouring properties has raised eyebrows in government departments and prompted some investigation. In nearby Yarram, DSE employees filmed other strangely wounded livestock around the same period—cattle with their flanks raked by claws, their hides scarred. So who or what was responsible for the carnage? And why have the experiences of three Victorian farmers been echoed all over the country? Where do they come from, and how did they get here? Australia has never had an indigenous cat species—unless you count one prehistoric marsupial cousin. Tens of thousands of years ago, a deadly animal stalked the wilds of the Australian bush. Thylacoleo carnifex, "the flesh-eating pouched lion", was christened in 1859 by respected palaeontologis Professor Richard Owen, who declared it a carnivorous marsupia cat—a judgement that set him a odds with the palaeontology establishment. Sporting blade-like teeth, Thylacoleo measured 1.5 metres in length and weighed about 120 kilograms. Its incredibly strong jaws and presumably feline stealth would have made it a formidable hunter during the Pleistocene. The creature became extinct about 40,000 years ago, leaving the Australian bush— and the nomadic Aboriginal tribes who inhabited the country at about the same time—relatively predator- free. But many wonder: did it truly die out? Another strong contender in the debate is an animal that once ranged from the wilds of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea to right across the Australian mainland and down to Tasmania: the Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus). There are certainly some aspects of the witness descriptions that resonate with this species, now Officially extinct. However, in the case of the so-called Queensland Tiger, the arborea nature of this creature cited in many reports would appear to rule the Thylacinus out of contention—and i he sightings are to be given any credence at all, they may raise the spectre of an altogether new and itherto unidentified marsupia species. There is a rash of other theories about what these big cats are and ow they might have got here. In Theories on How They Got Here For almost 150 years, sightings of strange, cat-like creatures have been reported and documented across Australia. While predominantly described as resembling jet-black panthers or sandy-coloured pumas and lions, spotted and striped large cats have also been reported since white settlement. In their wake, they have left a trail of destruction. Mutilated cattle, sheep and family pets are a testament to the ruthless efficiency of these mystery predators, which occasionally leave behind large felid-like prints that further tantalise and torment their trackers. cats 66 * NEXUS EVOLUTION OF THE DoNUT AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 2011 www.nexusmagazine.com