Large Black Cat Photographed in Australian Bush

Not a lot of information on this yet, apart from a brief line on Facebook..



Thankfully, it's not some blurry picture that is usually associated with these sorts of things



I'll endeaver to try and get in contact with the people who uploaded the pic to get more info, quite busy at the moment.

Might go for a search for it myself too, as it's very close to me.

a reply to: Chadwickus

Ooooooh, seems they found the very mythical and mystical normal black panther!!!

Pretty cool picture, always a fan of cats.

a reply to: Chadwickus

This was seen near Bunbury?

I'm in Perth, but later in the week I am heading down to Collie, so potentially in the neighbourhood for a big cat.

/edit

I found this

en.m.wikipedia.org...

The premise that there were cougars in Western Australia was widely believed during the 1970s.

There are several theories as to how they were introduced. The most popular theory was that United States servicemen brought four cougar kittens to Western Australia during World War II; they eventually grew too big for captivity and were released—two at Fremantle and two at Bunbury. Another theory is that cougars escaped from a traveling circus that was involved in an accident between Bridgetown and Nannup around 1961. The circus theory has often been referenced to support the allegation that cougars were responsible for the deaths of around 2000 sheep in the Duranillin area in the late 1970s.

a reply to: Lynk3

Not particularly normal for Australia though!

Interesting find indeed..

Its difficult for me to perceive this as bigger than a large house cat.

Do you know what species of leaf that is on the ground below the cat. If you do manage to contact the people who uploaded the pic can you ask them if they can find out? I'm not familiar with Australian fauna.

I'm having trouble with this. The cat seems to be in the immediate foreground which would suggest it is not very big compared to the trees. The camera appears to be pointing almost straight out but the cat is well below center of the image suggesting that it is not very tall.

Another way to determine for certain the size of the cat is to have them retake the shot with a ruler on the ground where the cat was.

If the camera is pointing almost straight out then the center of the image is only about 2 to 2.5 feet up the trunk of the light colored tree in the background. The cat has to be far below that.

Something else that just struck me. This seems extremely low quality for a GoPro. It is also not the correct size format for a GoPro, unless it has been cropped for some reason. I'm not seeing the typical GoPro fisheye effect either. I wonder if we could get a hold of something closer to the original.

Here are a couple of GoPro images for example. Vivid, crisp, and with the proper HD size format.

Animal gore if you're sensitive to that kind of thing don't watch video.



I say shenanigans. Someone pulled a prank that took off.

a reply to: CraftBuilder

I must have missed it. Where are you getting Go Pro?

Ugh derp. In the screen grab. Never mind. Also yeah, not a Go Pro.

I have a Go Pro Hero Black that I bought about a year ago and have never seen it take such crappy pictures. You can make it stop doing the fisheye thing though.

a reply to: Chadwickus

It is a fake. Looks more like a painting that a picture.

Most of the trees have no shadow.

The low foliage has no shadow.

There is just so much wrong with it.

P

Not an expert in photography , so can't comment on that photo ....

BUT ,


In 2008 , I travelled alone to Fraser Island in Queensland for Christmas 8000k.m from you ?
On the way home , between Rainbow beach and Gympie , I stopped for the night ,
deep in one of the plantation pine forests there .
I was towing a small boat , and slept in the car , with all the windows open.
At three a.m I was woken by the whole car /trailer shaking !
Looking out the rear hatchback ,I watched a very large black cat ,clawing
at the esky/chiller ,in the boat, that held fish .
I froze for about ten minutes , hoping it would go away.... and at that point the shaking stopped.
I waited another couple of minutes , and then peered "foo" style over the passenger side window sill;
and found myself face to face ( 10 c.m gap ) with said enormous cat .
The passenger door window sill is at 900mm above the ground ,and the cat was on all fours ....
After a five minute eye to eye staring match ,
I decided it was not going to jump in and eat me .... so went back to sleep.
At 0430 am the sun rose , I got out ,and watched as the BLACK PANTHER ambled away down
the sandy track !
My impression was of a young animal , so they're probably breeding around there ,
the site was about 20 k.m from an army base.
... Have worked on the Nullabor plain and the biggest feral cats , stand less than knee high .





So yes they are out there , but I reckon they're well adapted ,and would prove difficult to hunt down .

Where is the tail?
Seriously..
Is it tucked in the leg?
How is that possible in nature?
But yes it looks to be a cat!
Look at the ears and mannerism....


And the ground under it! Dead give away in dark color that's not a shadow...
Wtf is it?

a reply to: pheonix358

The shadows and lack there of are pretty telling.

a reply to: Bigburgh

Wtf is it?

Lies. It's lies.

I'm also a little weirded out by some branch patterns. Anyone else seeing that?

a reply to: Chadwickus

That's definitely a Panther if the picture is real. It's maybe 60lbs if I had to guess.
I zoomed in on it and the pixels look like it's all the same resolution, but there is some weirdness there. Could be just the camera being so terrible, and not wanting to see black correctly.


Other than that I had no idea there were panthers in Australia. I don't know whether to think that's really cool or kinda freaky.

You have all kinds of weird and dangerous animals in Australia. Is a large, black cat something special? Sorry, confused.

originally posted by: Domo1

I'm also a little weirded out by some branch patterns. Anyone else seeing that?

I see shadows were they should be and including the bush to the right has shadows.. The light balance is off you may need to darken your monitor and know that also cameras don't see as well as your eyes. Especially this one..

That's to the shadows.

Tree branches. Like the pitchfork tree in the back left? It could be a dead tree? Looks a little odd.


My Issue is what are the orange brown splotches under the panther and in 2 other spots?? That I can't make sense of.

I can assure any of the doubters here that there are large black cats in southern Texas.
I have seen them three times, found tracks, and lost farm animals to them.
What I've seen looks like a black puma and was easily 100 lbs.
Locals call them panthers.

originally posted by: NoRulesAllowed
You have all kinds of weird and dangerous animals in Australia. Is a large, black cat something special? Sorry, confused.

Yeah, we're a land locked country so we don't have any of the main species that you'd expect to find in other parts of the world, just a lot of very unique species of mammals. Even Dingoes were brought over here by Indonesian fisherman and traded with the aboriginals, just a few thousand years ago.

I don't know, I've spent a good 5 years just camping out in the bush in all the different regions of Australia and have never seen, heard or witnessed any trace of large cats. But who knows?