Tim the Yowie man on Big Cats

Paws for thought

BY TIM THE YOWIE MAN

04 Feb, 2012 04:00 AM

Are there really pumas or other killer cats roaming stealthily on our very doorstep? Tim the Yowie Man investigates.

'I just hope it doesn't have kittens.'' So warns farmer Bill Fogarty who recently while on the phone to a friend in his Adaminaby farmhouse when he glanced out the window and saw ''a large creature carrying something in its mouth''. A long-time farmer at Yaouk Gap, 14 km from Adaminaby, Bill initially dismissed the animal as one of the many wild dogs which roam this part of the high country. ''I thought it was a dingo with a fox in its mouth,'' Bill recalls.However, as the creature sauntered closer to his home and Bill was able to get a much closer look at it, he realised, ''it was no dog''.''It's body was as big as an adult kelpie, it's tail was about half a metre long and, it was a gingery, creamy colour,'' he recalls.''It had a big head and pointy ears and one of those beautiful feline tails - you know, with that cat-like curl in it with a white tip.''Bill, who kept talking on the phone describing what he was seeing to his friend, claims it was, ''four or five times bigger than a feral cat''. However, as the animal got closer, he realised, it actually had ''a lyrebird, not a fox in its mouth''. ''There's been many sightings over the years of the so-called 'Yaouk panther', but it's always been reported as black or a sandy brown, not this gingery colour,'' says Bill, who was left with no doubt at all that the creature he saw was a cat of some sort and not a dog.

Read rest see pics here: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/paws-for-thought
/2445785.aspx


book on big cats in Australia:

 http://www.amazon.com/Australian-Big-Cats-Unnatural-Panthers/dp/0646530070/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328521569&sr=8-1