Hi,
I just read an old article in the november 2005 Australian Shooter Magazine that i got the other day from someone who dropped them off at the Geelong Outdoor Sportsman. I'm not sure weather or not you are still wanting evidence of big cats in Australia as this email address was published at the end of the article entitled Big Cat Shot by Rebecca Lang focussing on the big cat shot by Kurt Engel.
Anyway i just thought i would send you an encounter that i had about 5 years ago with my mates dad and his sister-in-law, his son and my brother. I had heard once about a big cat problem in Australia but i was fairly young at the time about 13 years old, i'm now 18. We went out for a little 4WD ride in Pricetown Victoria near Port Cambell just before dark and on the way back from this drive in the bush getting close to the camp ground we where driving fairly slow as the driver, my mates dad, was trying to do something. All of a sudden we seen this big black thing sitting on the track with large glowing eyes not like anything we had seen before. As we got closer we stopped the car and we could see about 40meters away this huge black cat. The thing was massive. But just as we stopped the car the thing got up and walked slowly through the fence followed by it's huge tail then took off in a hurry. The thing was shinny jet black and looked like a panther. I'd have no idea wether it was a panther or not but it was a massive big cat. It was just short in height of a great dane, just a little shorter and looked solidly built. I now believe in these big cats and know for a fact that they are out there and my friends dad who was driving the car has said that he had once shot at one with a .22 while foxing and rabbit shooting in a ute but thought that he had hit it in the back leg region. Any way he said that was a good ten years before we saw this one.
I thought that since i had this story and none of my friends had ever believed me i'd just let you know because i came across the old article from 2005 of Kurt Engel's big cat that he shot. One of mates at the moment said that we should see if we can go and try and shoot one sometime up around the Otway National park in victoria or Gippsland way it dosn't really bother us to much where we go we just really want to help out the problem of big cats. We both doubt we would ever have any luck but id like to get in touch with a farmer that has had problems with live stock being killed by a predicted big cat and set up trail cams and try and see if we can help prove that these big cats do exist and help out these farmers that are loosing live stock. I have also heard a few stories from people who have spotted big cats recently up in the Otway's wether you knew about these ones that or not.
Thank you for your time and hope that this is of interest to you.
from Jayden Brant
