A neighbour of mine saw a large black animal running off through long
grass. He said it moved like a cat but seemed to be more dog-sized. He
found a wallaby kill in scrub not far away. We assumed it was a dingo
kill so I put a remote camera on it with another camera on a game
trail about 15 metres away. Nothing at the kill except crows but this
cat turned up on the game trail camera Because the camera was out for
a few days I also got wallabies from exactly the same camera point,
which gives a bit of a size comparison. The first pic compares it with
a swamp wallaby, the second with a black striped wallaby and young. I
estimate the cat at 10 kg plus and about the size of a small kelpie
(lower at the shoulder, but a bit more thickset).
The day after I retrieved these photos the partner of another
neighbour came on a cat with a stranglehold on a red-necked wallaby.
It took off in a hurry and she described it as a "mountain lion". The
wallaby was not dead but very disorientated and wobbly on its feet
when it got up. I assume that when people see something out of the
ordinary in size the brain fits it to the next best thing they can
think of. But this seems to be a feral cat big enough to attack and
kill an average sized (15 kg or so) wallaby, which is more than the
average stray moggie could do.
We are inland ######## not far from the area of the ######## Range sighting which is in your book.Cheers Peter
