Grant Denyer is the latest person to claim to have set eyes on the mysterious Blue Mountains panther.
The 2DayFM breakfast co-host excitedly told his radio offsiders Ed Kavalee and Ash London about the sighting on his property near the Blue Mountains in NSW.
“Yesterday team, guess what? We saw another panther, a black panther,” Denyer said on air to his non-believing co-hosts.
“I don’t care if you believe or not. We have seen it … This is a famous story that has haunted Sydney for years about the mysterious black panther of the Blue Mountains.”
Denyer even brought his wife, Chezzi, into the studio this morning to back up his claim.
“I was doing the dishes, looking down the paddock and I saw it and I said, ‘The panther’s back,’” Chezzi said.
She went on to say that she first spotted the black panther on their property more than three years ago — and at first her husband didn’t believe her.
“I first saw it when I was heavily pregnant with Scout and he (Grant Denyer) told me I was hallucinating and I needed to go and have a sleep,” she said to the amusement of the 2DayFM co-hosts.
“So wait, when you, his wife, the woman he loves, the woman he has children with, the woman he spends his whole life with, the woman he trusts more than anyone else in the world, when you say it it’s just crazy women’s talk until he sees it,” Kavalee joked.
The Game Of Games host tried to shift the focus off him and back onto the panther and told his co-hosts the animal he spotted yesterday “has to be 10 times bigger than a normal domestic cat”.
Denyer even filmed the creature from the safety of his home, but the footage is less than convincing.
Grant Denyer with wife Chezzi at this year’s Radio Awards. Picture: Lawrence PinderSource:News Corp Australia
Rumours of a giant black panther roaming the Blue Mountains have been around for decades with more than 500 sightings recorded since 2001.
Former Hawkesbury Council mayor Bart Bassett told The Daily Telegraph in 2010 that he is a believer.
“There have been too many sightings by too many reputable people for it not to be true,” Mr Bassett said at the time.
“We’re talking about a dentist, a retired magistrate and actual Department of Primary Industries staff.”
Mike Williams and Rebecca Lang, who interviewed more than 750 witnesses for their book Australian Big Cats: An Unnatural History Of Panthers, are also convinced of the animal’s existence.
“There has been so many discrepancies with government testing of scat and fur samples. There is a big cat out there,” Mr Williams told The Daily Telegraph.
But the Department of Primary Industries remains unconvinced with a spokesman telling Nine News earlier this year that most sightings are actually of large feral cats.
“Unfortunately there is rarely sufficient evidence such as clear photos or footprints to warrant further investigation,” the spokesman told Nine.
“Where there is good evidence of large predators in the environment, and particularly if there is evidence of large predators attacking livestock or even pets, Local Land Services and DPI can investigate further.”source
