What is the Tasmanian Panther?

Copyright © Rex Gilroy 2003

For reasons to follow, the ‘panther’ can only be a marsupial and a carnivore. Therefore there remains only the problem of its actual place in the marsupial family. I personally believe that, when eventually one of these creatures is available for study, it will be found to belong either with, or a close relative of, the Marsupial Lions.

The Australian Miocene-Pliocene-Pleistocene fossil records have lately revealed a wide range of hitherto unknown marsupial species, particularly the marsupial lions. If the fossil remains of an animal fitting the general physical description of the ‘panther’ has not been uncovered at the time of writing this book, then I believe its discovery is inevitable.

The number of case-histories of ‘Australian Panther’ sightings is voluminous and far too extensive to be adequately covered in this chapter, although the reports to follow, selected from every Australian state, should give the reader plenty of food for thought on this mystery.

We begin our search in Tasmania, the island state mostly associated with the ‘extinct’ Thylacine; and yet this island has its own ‘panther’ traditions. Prior to the flooding of the Bass Strait land-bridge toward the close of the last great ice-age about 12,000 years ago, no natural barrier existed to prevent these animals from entering Tasmania, and it is evident that today, isolated from their mainland counterparts, a good many of these marsupial carnivores continue to survive there.

Great Western Tiers, south-west of Launceston 1928

Copyright © Rex Gilroy 2003

The author frequently receives such tales from widely-scattered and remote regions of Australia, and many of these reports often concern the loud, weird, screeching sounds made by these animals.

In 1928, in the Great Western Tiers, south-west of Launceston, a group of roadworkers were terrified in their camp one night, by the incessant howling and screaming sounds of two or three unseen creatures. The men were convinced the area was inhabited by “jungle cats”, and refused to stay there another night!

Outside Strathgordon, west of Lake Gordon 1940

Copyright © Rex Gilroy 2003

In 1940 outside Strathgordon, west of Lake Gordon in the wild bush country of south-western Tasmania, a farmer and his wife spotted a “seven-foot-length, giant, panther-like animal” [2.13m], as it dashed across their back paddock, and leapt effortlessly over a six foot [1.83m] fence before disappearing into trees.

Ben Lomond National Park 1961

Copyright © Rex Gilroy 2003

Craig Black, a young fossicker, was digging in a creek in Ben Lomond National Park one day in 1961, when he realised he was being watched by a large black ‘panther’ from among bushes, further up the creek on the opposite bank. The animal emerged, then dashed across the shallow creek. It was apparently a female.

Snowy Range West of Hobart January 1972.

Copyright © Rex Gilroy 2003

Tom Forester, a camper, was with two mates exploring the Snowy Range west of Hobart one weekend in January 1972. On this particular Sunday morning they all spotted a large, black-furred cat-like animal observing them from the edge of dense scrub nearby their camp. They had no sooner got to their feet than the creature turned to vanish quickly into the trees. The men later found large paw prints embedded in soil near their camp, suggesting the animal had been there the previous night.

Later that afternoon Tom went to get water from a creek. As he crouched on the creeks’ edge beneath a tall boulder, he saw a dark shadow reflected in the water. Before he could turn to look up, he was thrown aside as the dark shape leapt upon him with a screech, and then bounded across the creek into bushland. A shocked, badly scratched Tom staggered back to camp. Soon afterward his startled friends went in search of the mystery animal, but it had left the area.

In April 1989 a group of a dozen people saw a black-furred panther-like animal, about two metres in length from head to tail, and standing up to 0.6 of a metre on all fours, as it moved along the shore of Lake Gordon in the Mt Wright area, north of the Snowy Range.

• NSW Agriculture Report on information available on the reported large black cat in the Blue Mountains. Prepared by: Bill Atkinson, Agricultural Protection Officer * Click Here *