Official hunt for Australia's big cats has begun

Originally posted by WorkingClassMan

It's nice to have a zoo guy chime in but I think u missed my point & I'm not sure I agree.

Point was it is unusual for Aus to never have had a big cat & I can't remember the exact way it was put but something like we are the only sub Saharan continent not to.
You can almost swim to Indonesia from Australia & the common theory is there was a land bridge many moons ago, now indo has tigers, leopards & other jungle cats with all the marsupials here a cat would of thrived & had very few predators.

Why isn't a Tassie tiger a carnivore, I was taught it was the largest marsupial carnivore?

A marsupial can be carnivorous, but it does not make it a carnivore (a member of the taxon Carnivora, which has a different evolutionary background). It's not unusual for Australia to never have had a native big cat, because placental mammals other than bats were not present on the continent for much of it's history. It could have had an endemic marsupial that *looked* like a cat, but not an actual cat--carnivore, characterized by morphological features and phylogeny. We don't see that in the fossil record in Australia.

You're right, there could be a cat that is recently invasive which arrived and thrived with the lack of large predators. It's possible that a small population arose from an escaped exotic pet somewhere recently.

Australia possesses a unique assemblage of mammal species, of which over 80% are endemic.

This high level of endemism is a result of Australia's long period of isolation from other continents, since its separation from Gondwana about 40 million years ago. From that time until about 15 - 20 million years ago, when Australia moved closer to South-East Asia, Australian mammals were evolving independently from those in the rest of the world.

australianmuseum.net.au...

Here are some graphics to help you grasp this concepts behind why Australia doesn't have an endemic cat the same way that Africa, North America, South America, and all other continents other than Antarctica do. It's not a mystery.

Originally posted by BASSPLYR
One thing I can tell you about pumas, cougars and bobcats is that you rarely if ever see them. And, if you do you see them for no more than a second or so as it darts off to hide. I live in Los Angeles. We have a mountain range running right through the city. There are several mountain lions and bob cats in them. Right near peoples back yards if they live up in the hills. They are seen every once and a while, and their bodies are almost never found once they are dead. You will once in a blue moon find tracks but almost never any scat. There is very little evidence they are there. But every once and a while one wonders down into the city proper and gets shot or relocated reminding us that they are indeed up in them hills. If you were to tell someone who doesn't know any better they would not believe that lions live right beyond their backyard in the hills.

Pumas,Cougars Mountain Lions whatever you want to call them are solitary animals. they are almost never near another one. They have to stay spread out over a large geographical area with each cat having their own territories so as to not infringe on the the others food resources. SO there is only one of them around at any time, never in pairs unless they are mating. So spotting them is difficult and rare.

THe point being is that their could easily be wild large cats living in the outskirts of Victoria, and elsewhere in australia. Theres plenty for a population to eat. See no reason why they wouldn't do well. They are in general harmless and don't attack too often. SO they are no more dangerous than bears.

Reminds me of a BBC thing I saw not long ago about Leopards around the world. Towards the end of the show they played with the idea that it's feasible they could be in the UK in small numbers, simply because they're so rarely seen and well hidden in regions where they are established. Supposedly they're petrified of humans/monkeys from an evolutionary standpoint. Whether that's right or not I cannot confirm, I wish I could remember the program, the argument that they could stay hidden and not found, even when did, was convincing

Originally posted by BASSPLYR
I personally believe you have large cats, probably panthers or pumas in that area of Victoria.

If they at sometime in the past were brought there and released, it is not unthinkable that they may still remain

Cougars were declared extinct in Illinois USA with the last recorded siting being in 1862 and shot..Through the years there were sightings reported but none substantiated. In 2000 one was found dead hit by a train, in 2004 another was found dead both were wild thought to have just randomly strayed from their normal territories out west.

In April 2008 on the north side of Chicago in the daytime in a residential neighborhoods one was found wandering the streets.. Chicago police answered the calls cornered it and when it took on a defensive stance officers opened fire and the cougar was killed, there was a great deal of public outcry once people realized it's potential significance Sightings increased not just here but in surrounding states and although few wildlife officials have been fortunate enough to spot them the reports are from credible witnesses. They tend to avoid mingliig with us humans so sitings brief and elusive, thus a human attack would be rare Since the incidence in Chicago and the increased sighting here and throughout the neighboring states it has been determined that they have returned after over 150 years.

What's your take on the Tamnanian Tiger? I also believe that they are not completely extinct, endangered but not extinct. Seems to me that even though Tasmania is small there is still plenty of room for those Thylo's to go about their business unobserved. They've only been extinct for 100 years, thats not too long. Bet there are a few the hunters missed that keep a low profile way out in the bush trying to make a population comeback. At least I hope so.

I came across a video from a few years ago and posted it here from a program focused on Thylacine sitings in mainland Aus.I thought the interview and report from a monastery in Queensland intriguing why would monks lie?

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I would really love to find out there remained a sustainable population out of the harm humans can bring h maybe,a fleeting glimpse to know it's true and I would happily deny it for the rest `of my life to keep them safe.

You never know sometimes miracles do happen, the following article is the stuff of dreams wrapped in a glimmer of hope


Dr Orbells Unlikley Quest