http://www.mysteriousaustralia.com/bull ... ticle.html
A section from the article:
How would such an animal come to be living in the Australian wilderness?
Theories include escapes or releases of illegally held animals, descendants of pets kept by goldminers or the offspring of pumas kept as mascots by American airmen during the war years. The latter theory is considered the most plausible in the most exhaustive study yet conducted into the possibility that big cats roam parts of Australia.
Commenced in 1976, it was conducted by Deakin University lecturers and students in Victoria's Grampian Mountains - an area long rumoured to harbour big cats. The Deakin researchers acquired three eyewitness accounts of American airmen with pumas in 1942.
Two were in the Mount Gambier area of South Australia and one at Nhill, far-western Victoria, where the Americans had a wartime base. The Deakin researchers found two former Australian guards at the base who remembered a USAF bomber
landing at Nhill in 1942, probably from the Philippines. A puma cub on board was taken by road to the edge of the Grampians and set free.
The study was headed by Dr John Henry, an associate professor of education at Deakin University. In the mid 1970s, he was a lecturer in the science faculty and began the university's puma study. His final report, buried away in the university library, is fascinating reading.
Its revelations - all well documented and sourced - include:
l In the rugged Geranium Springs Valley in the Grampians, sheep carcasses were found on a narrow ledge, 300 metres above the valley floor.
Mutilated animal carcasses were also found on the valley floor.
Droppings recovered from the valley were identified by a leading US big cat expert as matching puma faeces.
Within a hidden rock shelter on Mount Bepcha in the Grampians, many animal remains - ranging from large cattle bones to those of freshwater tortoises - were found. Researchers also took casts of two large carnivore prints, later judged by US experts as matching those of a puma.
Henry has never resiled from the study's conclusion that it is beyond reasonable doubt that a big cat population lived in the Grampians.
