Firstly, big cats in Victoria. One of my best mates lived on about 20 acres in the foothills of the Dandenong Ranges. I still see him most weeks. He has told me about the time he discovered some very clear tracks in mud by a creek that ran through the bottom of his property. He contacted a well known former VFL footballer who was a five time Premiership player and is active in researching big cats in this part of the Dandenongs. He came out and took photos and plaster casts and confirmed to my friend the prints were definitely from a big cat. They were published in the local newspaper along with a story about his next door neighbour who had lost as many as thirty goats to an unknown predator. All the slaughtered prize breeding goats had their throats ripped out. Needless to say, my friend became very cautious when walking on his property after dark.
Next, another friend who is recognized as one of the state’s top men in his field of medicine has told me about clearly sighting a big cat in Gippsland. This was about the time when a news item described a local farmer shooting the rear vision mirror off his truck after panicking when he came across a panther like big cat in his paddock at night.
Another chap who was a neighbour and also a professional hunter once told me he had seen one on a trail in the Gippsland bush.
As for the Tassie Tiger, back in the 80’s, I spend some time in the apple isle working on a forestry video. I got to know some of forest workers well enough to ask if they had come across any evidence of the Thylacine. Although none of the group had seen one personally, one chap told me a co-worker he knew well had a good sighting of one and because of that, he was convinced a small population still existed in the Tasmanian wilderness.
As for me, I'm still looking. That's what a Searcher does....
