Post by ianmoone on Jul 26, 2012 19:10:27 GMT 10
OK I have alluded to the fact that myself and other CALM Officers have reported officially in writing to the CALM department that we have seen panther like animals in the forest with our own eyes.
Also it is not just myself and another Nannup CALM employee making such reports. Reports were coming in at the same time from Manjimup District CALM Officers of similar reports.
Myself over the 8 years I was the local Wildlife Officer for Nannup logged a few more than the 64 reports for Thylacines.
I recall one reported sighting well - a Canadian Tourist - had been driving a rented 4wd along Jacks Track on the Scott River plain east of Augusta, between the De Entrecasteaux Nat park Boundary and private property cleared for cattle grazing when he reportedly saw a large black Panther cross the track in front of him.
Being familiar with Cougar from his home country Canada - he was insistent that he knew damn well what he had seen. I found it hard not to believe him. That particular report stuck in my memory, he was eminently believable - the reason he stopped to report it at my CALM Office was that he didn't believe we had such large wild cats in this country and I was able to confirm for him, that supposedly we didn't.
In later years, I was out early one morning in winter - a clear day and a 6 am start so still almost dark.
I remember that it was number 2 logging road in a Bunnings coup at the top of the Bridgetown hill out of Nannup on the way to Bridgetown...on the northern side of the main road.
There were 4 of us (Foresters from the Nannup Office), and one of us was behind on his tree marking for the Bunnings logging crews.
If the habitat trees and seed trees weren't marked and the Bunnings logging crew ran out of trees in the adjacent coup - they would move in and just fall everything - so 3 of us volunteered to start early and give him a and to catch up with his tree marking ahead of the logging crews.
I had marked a few acres - as had the other 3, and it was maybe 7 or 7.30 by now clear sky day, and the 4 of us met back on the gravel logging road.
One of us walked back to the 4wd (Mike), who as it happened had his dog Cecil with him... Cess jumped up in the back of the 4wd dual cab ute, Mike hopped in and started it up - and was going to move it UP the road a bit further so when we marked the next few acres we would come back out onto the road and the ute would still be near us to get in it and go back to the office.
Just as he got to the ute, and as the dog hopped in the back - I was standing with the 2 other officers passing the time of day talking while we waited for Mike to shift the ute.
I was the only one actually watching Mike and the dog and the ute. The other 2 were facing the wrong way to see hat happened next.
I heard a chainsaw start up over the hill from us in the adjacent logging coup - the Bunnings crew had obviously just arrived for work for the day and the first faller had just started up his big Stihl chainsaw for the first tree of the day.
As I heard the noise I looked up the hill behind us that had recently been logged so you could see pretty much all the way to the ridge...and I clearly saw a BIG black panther like animal running fast down the hill over all the recently logged branches / crowns and stumps...
It honestly flowed like water over a rock as it ran.....it was so smooth and graceful over what was incredibly difficult terrain...
It ran down the slope and across the gravel logging road about 6 feet in front of the 4wd that Mike had just hopped into and was starting it up.
He saw it right in front of him - closer than me - BUT he didn't see it come all the way down from the top of the hill, - just momentarily as it ran across the road in a brief flash, whereas i saw it for maybe 100 yards or more including the road crossing.
The 2 Foresters standing with me, didn't see it at all.
Here's the weird thing, Cecil the dog LOVES to chase cats (the family pussy cat variety), but although he was in the back of the ute and had his paws up on the cab and seemed to me at least to be looking thru the rear and front windscreen of the 4wd ute gave absolutely no indication of having seen it at all.
Mike moved the ute up past us ready to mark the next trees and then walked back to the 3 of us waiting. I could see the look on his face.
I said to him - "did you just see what I just saw?" And he replied - "well yeah, bloody oath I did - if you just saw what I just saw- what did you see?"
Then the other 2 are looking at us both and asking - well what did you see?
Neither of us wanted to be the FIRST one to say - we had seen a big black panther...because the other 2 hadn't seen it, and it was de - rigour to take the Michael out of each other at work to keep up moral.... we didn't want to willingly become the next laughing stock at work for the next few weeks up the back at the stubby club.
So the two of us agreed after much, "you tell them", "no you tell them first" back n fro we agreed to blurt it out together.
"We had each seen a big black panther"...
The eyes on the other two went like saucers (then the obvious piss taking started).
At my suggestion - we took Cecil the dog along the track toward the ute to where I reckoned the big cat crossed the gravel road.
Sure enough - in the wet clay of the road - was a big cat paw print.
We tried for all we were worth to get Cecil the dog interested in this fresh new big paw print of the big cat he obviously hadn't seen... and despite our efforts he showed absolutely not the slightest bit of interest.
I knew from my reading of US hunters who shot cougar that they have small lung capacity when chased by a pack of dogs will typically go straight up the nearest tree.
I also knew we had a departmental shotgun back at the office in the gun safe and I had the keys since i was in charge of the departmental firearms.
I was hoping beyond all hope, that where the big cat crossed the road was a big swamp and that if only we could get Cecil to tree the big cat, where he had a half a chance in relatively open ground if you don't count all the swamp grass... that if he could tree the cat and a couple of us stated with the dog and kept it up a tree - one of us could drive for the office and get the shotgun and maybe we could shoot it outta the tree to take back as proof of what we had seen.... (and then NOT be the laughing stock of our work colleagues at the stubby club for the next few weeks - so you can see the incentive was pretty high).
For reasons I will never understand, Cecil the dog - (maybe he was a LOT smarter than we ever gave him credit for) just would NOT show ANY interest at ALL in the fresh track on the road or in entering the swamp to chase this big cat that he hadn't seen with his own eyes.
There went that plan... No Cecile to tree the cat, I sure wasn't running off into the swamp to try and do it on my own...(and neither was any of the other 3 I might add).
So back to tree marking we went... and a few hours later with it all done it was back to the office and a change into dry warm clothes...and fill in the official sighting reports - both of us corroborating each others story, suddenly the powers that be had no way to be able to dismiss it.
When word got to Manjimup CALM - and head office was taking it seriously - their officers then started coming forward with similar reports also.
So,
I got the "task"of doing the research for the departmental file about how big carts come to be in our southwest forests.
There were a LOT of reports in the press around the time and earlier of the Cordering cougar - Cordering being a wheat belt town east of Bunbury that is in a Woodland area (as opposed to our forest area - I'll explain the difference in a minute).
A book was written called the "Cordering Cougar" about the subject by a WA newspapers journo who interviewed local farmers who had seen these yellowish cougars and who was involved in night safaris trying to shoot one using early nigh vision telescopic sights.
It was very popular locally and sold a lot of copies but as far as I know wasn't reprinted so they are somewhat hard to come bye these days having been paperbacks and long since out of print.
I managed to borrow a copy and read it in detail...research for the dept file.
In it was described a circus accident on the Balingup Donnybrook road back in about 1959 or 60, where about 3 or more large cats escaped after a wagon overturned and the cage was damaged and some large tamed performing panther cats escaped and were not recaptured.
The story went that the circus used their performing elephants or something to re right the wagon and the press reports of the time suggested the cage was repaired in Donnybrook at a local steelworks / foundry business.
There have been subsequent press reports of quite a few cougar sightings by farmers in that specific region between Balingup and Donnybrook (closer to Donnybrook than Balingup) mostly.
One day in Nannup, I had 2 wildflower pickers come into the Nannup office and they reported a sighting of a yellowish cougar - that they both had seen, it left a clear footprint in the sandy bed of a dry creek! That was between Nannup and Busselton.
All of these reports have something in common.... they are all of yellowish cougar like animals...
There are of course other reports of Black panthers, my own and Mikes, for example - the ones from CALM Manjimup - the one in the news papers described as the Parryville Panther down near Denmark on the south coast.
These were all Black panthers... not yellow Cougars.
The Book Cordering cougar suggested another separate release of cougar cubs by US servicemen during WW2 who brought Cougar cubs with them on US naval ships docked at Bunbury - who had let them go because they had grown to large and dangerous to keep on board the vessel during their time at sea.
Either way there's no question that 2 different types of sighting are occurring - both for cougars and also for black panthers and that each seems to emanate form different land types.
There's no question the cougar reports come from open woodland plains, while the Black Panther reports all come from heavily forested land.
Whats the difference?.
Well, there are different levels of "forest"...
A rainforest is usually tropical - but the definition is that more than 90% of the suns light is intercepted by the tree canopy before it reaches the forest floor.
While most rainforests are tropical there are exceptions and WA's Karri forests are one such exception - they are a temperate rainforest in that its a 3 tiered forest (upper middle & lower stories of tree canopy) BUT they still exclude more than 90% of the suns light from hitting the forest floor and as such classify as bone fide temperate rainforests.
Next there are whats called wet sclerophil forests where more than 70% of the suns light is intercepted by tree canopy before it hits the forest floor. WA's darling escarpment Jarrah Marri forests classify as wet sclerophil forest and typically are 2 tiered upper and Lower (no mid) canopy and exclude more than 70% of the suns light before it hits the forest floor.
Lastly you then have open forest woodlands where they are typically one tiered and exclude less than 70% from hitting the forest/woodland floor.
WA's wheat belt (including Cordering) and areas just back inland from the coast, where white gum (Wandoo species), and Jarrah intermix - are the areas typically around Bunbury, Busselton and Donnybrook... are where we have open woodland.
Lastly you have coastal heath right down to the beaches made up of low level Wattle scrub, as well as natural grassland plains ( we only have 2 of such in WA - The Scott Coastal Plain east of Augusta and the Mitchell river plateau on the Kimberly's).
The thing with the whole Cougar / Panther episodes in WA - is that in their home countries each type of cat is evolved to be advantaged as a predator by its coloring in certain environment types.
The black cats are advantaged in forested environment where the lack of light, favors them as hunters when they are black melanin toned.
Similarly the Cougars are advantaged when they hunt in grassland plains and open woodlands - where their coloration advantages them n the much higher light environments.
And most of the sightings in WA follow this exact pattern
The Busselton area cougar sighting in open woodland and grassland plains - same for the Donnybrook cougar sightings, yet the Nannup and Manjimup and Parryville Panther sightings, are all in true forest which favors the darker animals.
OK.... with that explanation out of the way!
We need to understand speciation in general and in the big cats in particular in relation to the various introductions/escapes.
As I already explained the various accidents were from circus basically of big cats.
So what big cars are there that aren't the lions and tigers we are used to being called big cats and that circuses used to employ as acts to entertain people?
As best I know, there are cougars from USA Canada Alaska.
Also there are south American Jaguars (albeit spotted there is a black melanin variety who's white spots are dark grey and almost invisible except in the right light)
And lastly of course the Black Panther from the Sub Continent.
Africa of course has the leopard - but its spotted and I am not aware of any melanin (all black) forms.
Back in the 1950'60's when this circus accident occurred - these cats were basically all just called "panthers"or sometimes "cougars" no matter what actual species they were or what country they originated from!.
Largely, except for the small scientific research community - the general public was happy to think of them all as either Panther or Cougar....and not much has changed to this day.
Most people probably couldn't tell the difference between a spotted African leopard and a spotted south American Jaguar much less between a black melanin form of South American Jaguar and a Black sub continent panther.
Most people including the press in Australia just weren't that interested!
Now....
Species are declared to be the same when they can meet in the wild, mate and produce fertile offspring.
Lions and Tigers can hybridize and produce a "liger", but 2 Ligers cannot breed to produce more ligers...because that hybrid is sterile.
Lions come from Africa and Tigers from Indian sub continent and they are classed as separate species because they don't satisfy 2 of the same species criteria - because they are from 2 different continents they cannot meet in the wild - nor can they when bred produce fertile offspring.
There are many other examples of hybridization - Horses & Donkeys to make mules etc.
However - there are ALSO some interesting ones that aren't so easy to classify.
Canadian Elk,
Scottish Red Deer
These two are separate species, because die to one being on the North American continent and the other on the Island that is England / Scotland, they cannot physically "meet in the wild" in order to produce offspring.
However - back more than 100 years ago BOTH species were introduced into New Zealand and released into the mountains.
In this introduced environment they can and do interbreed (progeny are commonly game farmed and called "Relks") and here's the interesting bit - the offspring are fertile!.
Yes 2 different species, from 2 different continents, can produce fertile offspring WHEN they are able to meet in an artificially introduced situation sch as wen both released into a new country / continent!
This is the "unanswered question" when it comes to the Panther / Cougar situation in Lower South Western Australia!
What actual species were REALLY involved in either or the two known releases - cougars from North America via the US sailors berthed in Bunbury during WW2,
Cougar
and Either / or / And,
Panthers
or
Black melanin Jaguars
in the Donnybrook Balingup circus accident of 1959/60?
With the two possible species of black cats in the Balingup / Donnybrook circus accident of 1959/60, does anyone know for 100% certain whether these 2 different species from 2 different continents - might be like the example above
And lastly there's yet one more possibility - melanism in US Cougars - there are anecdotal reports of such occurrence.
Of three cougars she has seen in the general vicinity of Thomasville, Georgia, one, seen in daylight, was a rather dark brown.
South Brewster County, Texas, is a haven for cougars, mostly due to Big Bend National Park and the Big Bend Ranch State Park. Bacon grease on a rag that's wired to my pasture fence will regularly result in big-kitty tracks at the bait. (Bulk catnip helps, also.)
I have seen rather-light-tan cougars, and I and a friend baited a big male in which was very similar in coloring to a Seal-point Siamese cat.
A couple of locals who are quite credible about wildlife have seen heavy-melanin cougars at their garbage bit near their house. Seen at night by flashlight led to, "I saw a black panther!" Other credible locals have also on occasion seen heavy-melanin cougars. Not many, of course. Maybe a half-dozen sightings in the twenty-seven years of my living here. It's not "bar talk", but comments from folks who have lived here in the desert for many years and regularly see wildlife.
So this is ONE of the difficulty's we as CALM faced - in terms of going public with info about cougar / panthers in the forests & woodlands of the southwest.
We quite simply without capturing several different animals - and conducting extensive DNA analysis - really speaking still don't know exactly what species or hybrids possibly fertile hybrids species we are dealing with - in order to be accurate in our public reports!.
Now about how one goes about proving any of this.
As with Thylacines... first catch one.
Range
My study of these different species suggests that my own Nannup District CALM area which was about 50 miles x 50 miles roughly (or 2,500 square miles) which by anyone's estimate is a heck if a lot of ground is enough habitat to sustain about 4 breeding females and One breeding adult male large cat.
So over perhaps the whole Cordering Donnybrook Balingup Nannup and Manjimup to Parryville in the south, we might be lucky if there are a total of say 20 or 25 at most animals...
How does one go about capturing a specimen dead or alive?.
The answer in the USA - is that they are hunted from horseback - in winter in deep snows using packs of scent bloodhounds.
The idea is that the horses can still walk in deep snow - the big cats can't and because of their relatively small lung capacity - while they can outrun dogs packs in short runs, scenting hounds have the stamina to keep t up under such hard conditions such that the big cats quickly tire and climb a tree - where they are then shot from on horseback.
Its simple and effective enough.
IN Southwest Australia however we don't have trained scenting bloodhounds that will stick to hunting big cats... and we also don't have snow and a LOT of the country that the big cats are seen in is heavy forest that at time sit would not be possible to ride a horse thru.
We also don't have an off the shelf light weight mesh trap suitable to the task the likes of which (Sheffield wire traps) we already use for our fauna trapping programs. These would have to be purpose designed and built for the task at some considerable expense.
Next - its not easy to trap big cats...
In all the fauna survey work I did as a wildlife officer I did manage to trap a few feral cats but nothing like the number I should have given the estimated 20 million feral cats out there in the wild in Australia.
in effect cars are such good hunters (you've no doubt seen the common house cat play with it's prey) that they would prefer to kill something fresh than eat carrion (dead meat already killed by some other animal).
As a result they are VERY wary of entering a trap to get at a bait that might be used to attract them.
Trapping for cats just isn't very effective over such a large area!
Who exactly is going to pay this bill? CALM? Why - couldn't that money be better used to save numbats or rescue stranded whales?
If these big cats cause stock loss damage to agricultural animals, then strictly speaking its the Ag Protection Boards responsibility to pay to eradicate them.
As for eradication.....
Are these animals on the threatened or endangered species list in their home country?
Should we be poisoning or shooting them - when perhaps their world status wold dictate we should trap and export them back to their country of origin for captive breeding programs and can we do that if we don't know for sure exactly what species we have and what country it is from?.
The whole issue is fraught with unanswered questions.
Until we know what we have how the heck can we decide what to do about them....and in order to know the answers who has the budget to pay for the answers to be found and what method do we use to get those answers.
What would the headlines against CALM have been if I had indeed been lucky enough to tree that black cat with Cecil the dog and managed to get back to the office for the department shotgun...
"CALM Kills threatened/endangered/extinct Panther species"
Can you get some idea why CALM just files the info away and says "one day when we have the time and money we might solve thus mystery, or if we are REALLY lucky, some country granny on her way to Sat morning bowls in her Austin Healey will run one over and put it in the boot and drop it off to us for DNA analysis!
To the best of my knowledge this is where the Panther/Cougar story resides at the moment.
There have been credible news story film footage of large black panther like cats in the Eastern States in recent years.
I don't think Cougar / Panther thing is a specifically south west Australian thing, I think it is far lager than that!
Lastly I guess what impact has the introduction of these big cats had n the demise of the mainland Thylacine alongside the dingo and fox - if any?
Its a big can of worms once you open it - isn't it?
Cheers!
Also it is not just myself and another Nannup CALM employee making such reports. Reports were coming in at the same time from Manjimup District CALM Officers of similar reports.
Myself over the 8 years I was the local Wildlife Officer for Nannup logged a few more than the 64 reports for Thylacines.
I recall one reported sighting well - a Canadian Tourist - had been driving a rented 4wd along Jacks Track on the Scott River plain east of Augusta, between the De Entrecasteaux Nat park Boundary and private property cleared for cattle grazing when he reportedly saw a large black Panther cross the track in front of him.
Being familiar with Cougar from his home country Canada - he was insistent that he knew damn well what he had seen. I found it hard not to believe him. That particular report stuck in my memory, he was eminently believable - the reason he stopped to report it at my CALM Office was that he didn't believe we had such large wild cats in this country and I was able to confirm for him, that supposedly we didn't.
In later years, I was out early one morning in winter - a clear day and a 6 am start so still almost dark.
I remember that it was number 2 logging road in a Bunnings coup at the top of the Bridgetown hill out of Nannup on the way to Bridgetown...on the northern side of the main road.
There were 4 of us (Foresters from the Nannup Office), and one of us was behind on his tree marking for the Bunnings logging crews.
If the habitat trees and seed trees weren't marked and the Bunnings logging crew ran out of trees in the adjacent coup - they would move in and just fall everything - so 3 of us volunteered to start early and give him a and to catch up with his tree marking ahead of the logging crews.
I had marked a few acres - as had the other 3, and it was maybe 7 or 7.30 by now clear sky day, and the 4 of us met back on the gravel logging road.
One of us walked back to the 4wd (Mike), who as it happened had his dog Cecil with him... Cess jumped up in the back of the 4wd dual cab ute, Mike hopped in and started it up - and was going to move it UP the road a bit further so when we marked the next few acres we would come back out onto the road and the ute would still be near us to get in it and go back to the office.
Just as he got to the ute, and as the dog hopped in the back - I was standing with the 2 other officers passing the time of day talking while we waited for Mike to shift the ute.
I was the only one actually watching Mike and the dog and the ute. The other 2 were facing the wrong way to see hat happened next.
I heard a chainsaw start up over the hill from us in the adjacent logging coup - the Bunnings crew had obviously just arrived for work for the day and the first faller had just started up his big Stihl chainsaw for the first tree of the day.
As I heard the noise I looked up the hill behind us that had recently been logged so you could see pretty much all the way to the ridge...and I clearly saw a BIG black panther like animal running fast down the hill over all the recently logged branches / crowns and stumps...
It honestly flowed like water over a rock as it ran.....it was so smooth and graceful over what was incredibly difficult terrain...
It ran down the slope and across the gravel logging road about 6 feet in front of the 4wd that Mike had just hopped into and was starting it up.
He saw it right in front of him - closer than me - BUT he didn't see it come all the way down from the top of the hill, - just momentarily as it ran across the road in a brief flash, whereas i saw it for maybe 100 yards or more including the road crossing.
The 2 Foresters standing with me, didn't see it at all.
Here's the weird thing, Cecil the dog LOVES to chase cats (the family pussy cat variety), but although he was in the back of the ute and had his paws up on the cab and seemed to me at least to be looking thru the rear and front windscreen of the 4wd ute gave absolutely no indication of having seen it at all.
Mike moved the ute up past us ready to mark the next trees and then walked back to the 3 of us waiting. I could see the look on his face.
I said to him - "did you just see what I just saw?" And he replied - "well yeah, bloody oath I did - if you just saw what I just saw- what did you see?"
Then the other 2 are looking at us both and asking - well what did you see?
Neither of us wanted to be the FIRST one to say - we had seen a big black panther...because the other 2 hadn't seen it, and it was de - rigour to take the Michael out of each other at work to keep up moral.... we didn't want to willingly become the next laughing stock at work for the next few weeks up the back at the stubby club.
So the two of us agreed after much, "you tell them", "no you tell them first" back n fro we agreed to blurt it out together.
"We had each seen a big black panther"...
The eyes on the other two went like saucers (then the obvious piss taking started).
At my suggestion - we took Cecil the dog along the track toward the ute to where I reckoned the big cat crossed the gravel road.
Sure enough - in the wet clay of the road - was a big cat paw print.
We tried for all we were worth to get Cecil the dog interested in this fresh new big paw print of the big cat he obviously hadn't seen... and despite our efforts he showed absolutely not the slightest bit of interest.
I knew from my reading of US hunters who shot cougar that they have small lung capacity when chased by a pack of dogs will typically go straight up the nearest tree.
I also knew we had a departmental shotgun back at the office in the gun safe and I had the keys since i was in charge of the departmental firearms.
I was hoping beyond all hope, that where the big cat crossed the road was a big swamp and that if only we could get Cecil to tree the big cat, where he had a half a chance in relatively open ground if you don't count all the swamp grass... that if he could tree the cat and a couple of us stated with the dog and kept it up a tree - one of us could drive for the office and get the shotgun and maybe we could shoot it outta the tree to take back as proof of what we had seen.... (and then NOT be the laughing stock of our work colleagues at the stubby club for the next few weeks - so you can see the incentive was pretty high).
For reasons I will never understand, Cecil the dog - (maybe he was a LOT smarter than we ever gave him credit for) just would NOT show ANY interest at ALL in the fresh track on the road or in entering the swamp to chase this big cat that he hadn't seen with his own eyes.
There went that plan... No Cecile to tree the cat, I sure wasn't running off into the swamp to try and do it on my own...(and neither was any of the other 3 I might add).
So back to tree marking we went... and a few hours later with it all done it was back to the office and a change into dry warm clothes...and fill in the official sighting reports - both of us corroborating each others story, suddenly the powers that be had no way to be able to dismiss it.
When word got to Manjimup CALM - and head office was taking it seriously - their officers then started coming forward with similar reports also.
So,
I got the "task"of doing the research for the departmental file about how big carts come to be in our southwest forests.
There were a LOT of reports in the press around the time and earlier of the Cordering cougar - Cordering being a wheat belt town east of Bunbury that is in a Woodland area (as opposed to our forest area - I'll explain the difference in a minute).
A book was written called the "Cordering Cougar" about the subject by a WA newspapers journo who interviewed local farmers who had seen these yellowish cougars and who was involved in night safaris trying to shoot one using early nigh vision telescopic sights.
It was very popular locally and sold a lot of copies but as far as I know wasn't reprinted so they are somewhat hard to come bye these days having been paperbacks and long since out of print.
I managed to borrow a copy and read it in detail...research for the dept file.
In it was described a circus accident on the Balingup Donnybrook road back in about 1959 or 60, where about 3 or more large cats escaped after a wagon overturned and the cage was damaged and some large tamed performing panther cats escaped and were not recaptured.
The story went that the circus used their performing elephants or something to re right the wagon and the press reports of the time suggested the cage was repaired in Donnybrook at a local steelworks / foundry business.
There have been subsequent press reports of quite a few cougar sightings by farmers in that specific region between Balingup and Donnybrook (closer to Donnybrook than Balingup) mostly.
One day in Nannup, I had 2 wildflower pickers come into the Nannup office and they reported a sighting of a yellowish cougar - that they both had seen, it left a clear footprint in the sandy bed of a dry creek! That was between Nannup and Busselton.
All of these reports have something in common.... they are all of yellowish cougar like animals...
There are of course other reports of Black panthers, my own and Mikes, for example - the ones from CALM Manjimup - the one in the news papers described as the Parryville Panther down near Denmark on the south coast.
These were all Black panthers... not yellow Cougars.
The Book Cordering cougar suggested another separate release of cougar cubs by US servicemen during WW2 who brought Cougar cubs with them on US naval ships docked at Bunbury - who had let them go because they had grown to large and dangerous to keep on board the vessel during their time at sea.
Either way there's no question that 2 different types of sighting are occurring - both for cougars and also for black panthers and that each seems to emanate form different land types.
There's no question the cougar reports come from open woodland plains, while the Black Panther reports all come from heavily forested land.
Whats the difference?.
Well, there are different levels of "forest"...
A rainforest is usually tropical - but the definition is that more than 90% of the suns light is intercepted by the tree canopy before it reaches the forest floor.
While most rainforests are tropical there are exceptions and WA's Karri forests are one such exception - they are a temperate rainforest in that its a 3 tiered forest (upper middle & lower stories of tree canopy) BUT they still exclude more than 90% of the suns light from hitting the forest floor and as such classify as bone fide temperate rainforests.
Next there are whats called wet sclerophil forests where more than 70% of the suns light is intercepted by tree canopy before it hits the forest floor. WA's darling escarpment Jarrah Marri forests classify as wet sclerophil forest and typically are 2 tiered upper and Lower (no mid) canopy and exclude more than 70% of the suns light before it hits the forest floor.
Lastly you then have open forest woodlands where they are typically one tiered and exclude less than 70% from hitting the forest/woodland floor.
WA's wheat belt (including Cordering) and areas just back inland from the coast, where white gum (Wandoo species), and Jarrah intermix - are the areas typically around Bunbury, Busselton and Donnybrook... are where we have open woodland.
Lastly you have coastal heath right down to the beaches made up of low level Wattle scrub, as well as natural grassland plains ( we only have 2 of such in WA - The Scott Coastal Plain east of Augusta and the Mitchell river plateau on the Kimberly's).
The thing with the whole Cougar / Panther episodes in WA - is that in their home countries each type of cat is evolved to be advantaged as a predator by its coloring in certain environment types.
The black cats are advantaged in forested environment where the lack of light, favors them as hunters when they are black melanin toned.
Similarly the Cougars are advantaged when they hunt in grassland plains and open woodlands - where their coloration advantages them n the much higher light environments.
And most of the sightings in WA follow this exact pattern
The Busselton area cougar sighting in open woodland and grassland plains - same for the Donnybrook cougar sightings, yet the Nannup and Manjimup and Parryville Panther sightings, are all in true forest which favors the darker animals.
OK.... with that explanation out of the way!
We need to understand speciation in general and in the big cats in particular in relation to the various introductions/escapes.
As I already explained the various accidents were from circus basically of big cats.
So what big cars are there that aren't the lions and tigers we are used to being called big cats and that circuses used to employ as acts to entertain people?
As best I know, there are cougars from USA Canada Alaska.
Also there are south American Jaguars (albeit spotted there is a black melanin variety who's white spots are dark grey and almost invisible except in the right light)
And lastly of course the Black Panther from the Sub Continent.
Africa of course has the leopard - but its spotted and I am not aware of any melanin (all black) forms.
Back in the 1950'60's when this circus accident occurred - these cats were basically all just called "panthers"or sometimes "cougars" no matter what actual species they were or what country they originated from!.
Largely, except for the small scientific research community - the general public was happy to think of them all as either Panther or Cougar....and not much has changed to this day.
Most people probably couldn't tell the difference between a spotted African leopard and a spotted south American Jaguar much less between a black melanin form of South American Jaguar and a Black sub continent panther.
Most people including the press in Australia just weren't that interested!
Now....
Species are declared to be the same when they can meet in the wild, mate and produce fertile offspring.
Lions and Tigers can hybridize and produce a "liger", but 2 Ligers cannot breed to produce more ligers...because that hybrid is sterile.
Lions come from Africa and Tigers from Indian sub continent and they are classed as separate species because they don't satisfy 2 of the same species criteria - because they are from 2 different continents they cannot meet in the wild - nor can they when bred produce fertile offspring.
There are many other examples of hybridization - Horses & Donkeys to make mules etc.
However - there are ALSO some interesting ones that aren't so easy to classify.
Canadian Elk,
Scottish Red Deer
These two are separate species, because die to one being on the North American continent and the other on the Island that is England / Scotland, they cannot physically "meet in the wild" in order to produce offspring.
However - back more than 100 years ago BOTH species were introduced into New Zealand and released into the mountains.
In this introduced environment they can and do interbreed (progeny are commonly game farmed and called "Relks") and here's the interesting bit - the offspring are fertile!.
Yes 2 different species, from 2 different continents, can produce fertile offspring WHEN they are able to meet in an artificially introduced situation sch as wen both released into a new country / continent!
This is the "unanswered question" when it comes to the Panther / Cougar situation in Lower South Western Australia!
What actual species were REALLY involved in either or the two known releases - cougars from North America via the US sailors berthed in Bunbury during WW2,
Cougar
and Either / or / And,
Panthers
or
Black melanin Jaguars
in the Donnybrook Balingup circus accident of 1959/60?
With the two possible species of black cats in the Balingup / Donnybrook circus accident of 1959/60, does anyone know for 100% certain whether these 2 different species from 2 different continents - might be like the example above
And lastly there's yet one more possibility - melanism in US Cougars - there are anecdotal reports of such occurrence.
Of three cougars she has seen in the general vicinity of Thomasville, Georgia, one, seen in daylight, was a rather dark brown.
South Brewster County, Texas, is a haven for cougars, mostly due to Big Bend National Park and the Big Bend Ranch State Park. Bacon grease on a rag that's wired to my pasture fence will regularly result in big-kitty tracks at the bait. (Bulk catnip helps, also.)
I have seen rather-light-tan cougars, and I and a friend baited a big male in which was very similar in coloring to a Seal-point Siamese cat.
A couple of locals who are quite credible about wildlife have seen heavy-melanin cougars at their garbage bit near their house. Seen at night by flashlight led to, "I saw a black panther!" Other credible locals have also on occasion seen heavy-melanin cougars. Not many, of course. Maybe a half-dozen sightings in the twenty-seven years of my living here. It's not "bar talk", but comments from folks who have lived here in the desert for many years and regularly see wildlife.
So this is ONE of the difficulty's we as CALM faced - in terms of going public with info about cougar / panthers in the forests & woodlands of the southwest.
We quite simply without capturing several different animals - and conducting extensive DNA analysis - really speaking still don't know exactly what species or hybrids possibly fertile hybrids species we are dealing with - in order to be accurate in our public reports!.
Now about how one goes about proving any of this.
As with Thylacines... first catch one.
Range
My study of these different species suggests that my own Nannup District CALM area which was about 50 miles x 50 miles roughly (or 2,500 square miles) which by anyone's estimate is a heck if a lot of ground is enough habitat to sustain about 4 breeding females and One breeding adult male large cat.
So over perhaps the whole Cordering Donnybrook Balingup Nannup and Manjimup to Parryville in the south, we might be lucky if there are a total of say 20 or 25 at most animals...
How does one go about capturing a specimen dead or alive?.
The answer in the USA - is that they are hunted from horseback - in winter in deep snows using packs of scent bloodhounds.
The idea is that the horses can still walk in deep snow - the big cats can't and because of their relatively small lung capacity - while they can outrun dogs packs in short runs, scenting hounds have the stamina to keep t up under such hard conditions such that the big cats quickly tire and climb a tree - where they are then shot from on horseback.
Its simple and effective enough.
IN Southwest Australia however we don't have trained scenting bloodhounds that will stick to hunting big cats... and we also don't have snow and a LOT of the country that the big cats are seen in is heavy forest that at time sit would not be possible to ride a horse thru.
We also don't have an off the shelf light weight mesh trap suitable to the task the likes of which (Sheffield wire traps) we already use for our fauna trapping programs. These would have to be purpose designed and built for the task at some considerable expense.
Next - its not easy to trap big cats...
In all the fauna survey work I did as a wildlife officer I did manage to trap a few feral cats but nothing like the number I should have given the estimated 20 million feral cats out there in the wild in Australia.
in effect cars are such good hunters (you've no doubt seen the common house cat play with it's prey) that they would prefer to kill something fresh than eat carrion (dead meat already killed by some other animal).
As a result they are VERY wary of entering a trap to get at a bait that might be used to attract them.
Trapping for cats just isn't very effective over such a large area!
Who exactly is going to pay this bill? CALM? Why - couldn't that money be better used to save numbats or rescue stranded whales?
If these big cats cause stock loss damage to agricultural animals, then strictly speaking its the Ag Protection Boards responsibility to pay to eradicate them.
As for eradication.....
Are these animals on the threatened or endangered species list in their home country?
Should we be poisoning or shooting them - when perhaps their world status wold dictate we should trap and export them back to their country of origin for captive breeding programs and can we do that if we don't know for sure exactly what species we have and what country it is from?.
The whole issue is fraught with unanswered questions.
Until we know what we have how the heck can we decide what to do about them....and in order to know the answers who has the budget to pay for the answers to be found and what method do we use to get those answers.
What would the headlines against CALM have been if I had indeed been lucky enough to tree that black cat with Cecil the dog and managed to get back to the office for the department shotgun...
"CALM Kills threatened/endangered/extinct Panther species"
Can you get some idea why CALM just files the info away and says "one day when we have the time and money we might solve thus mystery, or if we are REALLY lucky, some country granny on her way to Sat morning bowls in her Austin Healey will run one over and put it in the boot and drop it off to us for DNA analysis!
To the best of my knowledge this is where the Panther/Cougar story resides at the moment.
There have been credible news story film footage of large black panther like cats in the Eastern States in recent years.
I don't think Cougar / Panther thing is a specifically south west Australian thing, I think it is far lager than that!
Lastly I guess what impact has the introduction of these big cats had n the demise of the mainland Thylacine alongside the dingo and fox - if any?
Its a big can of worms once you open it - isn't it?
Cheers!
