By Meryl Brown Tobin
ONE day in late February a big wild cat challenged a man riding an electric bike.
The man, who is retired, was cycling along a track a kilometre or so inland from a small village along the South Gippsland coast between 4 and 4.30 pm.
About two weeks earlier he had seen a dead wombat across the trail. Dead for some time, it was belly up and bloated.
On the morning of the day of his interaction with the big cat, the man had ridden past the dead wombat again. He said there were fresh drag marks to where it had been dragged over to the opposite side of the track. It was flipped over on its belly and appeared to be eaten out to about 30 percent of its total body mass.
In the afternoon, for the third time, he was approaching the site, which was along a straight, level and clear section of the track.
He said, “About 600-700 metres ahead I could see this black figure silhouetted in the centre of the track. At first I thought it was a person and I kept riding at 22 kilometres an hour. At about 120 metres from it, I thought it was a fox.
“When I was within 40 metres of it, it leapt to the side and went into crouch position. I could see it was a big wild cat and I thought it was going to have a crack at me. If I stopped, I thought there was a 50 per cent chance of it attacking me. I had a split second to decide what to do.
“Ringing my bell and screaming at it, I kept riding and charged at it at 25 kilometres an hour. At about 20 metres, it totally lost it and jumped back, whipping around in a 360 degree turn on its front legs and disappearing into bush. I’ve never seen a creature move so fast ––breathtaking.
“I’d called its bluff and it had panicked. When it panicked and exited the trail, with its tail outstretched, it looked about 1.8 metres long.
“When the cat was crouched, I will always remember its big emerald green eyes, muscly thick front and outstretched front legs. It was a big glossy black cat the size of a labrador and very muscular and it had thick rounded ears. I’ve seen feral cats before, but they have pointy ears and tapered legs.”
The man rode back to where the big cat had been crouching to see why it had been so keen to stay in that area. There was the wombat. “Its guts were eaten out,” he said. “I concluded that the cat was protecting its food source.”
If the big cat hadn’t retreated, if it had jumped up and pulled the man off his bike or if he had fallen off his bike, this story could have had a different ending.
However, according to Are Panthers Dangerous? Do Panthers Attack Humans? (wildexplained.com), there have been no records of man-eating panthers (melanistic leopards) though a panther might attack if provoked or if their cubs or territory is threatened.
This article also advises how to behave should you meet a panther in the wild.
Don’t turn your back on it or try to outrun it; make yourself look bigger than it to try to scare it; make a noise to try to chase it away; look into its eyes and do not show fear.
The man on the electric bike instinctively did all these things and won out because he called the animal’s bluff.
The witness said most feral cats would be under 7 kg and 12-14 kg would be a big one.
He has a small collie cross that weighs 20kg and he once had a rottweiler that weighed 48 kg and estimated the weight of the big cat he saw at 25-30 kg.
At first because of fear of ridicule, the witness did not share his story widely.
However, because he believes it is in the public interest and general safety, he has now done so. “I believe they [big cats] are still reasonably rare to detect,” he said.
“Being ambush predators, they don’t see humans as natural prey. My experience is the result of one protecting its food source. In the name of safety people should be aware of the cat problem in the bush and keep children close to adults.”
Meryl Brown Tobin, the writer of this article and a long time member of the Australian Rare Fauna Research Association (ARFRA), invites anyone wishing to report a sighting to email h-mtobin@bigpond.com or ring (03) 5997 6328.
