Photos of a big black cat strolling into the bush in southwest Victoria has reignited the long-held belief that the panthers roam the wild without anyone knowing. These pictures left some locals to believe that it is the legendary Otways panther.
Professional wildlife photographer Amber O'Meara Noseda took those photos while she was driving home on Friday afternoon after a trip to Mount Sabine, trying to take a snap of a pink robin.
She told news.com.au that it was about 4 pm, and it was getting dark and was not having much luck, so she decided to jump in her car and noticed that there was something strange in her rear view mirror.
"I thought it was a wallaby on the side of the road, about 50m away from where I was. Then I looked again and thought wallabies aren't black," Noseda said. She also thought that it was a small Labrador dog, so she decided to get her telephoto lens inside the car.
The animal was walking across the road and Noseda that it was the biggest black cat she had ever seen and certainly not the size of a normal, domesticated cat.
It is what you perceive it is
The legend of panthers living in Victoria is not new to Noseda, having lived her entire life in the area. According to her, the cat that she saw was about the size of a fox but with the thickness of a small Labrador dog.
Its physical features, such as the tail and the shape of the face does not indicate that it is a domestic cat. "I had no idea what I photographed. It was certainly bigger sitting on the side of the road (so it was) longer rather than tall," according to Noseda, who took the photo 30 meters away to capture the cat.
She posted the photos on a Facebook community newsgroup, which was shared almost 300 times, attracting 600 likes and more than 100 comments.
She clarified on her Facebook post that she is not trying to say that the animal on the photo is an Otway panther. But she heard locals talk about a cat that they had seen many years ago. Noseda said that the post "has gone crazy," with some people passing it off as a feral cat.
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Australian director Stu Ross once made a documentary about it earlier this year on the Discovery Channel. Ross told Geelong Advertiser that there are too many plausible origins of the stories.
They have been here for over 100 years as the documented report suggests, it doesn't matter how they got in the area. Otway's brewery even released a Black Panther craft beer inspired by the big black cats that roam the Victorian bush.
Some locals believe the existence of black panthers in their area, hence the infrared and motion-detecting night cameras on their property near the Blue Mountains in New South Wales. Grant Denyer claims that he had seen the panther at least twice on the bottom of his farm, and he has a video to prove it.