Ah, the good old urban legend. We’ve all heard them before, either around a campfire, at a sleepover, or even in the workplace.
These tales exist everywhere, rooted in the realm of mystery, accompanying us as we grow old. One enduring tale is the myth of black panthers roaming the land of Australia. The elusive big cat has puzzled Australians for centuries.
The heavy crunch of dry leaves underfoot. The snap of a stick. The sound of footsteps other than your own. Suddenly, you feel like you’re being watched, preyed upon, stalked from the shadows. Then, emerging from the muddy green darkness of Australia’s temperate rainforests – a large, black, low-slung feline animal.
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This is what people who claim to have seen a black panther experienced.
Where did this whole legend actually come from, though? We’re here to delve deep into the myth of the Australia black panthers, scrutinise the evidence, and do a little bit of speculating.
History
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According to an article from The Guardian, it all began in a small South Australian town called Tantanoola in the 1890s. Stories of the “Tantanoola Tiger” killing livestock and stalking farmers struck fear in the town, before the wild beast was finally caught and killed. Turns out, the culprit wasn’t a cat, but rather a Eurasian wolf, believed to be a boat-stowaway that survived a shipwreck.
Stories like these would then proliferate over the next 100 years and into the 21st century, the black panther myth strongly establishing itself as a classic piece of Australian folklore. With the emergence of the internet providing more avenues for the story to spread, it has only grown.
To the present
You only have to visit the black panther sightings in Victoria Facebook page to get an idea of how prolific this urban legend is. Currently, it has 105,000 members – it’s incredibly popular.
The Facebook group is certainly home to some interesting claims. This post shows a picture of a wallaby with its head removed (warning: potentially disturbing). With over 235 comments, many took to theorising the predator who performed the vicious kill.
Some are certain it’s the result of the infamous black panther – one claims it’s a “big cat for sure”, while another confidently states it’s the work of “a sadistic black panther”. But, it seems most people aren’t taking the post too seriously. This one guy just posts a gif of the predator character from the famous movie franchise of the same name. Someone else says it’s the “giant worm [they] hear about from the shadow people in [their] laundry sink”…
So it seems a lot of the people apart of the black panther sightings group may just be in it for the hell of it, a source of entertainment as they scroll through their feed in the morning. To be honest, I can’t blame them.
Most of the other posts are blurry pictures, more unexplained livestock deaths and avowed testimonies from people who claim to have come across the big cat (which are especially entertaining to read).
Some other posts seem a little more convincing though, even gaining attention in the media. News.com.au reported on a video of a big cat in Sydney’s Upper North Shore. To my surprise, the video is actually clear and good quality – an absolute rarity it seems when it comes to filming creatures whose existence is disputed.
But then I came across something interesting…
Down the rabbit hole
Grose Vale, New South Wales. The year is 1998. After Grose Vale resident Chris Coffey had her own close encounter with a black panther, she started to compile a database of other sightings made by residents around the area.
The database grew steadily, including eye witness accounts from government staff members. Since the government doesn’t take urban myths seriously, the presence of government staff members on the database was a liability, leading to a research request commissioned by the Department of Primary Industries (DPI) in 1999.
The following report, led by wildlife ecologist Johannes Bauer, concluded: “Difficult as it seems to accept, the most likely explanation of the evidence … is the presence of a large feline predator.”
So there you have it! They really are real! The mystery has been solved. Well, not really. This story still has a couple of twists up its sleeve.
The DPI issued another report in 2003. This time, the evidence didn’t “conclusively prove” the existence of the black panther, but it “cannot be discounted and seems more likely than not on available evidence”, leaving the mystery unsolved.
Of all the things I was expecting to find in this story, it was not a potential government cover-up.
Fast-forward to 2008, and the DPI has written another report on the elusive big cat mystery but does not release it to the public. It comes to the same conclusion as the 2003 report.
In 2009, the DPI released the same report to the public, yet slightly altered. Now, it concludes: “Whilst information has been provided, there is still nothing to conclusively say that a large black cat exists.”
A fourth and final report was commissioned in 2013 closing the door on the matter, stating any evidence of big cats in New South Wales is “at best prima facie evidence”.
Chris Coffey reckons it’s a cover-up. The fact that the author of the 2013 report, Dr John Parkes, actually remains open to the possibility these panthers exist, certainly doesn’t help the state government’s case here.
“Panthers used to be held in zoos and menageries in Australia. So it is possible escapees did occur in Australia and possible that they bred and we have a small cryptic population in the bush,” Dr Parkes said in an ABC article.
So, is the mysterious black panther real? Until someone comes forward with a body of one, we’ll probably never know. It’s not as improbable as something like Bigfoot, yet it doesn’t appear to be tangible enough to definitively prove, leaving the black panther mystery shrouded in an uncanny halo.
So next time you’re wandering in the bush, keep a keen eye out for a flash of black – you just might lay eyes on one of Australia’s favourite urban legends.
For more on the black panthers of Australia, head here.
