Australians are used to dangerous creepy crawlies, deadly snakes and cheeky possums lurking in their backyards – but what about a wild panther? Each year, rumours of a wild black panther living in suburban Australia do the rounds, but now, we have even more visual proof there might be one in NSW. Hear all about it below:
This week, Sydney university student Alec McDonald took to Facebook to share a video of the mysterious cat lurking behind the Sydney Adventist Hospital in Wahroonga.
“Just captured this big boy behind the SAN hospital in Wahroonga!” McDonald captioned the video. “Was very weird, looked 1m+ long with a body on roids.”
McDonald’s video caused such a stir he made an appearance on Sunrise, where he told hosts, “as soon as I saw it I started filming because it was very, very large compared to a normal domestic cat.”
“It was definitely a bit scary, my heart was racing,” he added. “The length of it, the musculature on it…it was huge.”
Australia’s mysterious black panther has been an urban legend since the mid 1800s when there were hundreds of reports of large black cats roaming around local bushland.
Speaking of wild animals, hear about Sydney’s great baboon escape below:
According to 7News, there have been countless reported sightings and even video evidence over the years, but no one has ever managed to physically catch a black panther.
In fact, a government enquiry in 2003 found “no conclusive evidence large cats exist in the wild in NSW.” The same goes for a Victorian investigation in 2012 which found the existence of a black panther to be “highly unlikely.”
Judging by the video, there’s no way this is someone’s jacked-up indoor cat on the loose. Bushman Jake Cassar even told Sunrise, “if it’s a feral cat it’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen hundreds in my life.”
“If it is something else then it’s something for scientists to look at,” Cassar added.
2020 really is shaping up to be a weird and very wild year.
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