The mystery of the Emmaville black panther

Really?

“Yes” said the Examiner manager, Lisa Reed, there was a group of people who believed that there was some sort of strange animal wandering around up there.

True to efficient form, Lisa produced a file containing photocopies of stories published in the Examiner on an outbreak of panther sightings and the excitement it brought to the Emmaville district. (Thanks to the History House Museum for that little find.)

It seems that this spate of panther sightings (there were many throughout the Northern Tablelands, sightings that is) all began on June 20, 1958 with a 15 year old boy, Donald Clifford who, while searching for lost horses spotted a large cat-like beast a mere ‘thirty paces ahead’ in rough country 18 miles from Emmaville.

He “fled for his life” and alerted a Mr McElroy who was mining in the vicinity.

It just so happened that said miner had the previous day seen a carcase of a big kangaroo “ripped to shreds and its backbone torn out”. His jacket, which he’d left on the ground some distance away, has also been “torn to pieces.”

On returning to the site, Mr McElroy and Donald’s father Mr Rex Clifford said the prints they found were the “size of a man’s hand, with claw marks prominent.”

The article goes on to say that earlier in the week, up around Tenterfield, three different people had seen an animal they were sure was a black panther or puma crossing the Casino road.

Those particular sightings were explained away by one of the men, Mr Gray who claims someone said that a puma escaped from a circus over in the Inverell area.

He stated that he had been to Africa, seen Pumas first hand knew they could move about that fast.

So the reports go for the next few months, with Mr Warren Wilkinson’s “hairs standing on end in fear” on the Ben Lomond Range near Uralla; sheep being mutilated in what seemed to be a “vicious snap” by an animal which property owners around Yetman refused to believe could be caused by a pig or dog.

A Dr Paterson of Inverell, formerly of Emmaville encountered in February 1959 a “large jet black animal about the size of a collie dog” on the Emmaville Road which he hit with his car, causing damage and leaving a “paw strike” on the paint work.

He was clearly delighted with the encounter, stating it was the biggest thrill of his life and would, on his future travels to Emmaville be “gunning for it.”

The excitement over the initial sighting in Emmaville in June 1958 must have been fodder for some interesting conversations in the district but when the chairman of the Taronga Zoo Trust, Sir Edward Hallstrom, offered a reward for the capture, dead or alive of the animal a week or so later, it was met with some derision by many in the village, with the Examiner reporting that the “locals regarded the whole affair as rather a joke.”

However the offer was there, 1000 pounds if the animal proved to be an Australian marsupial cat or 500 pounds if it was an Indian panther.

This proposal by the zoo chairman was announced at the Glen Innes Apex Club meeting a few days after the first sighting by Mr J Bergin who had recently returned from a game hunting expedition in India where he was successful in killing the largest tiger on record.

Obviously feeling his knowledge of big game cats put him in the hot seat, Mr Bergin travelled to Emmaville and went with a police party to a site on Mr Ray Schroeder ‘s property, Welcomp where the remains of three dead cattle had been found.

Several members of the investigating group were convinced something far more vicious than a dingo or fox had killed the cattle.

Mr Les Hall, proprietor of the Sheep Service Company at Emmaville was with the group and stated that Mr Bergin had told them that “dingoes don’t eat cattle but that panthers do and furthermore, the cattle had been eaten whole.”

“All we found of the remains were a few shreds of skin and hair and a pile of bones which were some distance away from the remains but they had been put in a pile in the way a panther would heap them.”

According to the owner of the cattle, they had been put in to the paddock only six weeks before and so had not been long dead, and of course everyone knows that natural composition takes up to six months.

Mr Hall boldly went on to claim that the area was ideal panther country and that Emmaville was in a panther belt and thus it would probably stay in the region especially as there were so many wild goats about and plenty of water.

He believed the “belt” extended from Tenterfield across to Coolatai and down into the Gulf country (Emmaville).

He scoffed at reports that someone had seen and heard a panther down around Armidale because “Armidale was well outside the belt”!

There was talk of attempts to locate and shoot the animal, (no doubt the reward money very much an incentive) but Mr Bergin was quite cautious about the manner in which the animal should be tracked and shot.

Definitely a “.22 was only going to wound the animal” and Constable Watts of the Emmaville Police Station who had received inquiries from around Australia was getting rather anxious about the prospect of game hunters turning up in town looking for a bit of sport.

There was also the concern that people not knowing the rugged terrain would easily get lost and Mr Sid Adams of the Glen Innes Ambulance said he was worried that with the number of shooters expected in the town, there was a risk of someone being accidentally shot.

But it all came to naught when no one of any consequence turned up, that’s not counting the Examiner’s reporter of course.

A party of five locals headed by self-proclaimed panther expert, Mr Les Hall, did announce they were going off on a search for the big cat, “with some goats and dogs as decoys”, but that was called off, reasons for which were not given.

It was reported the following week in the Examiner that Emmaville residents had decided that it was feasible that pigs had killed the cattle and Constable Watts hadn’t actually seen for himself any paw prints and therefore could not substantiate any of the claims that it was a panther.

A member of the Emmaville golf club with an obvious wicked sense of humour decided enough was enough and posted the following in the Examiner with the weekend’s golf notes.

As a result of the recent “panther”scare and the fact that our course is in the general direction of where it may have been seen, the following rule applies for weekend play.

‘A ball lying so close to a panther that the swing or stance is restricted, may be dropped two club lengths away (keeping the panther in the line of play to the hole).

If the panther is accidently moved in so doing, it may be replaced without penality’. Precious.

Reports of panther sightings have continued over the years and some serious studies have been conducted by wildlife experts and government departments with one report suggesting there may be a vague possibility that a colony of cats does/did exist in Australia.

And the best reason the could come up with to date is that during WWII, pumas were kept at several airforce bases and that US airmen used a compartment in Vultee Vengeance dive bombers to smuggle the cats into Australia.

It has also been suggested to the Examiner that this panther was “best seen after quite a few whiskeys!”

A small article concerning the capture of a young native cat near Bungulla, north of Tenterfield did make it into the Examiner on August 1, 1958.

It was not considered to be rare but the railway crew that caught it put in a wired -over box and sent it down to Sir Edward of the Taronga Zoo probably in the vain hope that it might be worth the 1000 pounds reward he had offered.

Editor’s note.

We would be delighted to hear of anyone’s account or recollections these panther sightings.

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