South Island sighting revives big cat mystery

A claimed sighting in the Mackenzie Country has rekindled the region’s big cat mystery.

A couple travelling along State Highway 8 through Burkes Pass were stunned to spot an unfamiliar animal when they stopped near Sawdon Station on Tuesday afternoon.

‘‘We thought it was a cow, a calf, or a sheep but it was walking like a cat and was probably the size of a labrador dog,’’ Kevin Cook, of Coromandel, said yesterday.

‘‘When it walked slowly down the hill, it walked like a cat.’’

Cook thought it looked like a panther but ‘‘it was not as big as a panther and was dark brown’’.

‘‘The tail was, however, definitely like a cat.’’

Cook and his partner, Carolyn Gibbs, of Auckland, had pulled over to photograph the golden trees in the area and had taken photos and video before putting the camera back in the camper.

‘‘We were sitting down outside having a cuppa later when we noticed it about 50 metres away.

‘‘We checked our camera later but didn’t have a photo of it.’’

They said when they got to Tekapo they Googled it and found there have been numerous sight

‘‘It was walking like a cat and was probably the size of a labrador dog.’’

Kevin Cook

ings of ‘‘big cats’’ in the central South Island over many years.

The Department of Conservation’s Te Manahuna/Twizel operations manager, Sally Jones, said it was difficult to try to ascertain what the couple had seen without a photo but said ‘‘over the years DOC has received anecdotal reports of large cats in the area’’.

‘‘Our biodiversity rangers have caught a few big ones [cats] but no mountain lions. . . the biggest was not much smaller than a labrador.

‘‘Male feral cats captured in the South Island high country averaged a weight of 3.75 kilograms and the heaviest male weighed 7kg.

‘‘You can expect a feral cat to be leaner and fitter than an average house cat. Feral cats are natural predators and have a major impact on native birds, bats, lizards, mice we¯ta¯ and other insects.

‘‘They can travel long distances and we know of a feral cat in the South Island high country that covered almost 6 kilometres in one night.’’