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A possum hunter has vowed never to go back into the bush alone after encountering a cat he estimated to be about 2 meters long, Stuff reported. That would make it roughly the same size as a cougar.
Over the years, there have been big cat sightings in Canterbury, Otago, Southland, and Marlborough.
Last year, there were reports of a large black animal close to Fairlie.
Department of Conservation Biodiversity Officer Dean Nelson has worked at Twizel for several years and is familiar with big cat sightings in the region.
He said he’s still a bit skeptical, though that might change if he ever sees one himself.
“The problem for me is that the sightings have taken place in many different places over many years and how do these animals remain hidden the rest of the time?”
Nelson said that if the big cats were there, they would likely see more reports in one place, or signs of their presence, such as sheep dying or the like.
Several of the sightings have occurred at times when light levels are low or at night, which can change the perception of a person’s size, he said.
“We know we caught just over 7kg of wild cats, but that’s not the size some of these people are talking about.”
Nelson said that although he has caught large wild cats, the only report that he has directly had of a larger than normal cat was in Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park in the 1980s.
“I had an American tourist who was convinced that he had seen a lynx, minus the tail, you know because they don’t have much of a tail, you know that he was convinced that it was a lynx what he had seen on one of the tracks.”
