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JESSE FEARY
Jesse Feary isn’t going to pose alone after shooting what he thinks is a big baby cat.
A North Canterbury possum hunter has vowed not to go into the bush alone after encountering what he believes to be the mysterious Canterbury big cats.
Jesse Feary was near the Ashley woods last weekend when he had his first scare.
“I saw something on the other side of the ravine, so I shot high to see what it was,” he said.
SUPPLIED
A Department of Conservation photo of a dead feral cat in front of a Labrador. The DOC says the heaviest catch was 7 kg.
“When it escaped, the speed at which it moved … I will no longer go up there on my own.”
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Friday night, Feary and a friend were out looking for possums when they saw what they thought was a deer.
“We walked, got to the gate, and lit the torch as this black streak crossed the runway.”
JESSE FEARY
Jesse Feary described the wild cat he shot as “monstrous.”
After the experience the weekend before, Feary was taking no chances.
“I saw it, not even 100 meters from us,” he said.
“It was as low as it could be, and it was coming for us.”
He shot the cat from about 50 meters and said he was sure it was the baby of the adult cat he witnessed last week.
“I do a lot of possums, I see wild cats all the time.
“They are usually quite scrawny, but this is monstrous.”
Monique Ford / Stuff
Before the treatment, Mog Mog weighed 10 kg, twice as much as a normal cat, but still less than the cat that Feary shot.
Feary said the cat weighed 11 kg, with a 18-inch tail and 14-mm fangs. Stretched out, it was 1.05 meters long.
He calculated that the adult he saw the previous weekend would be roughly twice the size.
An average adult domestic cat weighs between 3 and 6 kg, although the largest Maine Coon breed can exceed 8 kg in adult males.
In July, the overweight Wellington cat, Mog Mog, started a weight loss program after tipping the scales at 10kg, which is considered twice the healthy weight for a cat.
Wild cats can outgrow domestic cats, although the largest male caught by the Department of Conservation, in the highlands of the South Island, weighed 7 kg, still 4 kg less than the Feary specimen.
There have been reports of big cat sightings for years across the South Island, particularly in Canterbury.
In 1977, Kaiapoi resident Frances Clark reported a close-up sighting of a tiger, but her story was only substantiated once large paw marks and droppings were later discovered on nearby Pines Beach.
In 1996, a large black cat, the size of a Labrador, was spotted by a woman on a mountain bike near Twizel.
Two years later something like a cougar was observed near Cromwell, and Mataura residents described seeing what looked like a lynx.
In 1999, a black panther was seen in Mackenzie Country and then on the Banks Peninsula, followed by beasts such as the Moeraki mountain lion, Lindis lion, and Ashford the black cat.
