The Otway Panther

The towns surrounding the Otways national park in South Western Victoria draw thousands of tourists each year.

The picturesque gateway to the Great ocean road is a mecca for surfing fans, festival heads and big cat enthusiasts.

Confused? Well that's completely understandable Obi Wan given that Australia is the only continent without it's own native species of large carnivorous cat. That is, unless you ask the locals in the Otway region.

You see for the last half century the otway region has been a hotspot for sightings of mysterious panther sized cats.

So frequent and prevelant are these sightings that a number of independent "research groups" have sprung up across the region with the goal of collating eyewitness accounts and capturing damning evidence of the elusive creature.

In April last year myself and a group of students from RMIT melbourne sat down with two of these researchers, Kevin Braughton and Sarah Alsop. They are behind the facebook groups Strange Creatures of Victoria and The Victorian Big cats research group.

It was a highly entertaining interview to conduct and the end product was even more entertaining thanks to the brilliant editing of Tully Hemsley. Here it is for your enjoyment.

So do big cats roam in our collective victorian backyard? Are they prehistoric marsupials? Is it just a glorified hobby that brings strangers together? Maybe, maybe, maybe. Was it an interesting assignment? Absolutely. I'd really really like to do another story like this on other mysterious Australian creatures or events so if you enjoyed this, stay tuned.

-T