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Big Cats in Victoria 20-Feb-2006 At 4:20:59 PM The Keeper

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My guess is it could be one of those thylacine-derived feral climbing Amazonians form Southern Queen'sland. Visual clues would be protruding enlarged canines and observed
"stringy bark" on some trees - bark gets shredded when they sharpen their talons in frustration from not having their way with innocent, kind, shy, introverted climbing blokes from up over. Vegetation takes a thrashing as a result. Samples of hair from their lairs or tufts attached to brush would be good. We need mtDNA genome sequencing to get to the bottom of this. One team is already on it - a band of energetic and vigilante Kiwis working in a lab for the Keeper of Australia Mt. Some degraded ancient hair curlers found in a ancient archaeological deposit near Australia Mt. have yielded hair samples and are undergoing sophisticated analyses at a variety of labs around the world. We plan on submitting a sample to Dr. Alan Cooper (Kiwi) who has departed Oxford Uni and set up shop in Adelaide. He has had a lot of experience dealing with challenging CSI type investigations and this one would be ideal for him. He recently revealed some ancient truths in a piece entitled" Year of the Mammoth" in
PLOS Biology and had previously worked on pleistocene bison, bears and horses.

From Woolly Mammoth to a wily and ornery sub-species with Thylacine roots in the Great Australian Death Zone ner Boonah - this would be the feather (fur) in his cap.
Maybe the thylacines never went extinct after all and are loose and pervasive in southern Queen'sland near Frog Buttress and Giraween. One may have strayed south into Victoria. Guard your butts and take every precaution. Kevlar protection panels which fit with velcro strips to most types of climbing harness will work for the bottom end - something like the gear Ned Kelly used would be appropriate for the top end - good bloody luck in this. These "real women" of southern Queen'sland bite first and bury later - based on a true confession of one of the sub-species - Mistress Sparky of qurank fame. We also need the scoop of their predatory and wandering behavior. We suggest radio collaring if you can catch one. Best way to catch one apparently is to
find an unused bear trap - stick it out in the woods with a tethered and hungover Canuck ice cliimber as bait or a couple of bottles of Aussie Shampoo and some water. Once trapped we encourage heavy sedation of the specimen and then release after the radio collar has been applied. Kindly remove canines before releasing as well - this will save a few trees in southern Queen'sland and Blue Tier as well as the hind ends of many good blokes from up over. Remember these are clearly one of Aussie's Most Dangerous (my vote rests for THE most dangerous". Dr. Ward Watt of the Calfiornia
Academy of Sciences has advised " Danger is Not Proportional to the Number of Legs and Animal Can Deploy" so protect your hind end and family jewels. Captive specimens may be domesticated by engaging them in appropriately targetted treatments in local hair salons. You won't recognize them when they come out of those - they morph into something more normalized and sedate.

It's a jungle out there in southern Queen'sland - you have to keep your wits about you and applied lest you end up as wormbait under a gnarly ant hill out back of Boonah in the "ghastly blank". Grim.

Science and Aussie climbing - a dynamic interface for the new millenium.

Be seeing ya.