Animal of the Night

When reports emerged that a black panther was stalking the forests of the Blue Mountains between Emu Plains and Richmond sceptics raised their voices in derision.

Then, when the panther was sighted as far away as Lithgow and Cowra both on the other side of the Blue Mountains, those same sceptics were satisfied. It was all imagination.

There have even been reports of night-time disturbances at the ADI site and locals no longer venture there after dark.

Local mystic, Madam Mysterio, claims there is one way the beast can have been in all those places in a short period of time. It has the ability to teleport itself. Further, since all the sightings have occurred under the full moon, Madam Mysterio believes that it is not a panther at all. It is a werewolf.

In Australian terminology that's a bunyip—and that's him sitting on the right.

Environmentalist Kit Astrophy said early settlers in the area reported hearing about such a creature from local aborigines.

Residents living near the ADI site should hang a clove of garlic over their doors to keep the bunyip away.

It seems unbelievable in the twenty-first century but every few years somebody raises the spectre of a black panther roaming the mountains west of Sydney. Sometimes the rumours are started as a joke and sometimes they start with a person who has seen a big cat, dog or some other domestic animal. The reports get column space in the local papers and there is always somebody ready to believe it. Lots of somebodies!

It was at such a time I wrote this piece. Reports had been coming in from places, sometimes hundreds of kilometres apart, from people who were convinced they had seen the beast.

There seemed to be only one possible solution . . .