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There have been reported sightings my whole life ever since I can remember, and I was born here in Australia in the 1980s. While I don't think it's impossible,

• EdwardDiego 7y ago
  In fairness, it's nocturnal and probably buggers off quickly when it spots you. But I'm biased, I'm a moose believer (or as I like to call it, a moother) based on the circumstantial evidence, but a lot of people are skeptical a creature as large as a moose could keep a low profile that long. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/103196185/new-zealands-moose-hunt-a-centurylong-quest-for-a-forests-final-secret https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/103196185/new-zealands-moos...
  • hnick 7y ago
    Hah, that moose one is new to me. We have a history of some big cat sightings here around Sydney and NSW. The usual story is some US military people brought it (them?) for some reason and it escaped, I think. Though there are many stories and explanations as you'd expect.
    • EdwardDiego 7y ago
      Well, we definitely know that they were there, released in the hey-day of Acclimatisation Societies, but the last proof of them was in the 1950s. The fact that no-one saw them while helicopters were beating the bush during the goldrush red deer helicopter hunting years counts against them, but my pet theory is that moose love water, and there's plenty of swamps in Fiordland (if there's a flat bit, it's probably a swamp) to hide from helicopters in.
    • dwd 7y ago
      Personal story, the first I ever heard of big cats living in the Grampians, Victoria was after coming back from a lone morning hike up Boronia Peak overlooking Halls Gap. I would have been around 14 at the time and told some of the adults back at the campsite that I found really big cat paw prints on the bank of a creek. Similar story of US Airmen releasing their mascot pumas into the wild.
      • samplatt 7y ago
        Rural WA'ian here. There's plenty of rumours of a "panther" around Nannup; no US Airmen story, it was just a really big black feral cat the size of a panther. From what I've seen personally, feral gets can get BIG. Like mastiff-sized. So I tend to believe these rumours but take their origins with various grains of salt.
        • dwd 7y ago
          The origin stories should be taken with a grain of salt, but that we have cougar-sized ferals is well recorded. There was a Gippsland feral killed and DNA tested that was half as big again as a record-sized domestic cat. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2005-11-28/tests-reveal-super-sized-feral-cat/750340 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2005-11-28/tests-reveal-super-si...
  • bitwize 7y ago
    New Zealand. Home to all sorts of weird-ass birds and bugs, but moose are considered cryptids there. I love how big the world is sometimes.
    • yellowapple 7y ago
      It's upside-down in more ways than one, apparently.
    • EdwardDiego 7y ago
      We even have our own Sasquatch. A fun game is telling foreign hikers in our backcountry huts that the terrifying noises they're hearing at night is a Maero[1]. They're actually from an unwanted Australian overstayer, the brushtail possum[2], but cannibalistic wild men is a lot more fun. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maero https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maero [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70n88xAdmo0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70n88xAdmo0
  • rangibaby 7y ago
    A mere moose pales in comparison to the legendary CANTERBURY PANTHER
  • oh_sigh 7y ago
    Do you not have hunters in NZ? In the US any actual cryptid would be caught on someone's trail cam, eventually.
    • rdc12 7y ago
      There is plenty of hunters in NZ, there is even a wikipedia page on hunting in NZ I just discovered. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunting_in_New_Zealand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunting_in_New_Zealand
      • mcbain 7y ago
        And TV, Hunting Aotearoa: https://www.maoritelevision.com/shows/hunting-aotearoa https://www.maoritelevision.com/shows/hunting-aotearoa Great stuff, in a mix of Māori and laid back NZ English.
      • EdwardDiego 7y ago
        Yep, I hunt myself, mainly red deer and fallow, with the occasional chamois/pig/wallaby/rabbit/hare as I go.
    • EdwardDiego 7y ago
      Plenty of hunters, but moose were released in the most difficult terrain in NZ - Fiordland.
• RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y ago
  > I'm not sure what's new here except the fact that almost everyone now carries a camera yet we're still to get clear images ;) Exactly this. The absence of clear photographs has much more negative predictive value now that almost everyone is carrying a cell phone with a camera almost all the time they are away from home.
  • incompatible 7y ago
    Species like this seem to have some kind of focus-deflecting abilities so that photographs always turn out blurry and indistinguishable from a large feral cat. They weren't silent animals either, and were fond of raiding sheep, chickens etc., from farms (the reason they were exterminated). It doesn't seem plausible to me that they'd survive with such a low profile for circa 90 years.
    • Teever 7y ago
      A plausible reason for why they would survive with such a low profile is that they faced a strong selection pressure to do so as the more bold tigers were hunted leaving only the subtle ones to reproduce.
  • grawprog 7y ago
    Not that I disagree with you, and I don't know about others, but I've seen lots of cool one time things I've never taken pictures of because I'm too busy watching it and honestly never think to take pictures until after. Animals are also hard to take pictures of. I've been trying to get a good picture of a squirrel from my yard for a friend of mine for weeks now but the little bastards are quick. By the time I get the camera app open they're gone.
    • flukus 7y ago
      At times I've seen people reach for their phone and start recording even when their safety is at risk. Similarly if you're at an event the features something like a jet fighter flyby you can look around and see more people taking pictures than actually watching for themselves. I have no idea what these people are thinking and like you would prefer to actually experience it myself, but I'd expect at least one of them to have reached for their phone before they even realized what they were recording. There's also been dedicated people heading out with night vision cameras, they've found nothing either.
• dbuder 7y ago
  Yes it's nonsense, it makes me angry to see cnn promote these claims.
• hanoz 7y ago
  See also the UK's Beast of Bodmin Moor, the Fen Tiger etc. etc. etc., still evading the ubiquitous gaze of the camera phone after all these years, a couple of blury images of obvious domestic cats notwithstanding. Surely it must be that the feline predator looming deep in the human psyche is what lies beneath these apparitions.
• emmelaich 7y ago
  Yep, it pops up in news every few years. Like the Loch Ness monster, but ore likely to be real. (Which is not saying much!)
• ObjectData 7y ago
  If they still existed we would find evidence in the form of carcasses, bones, poo or kills. I would love it if they did still exist though.
  • EdwardDiego 7y ago
    Wouldn't be sure about the carcasses, bones, and kills, not when they share(d) an island with another carnivore that is a very effective and enthusiastic scavenger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasmanian_devil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasmanian_devil > Tasmanian devils can eliminate all traces of a carcass of a smaller animal, devouring the bones and fur if desired. The poo one is interesting - no matter how hard I google, I can't find an image of thylacine shit, so not sure how you'd differentiate it from other animals' scat.
    • ObjectData 7y ago
      We would have to assume that every single carcass, including all the bones was completely removed by the devils for that to be true. No roadkills being found etc. And there are a lot of roadkills in Australia. Poo is used to identify species via DNA analysis: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3783732?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents https://www.jstor.org/stable/3783732?seq=1#page_scan_tab_con... https://academic.oup.com/jhered/article/96/6/688/2187659 https://academic.oup.com/jhered/article/96/6/688/2187659
      • dsfyu404ed 7y ago
        A skittish nocturnal animal is unlikely to get roadkilled. Only the carcasses we'd find need to get removed promptly by scavengers. That said, I think it's more likely extinct than not.
        • teshier-A 7y ago
          >Localised populations of devils have also been severely reduced by collisions with motor vehicles, particularly when they are eating roadkill. >They are also found near roads where roadkill is prevalent, although the devils themselves are often killed by vehicles while retrieving the carrion. From the Tasmanian Devil wiki page.
• socialentp 7y ago
  There are many rare species which we do know exist that even trained wildlife biologists struggle to capture on camera. Not saying I think they are still around, but I wouldn’t take the lack of a photo in the smartphone era to be evidence of much (yet).
• reaperducer 7y ago
  I'm not sure what's new here except the fact that almost everyone now carries a camera yet we're still to get clear images ;) Considering the quality of the average person's pictures, I don't think the proliferation of cameraphones will help us get clear picture. Pictures, yes. Pictures of blurry, smeary things in the corner of the frame. But clear, well-framed pictures are beyond the capability of 95% of the public.
• jamil7 7y ago
  Same for me, I've been hearing these stories my whole life.
• gadders 7y ago
  See also the regular "Big Cat" sightings in the UK. https://www.theguardian.com/global/2019/apr/14/britains-big-cats-are-pumas-running-wild-or-is-it-our-imagination https://www.theguardian.com/global/2019/apr/14/britains-big-...