Big cats killing cows: farmer
News.com.au December 12, 2002
A VICTORIAN dairy farmer has blamed big cats for vicious attacks that have killed up to
200 cows on his farm in the past two years.
Gippsland farmer Ron Jones said today wild cats had left a trail of destruction in farms
across the state's south-east.
He said the latest casualty on his farm - a Friesian cow - had its jaw torn out and its
ear and brain eaten.
"They go in through the ear and eat the brain out, the back end of the cow has been
eaten out and the bag (udder) area is eaten out," Mr Jones told ABC radio.
"I've seen about a dozen of them now ... when they're sitting on their backsides
they're about three foot six (106cm) from the ground up to the top of the head.
"When they take off they sort of go in big loping bounds. They cover about 20 feet
(6.1 metres) every bound - they're about eight feet (2.44 metres) roughly from the tip of
their nose to the end of their tail."
Mr Jones said he could not fully identify the animals, saying they were too big to be
feral cats.
"It's definitely a cat the way it moves. When they kill an animal they just lay on it
and chew away at it.
"Where the wounds are inflicted it's just as though you'd cut it with a carving
knife," he said.
"Where a dog stands and tears at it and leaves a jagged wound, these wounds are just
as though you'd cut the meat out with a carving knife."
Mr Jones said he had taken a few pot shots at the animals but with no success.
The skin of a calf victim is still in his shed - a painful reminder of the killers.
"The skin when they're finished, there's not a bit of meat or fat left on it, it's
just licked perfectly clean," he said.
"I've actually got a skin in my shed at the moment. It's a calf that's been killed
and there's not a bit of skin or fat left on it, the flies never even blew it."
Mr Jones said government authorities were trying to trap the cats, which had also killed
quite a bit of wildlife, but had so far been unsuccessful. END OF REPORT
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