'Most detailed compendium of...crypto conundrum"

A great review from Sydney non-fiction author David Levell:

"Australian Big Cats: An Unnatural History of Panthers (Strange Nation Publishing) must be the most detailed compendium of the Australia’s best documented cryptozoological conundrum. Authors Michael Williams and Rebecca Lang shine more light on the mystery than has ever been shone before.

"There’s no doubt big cats are out there in the outback. The mystery is what kind of cat, and whether other animals account for some of the sightings. These range from feral dogs and foxes to rather more unlikely candidates such as the long-extinct marsupial lion."

Read more here...

Our book gets the thumbs-up from Dr Naish

Dr Darren Naish gave Australian Big Cats: An Unnatural History of Panthers a very respectable thumbs-up recently on his very popular Scientific American blog.

He writes in part, in Williams and Lang’s Australian Big Cats: do pumas, giant feral cats and mystery marsupials stalk the Australian outback?:

"A long term interest and involvement in Australian and world mysteries led Michael Williams and Rebecca Lang to research and produce what is now the definitive volume on Australian mystery big cats; it’s titled Australian Big Cats: An Unnatural History of Panthers (Williams & Lang 2010).

"At 434 pages, it’s substantial. It’s also highly readable, nicely formatted and very well illustrated. The authors have collated a vast amount of information gleaned not only from published sources but also from interviews with both eyewitnesses and people who have examined evidence firsthand.

"Williams and Lang clearly travelled widely across the country, photographing locations, people, documents, taxiderm specimens and so on at what must have been great personal expense. They obtained freedom of information acts and other previously undisclosed documents. A lengthy appendix (c. 120 pages) includes copies of numerous letters and documents produced by government officials, veterinarians, ecologists, geneticists and others. The volume is fully referenced (though with the citations given at the bottom of the respective pages, rather than at the end of the text) and with an index.

"So, to anyone seriously interested in mystery animals, mystery big cats or Australian mammals in general, this book is a must-have..."

Reda more at http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/2012/02/13/williams-and-langs-australian-big-cats/?print=true

Merry Christmas!

Savage Shadow hits the shelves at last!

A mystery straight from the heart of ‘Cougar Country’ - Cordering, WA

Back in the late 1970s, journalist David O’Reilly stumbled across a mystery bigger than the state of Western Australia itself - wild cats the size of dogs attacking farm livestock!

These cats resembled North American mountain lions - also know as pumas, cougars or catamounts - and terrorised the district of Cordering with their presence.

David wrote a series of newspaper articles about the attacks, and sightings of the large cats, in The Australian newspaper. What followed was a bizarre sequence of events that would alienate farmers, generate a government inquiry and draw claims of a conspiracy to keep the truth silent.

A couple of years after the strange events David put it all together in a book - this book - which would go on to gain status as an Australian cult classic.

With few copies available and the story highly sought after even today, a decision was made in conjunction with the O’Reilly family to re-print the book via Strange Nation Publishing.

What was really going on in Cordering in the late 1970s? You’ll have to read it to believe it.

Buy the book here.

ABC book extract in this month's Nexus

Nexus Magazine is featuring an extract of Australian Big Cats: An Unnatural History of Panthers in this month's issue.

THE TWILIGHT ZONE
We feature an extract from a book by Rebecca Lang and Michael Williams which investigates reports of big-cat sightings in Australia and suggests several theories as to how these out-of-place felids arrived in a foreign land.

Check it out!

Or better yet, buy the book - and enjoy 150 years of big cat legend, lore and sightings. We have it on good authority it's a book you'll read again and again. Just beware those friends who ask to borrow it - it's also one of those books no one ever returns!

Inside the Author talks big cats

Check out our recent interview with Grant Boyden from Inside the Author fame:

Inside the Author - Australian Big Cats


It’s one of Australia’s greatest mysteries. For decades there has been talk of big cats roaming the Australian bush.

These large cats – predominantly black – have only afforded their witnesses fleeting glimpses, and left behind tantalising clues: scraps of fur, a paw print or three, unusually large scats, and livestock carcasses surgically dismembered and picked clean of flesh.

In their wake, they leave carnage and bewilderment: What are they? How did they get here? We don’t just ask the questions, we seek the answers, and what we have found will intrigue the sceptic and the believer alike.

Book reviewed in Fortean Times - 9/10!