Snarls from the Tea-tree: A Review

Snarls from the Tea-tree. Big Cat Folklore by David Waldron and Simon Townsend (2012), Australian Scholarly Publishing, available here.

     Several years ago, an envelope arrived at my former address, containing photographs of animals which gave every indication of having been killed by a big cat. A quick bit of research indicated that the sender, a certain Simon Townsend, was empoyed in the Victorian branch of the same government department as me. He was most surprised when I pointed it out. Since then, we have been retired, but he has kept up his interest in the topic, and has now collaborated with Dr David Waldron on a new book.
     This is about alien big cats in Victoria and the adjacent parts of South Australia. A couple of areas in other states are mentioned, but not Western Australia. Although the subject is of major concern for cryptozoology, it is not a regular cryptozoological book as such. You will not find a proposition, evidence, or a conclusion. Rather, it is a history and analysis of the phenomenon, and advice on dealing with it. There are 168 pages of text, eight photographs, four pages of index, and 400 end-notes, the greater part being of not-easily-assessible newspaper reports. Whatever else may be said about the book, it cannot be faulted for lack of documentation!