Buderim Beast

Mr Van Dyke said reported sightings over the years of the “Buderim Beast” were more than likely of a fox - but probably a furless one.
     “I think (the Buderim Beast) is fantastic,” Mr Van Dyke said.
     “People always need a story to take them away from the drudgery of the day and we all love and read fairy stories.
     “It adds a bit of spice to our lives.”
     Mr Van Dyke said the idea of a fantasy creature wandering around Buderim was interesting, but it was not necessary to “take that quantum leap into mythology” to find the truth of the situation.
     “In most cases where we get something that is described as a beast, it usually has something wrong with it - it's mangy or deformed, he said. “There is usually a logical answer.”

THE Buderim Beast has reared its mangy head again. Or has it?
     Sue Smith was standing in her kitchen when she looked out the window and spotted something stripy.
     She's convinced it was the elusive Buderim Beast roaming on her Diddillibah property about 8.30am on Wednesday.
     "I was in the kitchen when we first saw it. Then we went onto the veranda and could see it from there," she said.
     "Initially, he was quite close to the road under some trees, then went back under the fence.
     "It was amazing."
     Ms Smith saw a similar animal a few months ago, which she initially thought was the Buderim Beast, but at second look she's sure it was a fox.
     This time, she snapped photographic evidence of the beast.
     "It looked like a fox the first time, but this time we were watching it and it had a longer body and the tail wasn't so bushy," she said.
     "It was a funny shape. It was just different."

THE myth of the Buderim Beast has lurked in the town for years, and a sighting last week had many scratching their heads.
     Long-term residents of the Buderim area have reported sightings of the mythical creature, believed to be a relative of the tasmanian tiger or thylacine, sliding silently through the trees and underbrush of the E.J. Foote Memorial Sanctuary, Buderim Forest Park and along the banks of Martins Creek.
     However, when Sue Smith and her son Wesley thought they'd found the creature lurking in their Diddillibah neighbourhood last week, they kept an eye out to see if it would appear again.
     Sure enough, it did, but it turns out that dark, creepy figure hanging out in grassland was simply a mangy fox and not a thylacine as hoped.

     "Unfortunately it wasn't the Buderim Beast," Ms Smith said.
     "I was disappointed. I thought it was a tasmanian tiger."
     New photos snapped by Wesley clearly show a fox, cunning enough to have deceived many on the Coast.
     Ms Smith said she hoped the myth-buster wouldn't quash the legend of the Buderim Beast for the town.
     She noted a Buderim school that used to sell "Buderim Beast Poo" (chocolate sultanas) for fundraisers.
     For now, the legend of the Buderim Beast remains just that.