The History of the Gold Coast Yowie

FACT CHECK: "A sketch of a Jangarri supplied by the Yugambeh museum" (main article, left) used in a New Zealand newspaper, the Sunday News, from September 29, 1991, in an article about about their own Bigfoot-like creature, the Great Hairy Moehau.

"...the creatures were called fairies by the first white settlers."

FACT CHECK: A search of the online Australian newspaper archives reveals no alleged encounters with "fairies" or even "little people" (another folk name).

If anyone else can find any early non-fictional references concerning colonial sightings or encounters with a "hairy man" please contact YowieO.

Gold Coast - The region remained largely uninhabited by Europeans until 1823 when explorer John Oxley landed at Mermaid Beach, which was named after seeing a cutter named Mermaid. The hinterland's red cedar supply attracted people to the area in the mid-19th century.

A number of small townships developed along coast and in the hinterland. The western suburb of Nerang was surveyed and established as a base for the industry and by 1870 a town reserve had been set aside. By 1873, the town reserve of Burleigh Heads had also been surveyed and successful land sales had taken place. In 1875, the small settlement opposite the boat passage at the head of the Nerang River, known as Nerang Heads or Nerang Creek Heads, was surveyed, renamed Southport with the first land sales scheduled to take place in Beenleigh.

Springbrook - In 1906, the area ceased to be a timber reserve and was opened for agricultural settlement. By the 1930s Springbrook was almost completely cleared of trees. In 1911, a school opened...

The 1998 plaster cast of a large footprint found in Springbrook was sent to Dr. Jeff Meldrum of the Dept. of Biological Sciences at Idaho State University.

In 2009, YowieO enquired about the footprint cast to Dr. Meldrum. His reply:

"I did provide some preliminary comments about my impressions of the cast. I had limited info regarding its provenience. While not exactly like the sasquatch tracks, there were similarities in outline and proportion. Its singular nature, in that I only had one cast to examine from this one incident, renders any commentary tentative until such time as more corroborating examples are available."

FURTHER FACT CHECK: Seems that even the illustration from 1991 was actually a copy from a 1958 illustration of an Abominable Snowman seen by Russian scientist A.G. Pronin during an expedition to the Pamir mountains in 1957.