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The Yengarie Lion part 2

£100 REWARD FOR YENGARIE 'LION'

The Courier-Mail (Brisbane, Qld.)
Date: July 8, 1946
Page Number: 1

MARYBOROUGH, Sunday.

Yengarie's mystery lion — or lioness — now has a price on its head, dead or alive. Proprietors of two hotels have offered £50 each for the skin of the lion — providing it is a lion.

Mr. Ted Ferrie, proprietor of the Commercial Hotel, said he would gladly pay that much for the lion, if alive, for Mary borough's Soldiers' Memorial Park.

Mr. Gordon Harper, proprietor of the European Hotel, wants the skin to hang in the bar.

Ferrie and Harper have agreed upon, a basis of "bring him back, dead or alive." These rewards have led to the forming of a party of hunters to seek out the lion in its forest lair. All the old rifles in the town are being collected for a hunt either to-morrow or Tuesday.

People throughout the Wide Bay and Burnett district are talking, speculating, gambling over the lion.

Yesterday, while he was moulding bricks from clay, I said to John Hoskins, 21, "Have you seen this lion?" He answered, "Yes, I've seen it. Why, don't you believe it?" Then he told me his story.

"I saw it three weeks ago," John said. "It was a lion — definitely. It was in Mr. Jesse's big paddock, half a mile from here." (Mr. Edgar Jesse, who was present at the interview, is a dairy farmer.)

John's brother, James, 18, and their uncle, Mr. John Barton, who owns the 300-acre Yengarie property where they work, also were present.

John said: "I saw what I thought was a calf coming out of the wattle bushes— and I saw it was a lion. I think it was a puma — after we asked those fellers from Brisbane." (He was referring to the party of two Dutchmen, an American, and an Australian, who came here last week to try to catch the lion.)

"It was about two and a half feet high and four feet long. It looked just like a lion."

John said finally: "It could not be anything else apart from a lioness. The fellers who were up here hunting it told me it might be a mountain lion."

Not A Dingo

Mr. Jesse said he was satisfied it was not a dingo. "I am satisfied it is a lion specie," he told me. "It is certainly some animal that is not common in these parts."

James Hoskins said, "I have heard him howl myself — a long drawn-out roar or howl. I've seen his prints — just like a big cat's footprints."

Mr. John Barton, 55, dairy farmer, said: "The wife first saw the lion. That was seven months ago. She saw the cows running about, and something the cows were following. She said it was not a dingo. It went across the paddock, and I went to head if off and I shot at it with a pea rifle. It stopped and turned round and looked at me, and I saw it was a lioness. It bounded away like a big old cat."

YENGARIE 'LION' STILL A MYSTERY

The Courier-Mail (Brisbane, Qld.)
Date: June 10, 1946
Page Number: 3

MARYBOROUGH, Tuesday.

Strange wld animals were seen and shot at during to-day's hunt for the Yengarie "lion" or "lioness," but the identity of the animal is still a mystery.

A party of 40 hunters with guns collected in the town hunted the "lion" in rough country for 50 square miles, but all that could be vouched for was the sighting of out-size wild animals.

Heading the hunters were Mr. Ted Ferrie, ex-A.I.F. proprietor of the Commercial Hotel, and Mr. Gordon Harper, proprietor of the European Hotel, who both have of fered £50 reward for the lion's skin.

Zest was added to the hunt by these two men because each is keen to win the other's reward.

The party was equipped with .303's and single and double barrelled shotguns and other armament. The hunt will be continued to-morrow.

Circus Train

To-day's hunt was confined to the Oakhurst district. Perry Brothers' circus train, which passed through the "lion country" at midday gave added interest to the hunters.

The circus people showed us four lionesses which looked just like big wild dingoes, which, we have been told, this mystery lion resembles.

Ferrie, Harper and others in the party had several shots at wild animals which may or may not have been the mystery lion or lioness, but the shots were not effective.

Evidence has been found of fur- ther depredations by the mysterious animal, and more small cattle have been killed. It is planned to extend the area of the search to-day.

The Australian Imperial Force (AIF) was the name given to all-volunteer Australian Army forces dispatched to fight overseas during World War I and World War II.

The cougar (Puma concolor), also known as the puma, mountain lion, or catamount, is a mammal of the family Felidae, native to the Americas. This large, solitary cat has the greatest range of any large wild terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere.

Dingo v. Lioness

MAY BE THE SAME LION

The Courier-Mail (Brisbane, Qld.)
Date: July 19, 1946
Page Number: 2

THE Yengarie "lion" must be a reincarnation of the Tinana lion which roamed the country more than 20 years ago near the water reservoir, a few miles from Yengarie. The animal killed and mutilated several young female cattle, children were kept from school, adults would not venture out after dark, and men went about with firearms. The scare at length died out, but I never heard of the culprit being killed. It was suggested that the killer was a cross between a large hound and a dingo. — F. J. Watson (Toowong).

YENGARIE'S 'LION' JUST A SKIN NOW

The Courier-Mail (Brisbane, Qld.)
Date: July 23, 1946
Page Number: 1

The Yengarie "lion" is dead. Shot by a Yengarie cream carrier, it proved to be an outsize female dingo-collie or dingo-alsatian cross.

Last night scores saw its skin — 6 feet from nose to tail — pegged on the lounge wall of the Commercial Hotel, Maryborough.

Mr. Christian Pederson Moes, Yengarie cream carrier, shot it on Friday near the Teebar road, 20 miles from Maryborough, and 10 miles from Yengarie.

The beast, which had terrified Yengarie for weeks, measured six feet from tip to tip, stood 2 feet 6 inches high, and weighed 170lb.

It had shaggy shoulders, a furry neck, and a dingo's colouring. It had a tail 2ft. long, like a fox's brush. It was broad, heavy set, with hugh claws and heavy pads, six inches across. "I shot it last Friday," Mr. Moes, an expert bushman, said last night. "It was far bigger than the biggest dingo I have ever seen. Sideways on it looked for all the world like a lion.

"I was terrified when after my first shot from a .303 rifle at 40 yards had hit its head it got up and tried to make towards me. "I lost no time reloading and put another bullet through its head.

"It was big enough to bring down a half-grown bullock." Opened up, the "lion" had inside it half a poddy calf, portions of fowls and wild birds, a quantity of buck shot (probably from the recent hunt), and chewed rope and leather.

Mr. Moes took the skin to Mr. Ted Ferrie, proprietor of the Commercial Hotel, who had offered £100 reward if the beast proved to be a lion. Mr. Gordon Harper, of the European Hotel, had made a similar offer.

Mr. Ferrie charged 2/ admission to the lounge to see the skin, the money to go to the Bush Children's Health Scheme. It is proposed to have the skin stuffed and put in the Maryborough School of Arts.

Tell By Teeth

Mr. Heber Longman, former director of the Queensland Museum, said last night that the skull should be saved for the museum. 'The classification of the animal will be obvious by the size and formation of its teeth,' he said. A Brisbane expert on the cross breeding of animals said he could not imagine the cross-breeding of a dog with a dingo that could produce an animal weighing 170lb.

'Lion' Skin Vanishes

The Courier-Mail (Brisbane, Qld.)
Date: July 24, 1946
Page Number: 1

The skin of the Yengarie "lion" was souvenired last night from the lounge of the Commercial Hotel,
Maryborough. This is the skin, held by Mr, C. P. Moes, a Yengarie cream carter, who shot the "lion," which turned out to be a cross-bred female dingo collie or dingo-alsatian. Mr. Ted Ferrie, proprietor of the Commercial Hotel, said last night that when at 9 p.m. he went into the lounge, where the skin had been on display, it had disappeared. Police had begun a search for it. The skin was to have been displayed at schools to-day to raise funds for the Bush Children's Health Scheme.

Christian Pederson Moes and the Yengarie "Lion" skin

The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW)
Date: July 24, 1946
Page Number: 2

Caption:

The mysterious "Yengarie Lion," which proved to be a strange crossbreed animal, has been shot after evading hunting parties for weeks and causing havoc among calves.

"For goodness sake hide in the bush until the election is over."