'Panther' sighting proves to be a dog

Paw prints found in mud on a farm near Ashburton, where a large black animal was spotted last week, have turned out to belong to a dog.

Nathan Hawke, a spokesman for Orana Wildlife Park in Christchurch, said his specialist team had looked at photos of the paw prints and samples of faeces.

They belonged to a dog, he said.

A farmer at Wakanui who sighted the animal on Wednesday last week said when he went back four days later there were large deep paw prints at the site, with claw marks at the end of each toe.

A MAF biosecurity incursion investigator, Caleb King -- who last week unsuccessfully scoured the area of the Ashburton River mouth after another reported sighting -- said at the time his first reaction was that the print could have been made by a dog, because of the claw marks.

Cats generally only unsheathed their claws when hunting, not when walking, he said.

Periodic sightings over the past 15 years of a large black cat-like animal, at sites ranging from the Mid Canterbury foothills to as far south as Lindis Pass, have fed speculation about a small panther roaming the region.

- NZPA