A local family has contacted the Lithgow Mercury identifying the mysterious beast: It’s their family pet,  Toby. 

“Sorry to let you all down, but this is my cat, Toby. That is my paddock being filmed and yes, he is a large desexed black male who loves to visit the neighbours,” Danielle Donlan commented on the Facebook post which gained plenty of local attention yesterday. 

The humour of the situation wore thin on the family, however, as the videos gained more and more attention nationally and they had concerns more people would try to come and gain pictures or perhaps hunt the panther. 

Ms Donlan said it should have been clear from the footage when judged against the fence that Toby was simply a large male cat, by no means a panther. 

EARLIER: 

There has been a purported panther sighting close to Lithgow with Belinda Baker uploading footage to Facebook on the weekend of what she believes to be Lithgow’s infamous Black Panther. 

Ms Baker said she saw a creature roaming along a slope in Kanimbla on Monday afternoon, June 11, “Not far from the Coxs River”. 

What do you think? 

“We watched it walking around for about half an hour. It was huge!” Ms Baker wrote in a post on Facebook. 

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