{"id":24753,"date":"2020-11-14T04:00:46","date_gmt":"2020-11-13T19:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/nov\/14\/big-cat-country-new-zealands-obsession-with-giant-feline-sightings"},"modified":"2020-11-14T04:00:46","modified_gmt":"2020-11-13T19:00:46","slug":"big-cat-country-new-zealands-obsession-with-giant-feline-sightings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=24753","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Big cat&#8217; country? New Zealand&#8217;s obsession with giant feline sightings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Is there a pleasure in not knowing if the decades-old mystery about a cat prowling the country\u2019s South Island is fact or fiction?<\/p>\n<p>The photograph is disappointing. Blurry, as they all are. It shows a dark blob striding up a leafy trail in the distance. The size of the creature is hard to deduce, though the witness, an osteopath named Mark Orr who was out mountain-biking with friends in Hanmer Springs, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/national\/programmes\/checkpoint\/audio\/2018770151\/another-glimpse-of-the-mysterious-south-island-giant-cat\">said the animal was \u201cabout knee-height\u201d, looked \u201cvery strong and quite stocky\u201d,<\/a> and \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/big-cat-mystery-very-daunting-fresh-sighting-in-canterburys-hanmer-springs\/U5G3RH3FYBP2B3KL6WRXEFB6P4\/\">just had an aura about it\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>An aura. Almost all animals have auras, don\u2019t they? Even feral cats, goats, wild pigs. While the mention of the aura seemed strange, it was also compelling. I want to believe.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/nov\/14\/big-cat-country-new-zealands-obsession-with-giant-feline-sightings\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is there a pleasure in not knowing if the decades-old mystery about a cat prowling the country\u2019s South Island is fact or fiction?The photograph is disappointing. Blurry, as they all are. It shows a dark blob striding up a leafy trail in the distance. T&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":813,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-new-zealand"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/813"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24753"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24754,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24753\/revisions\/24754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}