The woman’s story adds to growing speculation that large predatory cats – possibly panthers – inhabit Lake Macquarie bush.

The Lakes Mail has examined the plaster cast.

It shows a paw print that is even larger than the one recently captured by Jack Tessier, 16, and his father Glenn Wright, at Wyee, which was featured on the front page of this newspaper.

The woman, who asked not to be identified, said the size and depth of the paw print she had captured were evidence of “a massive cat”.

“Let’s just say you wouldn’t want to come face to face with this big cat in the bush,” she said.

The woman’s husband, whom she described as a former hunter and animal tracker, estimated the print had been created by an animal weighing between 110 and 120 kilograms.

The woman, an experienced animal breeder and former zoo employee, said reading about the teen’s find at Wyee had brought back vivid memories of her own paw print discovery in 1992.

“Our neighbours’ ponies were running around and going mad one night,” she said.

As the owners got out of bed and set about moving the horses into the stables, they heard what they thought was a large cat “screaming out”.

The next morning, the woman and her husband, as well as friend David Sisson, were looking around near the property when they found the paw prints.

“There was some mud about, and puddles here and there, and then we saw this whopping great paw print where we think the animal had been leaning over to drink from a puddle,” she said.

A second incomplete print was spotted alongside it.

“I knew immediately that it was a cat’s prints. A dog’s pads are different, and a different shape,” she said.

After making the plaster cast, the woman said she contacted a zoo, National Parks and Wildlife Service, and the media, to report her find.

“But nobody was interested,” she said. “And that shocked me.”

It was not the last time she was to hear about local panthers.

About four years ago, a friend of her husband said he spotted what he thought was a panther at Freemans Waterhole, twice in the space of a few weeks.

“He was working up past The Gap, and the first time he saw it this big black cat was sitting up like a sphinx just off the edge of the road.

“He stopped the car and went back for a look, but by then it had disappeared.”

The woman said there were three common theories to explain how panthers might have arrived in the Australian bush.

“First there is the American servicemen who brought cubs out as mascots during the war,” she said.

Circuses and zoos were the other likely sources, she said.

“Back then they wouldn’t have reported it if one of their animals escaped or was released.”