The first panther sighting in Twizel was in 1996, by a woman mountain biking. It was about 30 metres away from her when she spotted it. It was about the size of a labrador and looked a bit like a mountain lion. 

Another sighting of a panther happened two years later near Cromwell and again was the size of a labrador, and it had a mustard-coloured pelt.

In 2013 a delivery van driver from Timaru got the fright of his life when driving from Fairlie to Timaru. Thinking it was a dog or possum he wasn’t that worried about it, but when he realised that it was far too big to be either he got quite a shock. He got out of the van and started walking towards it. He looked at it and it resembled the shape of a panther. Pretty soon the panther ran away. Suddenly he heard a growl from behind the van but knew it wasn't a dog growl. He quickly jumped into the van and stared where he had seen the panther for another 5-10 minutes, but couldn’t see anything so he drove away.   

In September 2020 Jesse Feary shot a creature that looked like a panther. It was over a metre long, and it weighed 11kg. It also had 14mm long fangs. He took its DNA. When the DNA results came back, he found out it was a tiger. Though when they saw the tiger they were astonished, but still thought it was a tiger.

A panther was spotted in the Hamner Springs heritage forest 2020 by Mark Inglis and Kyle Mulinder. It was about 50 metres away strolling away when it sat down and it looked straight at us. Others said the footage was pretty poor and they aren’t so sure it was a panther, but to be safe they alerted the local police.