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For 200 years scientific experts, bushmen and downright cranks have offered ‘explanations’ of the bunyip.

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Some bunyip ‘explanations’ seem more bizarre than any actual belief in the bunyip itself!

One popular theory claims that the bunyip is merely a seal which has ventured far from its coastal habitat via the inland river system. In 1850, for example, the Director of the Geological Survey of Victoria reported a large group of seals swimming up the flooded Murrumbidgee River, 1200 kilometres from the sea.

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The dreadful cries attributed to the bunyip have likewise found an ‘explanation’. This unsettling sound has been traced to the Brown Bittern, a bird whose booming call has earned it the nickname of the ‘Murray Bull’.

Another explanation comes from those who suggest that the bunyip legends derive from Aboriginal tribal memories of the giant mammals which used to roam the Australian continent.

But do we really want all of the earth’s mysteries explained? Isn’t there something to be gained by keeping the bunyip alive as a mysterious, lurking presence in the dark waters of the billabong?

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