Scratch Marks on Ghost gums. What animal?

My money is on a goanna. They love climbing trees and they'll shoot up the nearest one in a flash as soon as they're spooked.
The scratch marks appear to be about the right distance apart for a goanna.
Cats claws are pretty close together and always needle-sharp. Goanna claws are bigger and more blunt.

oh yeah, forgot about them, a goanna of some type is another option. Lots of them still around..

Cheers
Greg

10/10 for that response!

Ross, we were camped in caravans at a gold show at Mt Burt in the mid-1980's, and the eldest nephew had a young blue heeler.
The bluey flushed out a goanna that had been hanging around the camp, and the goanna took off at high speed into the mulga with the dog in hot pursuit.

The goanna got about 300M out from camp, and scrambled straight up a small mulga - and climbed right out on the end of a small branch, that bowed down dangerously.
The bluey thought this was all great fun, and stood below the branch, barking his head off.

Next, thing - to our utter amazement - the goanna took a flying leap - and landed square on the dogs back! - and hung on like a jockey!!

The bluey took off like a rocket, yelping his head off - and the goanna rode him like a champ for about 100 metres!

We were absolutely rolling on the ground with laughter, I've never seen anything so funny in all my life.

The goanna baled out and jumped off after about 100 metres - the dog flew back into camp, and dived under a caravan - and he never chased a goanna ever again! LOL

100 points for the goanna!!!

Monitors will pretty much eat anything and scavenge around. Could well be looking for a birds nest as they love to eat eggs and birds

Goannas will eat anything that moves and a lot that doesn't. They'll scavenge carrion, they love eggs - they can catch and will eat fully-grown birds - but in a tree, they'd be after hatchlings.

I've seen a goanna sneak up to a cold campfire and swallow a chop bone (after the dog had been chewing on it), in one gulp.

The way goannas catch fully-grown birds is to lie still and wait until a bird is walking around near their tail. They swish their tail sideways at terrific speed, and knock the bird off its feet - at the same time as they pounce on the bird and grab it in their jaws.

Big bungarras are utterly fearless. We found one one day in the early 1970's, walking through the little orchard next to the house.
He was about 2.2M and he wasn't frightened of us in the least.

The brother walked up behind him to try and grab him, and the goanna pulled the tail-swish trick, trying to knock the brother down!
He was pretty vicious, he wanted to bite us at every opportunity, whenever we got close.

I've no doubt if he thought he could get us to slide down his throat, he'd have us for a meal!

Alan I showed my son the pic who is a bit of an expert on reptiles but monitors ( Goannas) in particular and he only gave me a not overly convincing maybe for them being the culprit and did mention feral cat as an alternative As well

Graeme,
foxes probably climb trees because they are a member of the cat family.