UKC

Tonight at Dyserth Waterfall crag my belay partner panickly shouted up to me whilst I was threading the anchors that she was being watched by a "Big Cat."

I lowered off expecting to see a large domestic moggy and was met with the sight of a BIG CAT walking across the river and in too the bushes near the houses. 

It was much bigger than any domestic cat I have ever seen.  Jet black and very muscular. 

This is the second time I have seen something like this in the A55 area.  Previously I saw a large cat crossing the road bridge across the  A55 near Flint. 

Has anyone else sighted these animals out on the crag?

Regular reports in the Welsh press about big cat sightings in both the north and south. If you're confident that's what you saw, you may wish to report it to the police through non-emergency channels: they do keep records of such sightings.

There is a Puma population in the UK and I imagine you saw one. They have adapted quite well.......

You should send a sighting report in to the Fortean Times.

The muscular observation runs counter to the normal Father Ted explanation of “small cat nearby mistaken for large cat far away”.

As sceptical as I am of British cryptozoological sightings, I do love the idea of pumas living wild in our lands.  The wild deer population is in the millions, yet I see perhaps 1-2 a year.  It stands to reason that sightings of a single tiny population of big cats would be almost non existent.  I want to believe!

I am pretty sure of its size and it's physical differences to your average UK domestic cat. 

Just hoping the cave in the corner of the crag is not it's home. 

I did some work 'tracking' them near Beddgelert  for a TV thing last year. 

Some of the stories we heard from farmers etc were interesting, some were quite suspect. I personally have seen stuff that is either explained by human involvement or a non-native large predator. 

The best was the large lamb carcass 20ft up in a tree in Clocaenog forest...

And the evidence?

or: https://www.dur.ac.uk/news/newsitem/?itemno=17454

Call that "exotic"?

I saw one while I was walking the dog early one morning in the mid-nineties. It was about the size of an Alsatian dog but very feline in the way it moved. 

There have been previous sightings not far from Dyserth:

https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/big-cat-caught-camera-nor...

When I lived in Bangor my landlord claimed to have seen a big cat near his home in Llanddona. They've had marksmen out in the past there hunting for it:
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/prowling-beast-a-black-le...

Show me the poo, or the bodies, but mostly the poo and tracks. The people i know  (vaguely) who have done lynx/ wolf/bear conservation in Europe rarely see animals, but they see tracks and scat frequently. These seem to be absent in uk animals. Maybe they collect it in plastic bags and hang it in trees?

I wondered who was doing that. Send them back!

Good story but lousy video footage. Fly down the valley, up to the hill, see a suspicious animal. Zoom in for a closer look? No swing away as quickly as possible.

I'm betting it was marsh gas.

I'm reminded of this:
https://xkcd.com/1235/

There's lots of UK photos and videos of apparent big cats. But they're all either rubbish quality, impossible to tell the scale, etc. You'd think if people really do keep encountering them someone, at some point would have got some unequivocal evidence.

If I saw a big black muscular cat whilst out and about I think I would puma pants

Yeah. Here's the gist of an email I sent to the local guy who collates sightings in Gloucestershire:

It was a cloudy night, but with a moon. Anyway, this rabbit or hare came running like a demented thing along the top of the drystone wall, about ten yards from where I was stood smoking at the door, closely followed by a thing about the size of a large black dog in length that certainly wasn't a dog, for it sprang and bounded along the top of the wall like a cat. Knocked a few capping stones off too. This would be around 2008 or 2009.

Consider that around there (I lived on the last house in a dead little hamlet called Culkerton), there is the Cirencester Park estate (about fifty square miles of woodland), and many coverts and smaller woods all over the wider area, and a small population, and many sightings over the years, I am inclined to believe my own eyes and ears.

I don't know if this at all helpful, it being so long ago, but I what I saw was dark in hue, between four and five feet long from head to hindquarters, and definitely was not a dog or fox any other beast I've ever seen in the wild. It certainly made my heart beat fast.

I remember 26 years when I lived in Croyde the local newspaer headline was a panthers skull and bones being found in a hedge row, they thought it may of been the "Exmoor Beast"

Also I had a friend who lived in Haytor and one night walking home he saw a large cat stroll across the lane/road and it turned and hissed at him, he ran to the nearest building which was the pub and refused to leave at closing time.

I do believe there are cats out there, or were a while back, if they still exist it must be through finding mates, which I feel is quite unlikely, but I do believe throughout the 70's to the 90's they were around.

And the evidence?

I think there are because of the constant stream of sightings over the years. There are plenty of mentions online. 

Any excuse...

At a rational level I don't really think there are any big cats around, but I like the idea that there are things unknown 'out there'. Like the Loch Ness Monster, Yeti and Bigfoot, they add a little harmless mystery to life. Unless they eat you...

As someone who was heavily involved in large carnivore conservation in Europe for a while I can see your point Toad. However if it is a very small number of animals then it might not be so easy to see their scat or spoor.

I was asked once if I could fund a project to have exotic large carnivores added to the W&CA1981. I declined!

I think a number of animals were released into the countryside after the Dangerous Animals Act 1976 (I think it was); wonder if any bred?

I suppose a relevant parallel is pine martens in certain places. For a while, people weren't sure if there were any in Shropshire, until one finally was sighted a few years back:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-33549202

And my understanding is that the Vincent Wildlife Trust have done lots of searching and analysis of scats and such for pine martens in mid Wales, but still have no conclusive evidence, despite there being a lot of anecdotal suggestions that a relict population clung to existence there.

How many people have we got actively looking for the poo and tracks in the UK?

We know for a fact that we have Roe Deer and Muntjac on the farm here, but it's bloody rare to see them amd even rarer to spot the tracks in an environment where the small amount of bare ground that would show tracks is regularly walked by our own livestock.

If it's hard to spot or track roe Deer I'd say that it would be even harder to track a lighter footed cat.

I once stumbled across a 6'7" jazz enthusiast, listening to Miles Davis and smoking a joint on Kinder Scout. He was one big cat.

Think you are mistaken. That, Daddio was like totally a Hep Cat

Vincent WT spent some time looking for remaining population of martens, including cameras but with no success, as you say. But one was run over near Newtown, Powys in 2012 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-20261153

So I think most were convinced there was still a small population, but the chances of confirming one were slim and numbers too low for the population to breed and increase. Hence the release into mid Wales last 3 years. One marten legged it from devils bridge area up to clochaenog forest and stayed there - probably found a mate from wild population?

Not easy to 100% confirm a very low population of a mammal, any species, when mainly nocturnal and given the forestry and remote mountain moorland terrain.

Small mammals are one thing, but im convinced we'd have a roadkill by now if there was a breeding population left over from the 70s

I have a report of one in a book (young puma I think) being shot by some fox lampers, but that was some years ago and Norfolk way.

I think there is always the chance they would be shot by gamekeepers out at night after foxes, pheasant pens and game shoots must be like a magnet to a big cat? Easy grub.

But if shot they would keep quiet about it, making it public would potentially bring down a heap of pooh on the shooter.

What I find curious, and I am not saying that there isn't any big cats in the UK, is that photographic and video evidence for them is so shite. Yes they are shy and rare but so are Snow leopards and there is some pretty stunning photographic and video evidence for them. I mean if you wanted to film big cats in the uk you wouldn't even need to spend months holed up in some remote valley, you could do it from a local B&B.

May be we should get David Attenborough involved

How about using Bear Grylls instead?
I don't mean use his undoubted skills to track it, but rather, tether him to a likely spot and cover him in raw meat and other yummy stuff that would prove irresistible to any big cats in the area.
If that doesn't work, you could spray him with the stuff* that females use to attract a mate and cover him with a fur rug and see what happens... 

*Reverse Lynx effect before anyone else says it  

Is that possibly not the best thing to do...? I think I'd rather let them live in peace, if they're there at all. Not saying the police would send in the hunters, but with enough sightings perhaps they would?

Why let them live in peace? 

Creatures like mink get hardly any sympathy at all on the grounds that they are not indigenous (not a viewpoint I support) so anything other than a European Lynx should get short shrift from even the rewilders.

No way daft bugger would probably eat its raw liver then use it as a sleeping bag.

Trust me I saw him scoop the insides of a cow out once and kip down inside it. At that point Travel lodge called security and kicked him out

I thought rewilders were really annoyed remainers

Mink get short shrift because they wreck already damaged and vulnerable ecosystems. 

So, I went to a taxidermists house, about 20 years ago. Rural Essex. Beautiful daughter.

He stated he had stuffed a number of cats for local farmers and shooters over the years. Mostly lynx. 

He also said that he had found/ was made aware of tracks locally which he then showed me plaster casts of and could easily compare them to a puma he had "to hand".

There were a number of sightings reported around that time, dogs doing a runner on a walk quickly followed by the owners etc etc.

He didn't seem to be lying to me.

I'd love to believe too, but he was perfectly placed for a little reenactment of "The hound of the baskavilles". But then again, he might actually be telling me the truth...... Maybe, just maybe.

If it helps, a friend has recently sighted a lynx, in Europe. If we are still part of Europe, does that count as confirmation?

Not the same weight as good photos and/or other corroborative evidence.

So you know the deer are there. How? 

Would a European mink be more acceptable to you?

Just read an article about why it's better to use an air gun as opposed to a bullet gun when killing an animal whose only crime is to be born in the wrong country and to be supremely efficient at what it does, the most beautiful mammal I have ever come across in the wild.

Flipping heck, I'm going fishing.

Never saw the creature in question but a couple of old colleagues of mine swore that they'd seen a big cat in the woods at work/found evidence at different times (they were at work, not the cat). I was always very sceptical until I came across a footprint in the mud one day myself. I have a photo somewhere around that I'll have a look for. It was about the length of your thumb square and definitely not a dog footprint. 

I was less sceptical after that...

Couple of wildlife trophy cams up in that exact spot should be enough to identify once or for all whether we have a wild population. Having said that the range on these animals is enormous. 

D

Trail cameras.

And a fan of scat jazz, no doubt...

I agree. I went to a talk last year about a mountain biking trip to Tanzania and one of the slides showed a leopard and the guide who was leading the trip, despite guiding in the country for years, had never seen one in the wild there before that time, despite the country being quite a strong hold for leopards. 

Just a point of order - do pumas come in black? They're the same thing as mountain lions/cougars, right? 

I find a .410 most effective at sorting out the little bastards when I trap them, air rifles aren’t quite enough. 

As for big cats, surely there’d be more concrete & believable evidence in this age of high quality camera phones? If they were out there, somebody would have shot one by now, and it’s not as if you’re going to get in bother for nailing a bloody massive non-native predator out on the prowl. 

I'm no authority but I think you're probably right; large black cats - "black panthers" - are either leopards or jaguars, both of which of course naturally have black rosettes and which are rather larger than pumas/cougars/mountain lions. Although they appear in Native American myth there doesn't actually seem to be firm evidence that black is a colour option with the latter. I think that there's been a lot of confused reporting over the years between "puma" and "panther".

That is the problem, I think you could get into trouble for shooting one (with a section 1 firearm), possible revocation of FAC - certainly up till a few years back - probably still.

Wording tended to be very restrictive didn't it, deer rifles stipulating deer only, same with the .22 calibre centrefires for fox. Now they are more open to interpretation, mine is "...fox and any other lawfull quarry....".  Different forces use different wording, but worth checking before you bowl one over.

If you shot a big cat with a rifle and went public with it and then individuals or an anti organisation put in an official complaint to your firearm department, would you risk going to crown court to argue that a puma was legally "lawful quarry" in UK? Best to bury the evidence and keep quiet.

I strongly suspect that wouldn't be the case. People love an underdog, even if it's a cat.

Fine. Hope you will apply your rationale to the next little owl you see.

Let's call a spade a spade.

Grey squirrels, American crayfish , mink, random unidentified wild cats are all immigrants so as far as the quaky notion of animal rights are concerned.....so all bets are off.

Taken further, the same dismissive approach to non indigenous species could be applied to mountain hares in the Peak District. But we wouldn't want that. Would we?

So, let me get this right, if it was identified as a European Lynx  prowling around ,it would be seen as a victory for Monbiot and his supporters, but if the animal proved to be from across the Atlantic your assessment of it would be that it was only suitable for killing and burying? (on the quiet, so as not to upset any do gooders)

I'm pretty sure I saw a large black cat in the Forest of Dean, probably the same sort of date. 

I think the criteria applied to the eradication or not of any foreign species is:

a) is it cute?

b) is cutting a swath of destruction through existing native fauna and flora

c) is it less cute than an existing native species (ie red squirrel)

Why are they always black? The sightings seem to always be black. So many other species to choose from if they werent black..... either that or its dark when sighted? 

Any sightings of drop bears, pooh?

Nb, not a dig at robs, or anyone's sightings.

I'm not following your thinking here, are you talking about mink, big cats, where did lynx come from???

For info, I would happily eradicate mink from UK, due to the carnage they cause with some of our indiginoui species - luckily they are in decline.

Regards big cats, I have stated the reason why I think if one is shot we are unlikely to hear about it. It doesn't worry me either way what happens.

It's because a lot of rewilders believe that any animal that was once roaming our countryside would be welcome back here. Maybe I'm wrong in thinking that we once had lynx in our forests. But, for instance,  you often hear people welcoming the possibility of having wolves in our countryside again.

And you yourself have suggested that an animal's native nature gives it more status/rights than a non-native creature. It's a stance I don't support.

I think an indigenous species (including plant life) should be protected against any invasive species that threatens it. The obvious are red and grey squirrels or mink threatening our water voles, or signal crayfish, for examples. 

I also include things like Himalayan balsam, the Asian hornet, these can have a big impact. Other introduced species have been around for hundreds of years without a massive negative impact on our system, loads of trees, plants, deer, I am totally pragmatic about these if doing no great harm I have no issue with them.

Your stance if applied world wide would see the extinction of even more species, New Zealand, Galapagos being prime examples, I think they are worth fighting for, possibly you don't?

On this island, introduced mice (probably on ships) are killing off a giant albatross, my stance is that the mice go by any means possible, your logic seems to be that the mice have as much right to be there, so tough on the albatross. We will never agree on that.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-37729465

I suppose there's not much point in speaking up on behalf of our Black Rat population, then.....?       

A witty retort would have been "What Black Rat population.?"

I started typing a witty retort and then decided it wasn't that witty, just for once I stopped myself in time!

It's worth remembering that there have been proven cases of big cats present in the wilder parts of the UK. For example this account of a mountain lion trapped in Glen Affric after various claimed sightings in the area. http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12019398.Ted_Noble/

"After Ted and various of his neighbours in the Glen Affric and Strathglass areas of Inverness-shire had investigated reports of big cats being sighted locally for three years, he found success with a baited, specially built, cage-trap.

The puma, also known as the cougar or mountain lion, is a species native only to North America and lives off deer, small animals, birds, and also carrion in the wild.

Ted created a sensation when he discovered the beast trapped near Tomich, Inverness-shire, on October 29, 1980.

The animal was a top tourist draw for the next four years at the Highland Wildlife Park, Kincraig, near Aviemore, until she died in February 1985."

I think the paucity of sightings is quite easy to explain, on account of there probably being extremely few cats out there, and that cats are extremely shy of humans. I worked for several months with a team of other wildlife biologists in a forested area in the US where mountain lion and bobcat were present, and none of us saw either. The areas most suited for big cats to persist are those least visited by people: the interior of large blocks of forestry.

The lack of tracks and droppings is maybe harder to explain, but maybe not: who is out looking for and would recognise big cat tracks and droppings? I wouldn't say there's a particular drive in the naturalist community to estimate the number of big cats in the UK. That's also not to say there are no signs at all: an experienced naturalist I know found a very strange non-UK carnivore dropping in rural Perthshire.

There is a tendency to dismiss all big cat sightings as wilful fantasies or just plain old bad identification skills by city folk. I'm sure this is the case for some of the sightings, maybe even the majority: however, personally, the only two sightings I've heard of first hand were relayed in a quite matter of fact way and from sober, experienced individuals. These sightings were of a panther, like the OP's, in east Sutherland and a mountain lion in Dumfries & Galloway: the first sighting was from someone that has worked on big cats in Africa, and the second was from a vet. 

The density of trail cameras is increasing rapidly so that should increase the chances of detecting any cats that are out there. However, it is hard to believe that there are anything like as many releases nowadays as there were around the time of the Dangerous Wild Animals Act in 1976, so surely the few cats that are out there will soon dwindle from extremely few to none.

Once met a ginger cat with huge knackers on the West Highland Way. It answered to the name of Jonesy.

Yes, there was an FOI request at the Forestry Commission in 2009 that revealed they'd seen two in the Forest of Dean in 2002 and 2005 using thermal imaging.

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/reliable-big-cat-sightings...

Their life expectancy is estimated at around twelve years. It would be remarkable if the current and increasing numbers of sightings can be explained purely by escapees.

As per Jurassic Park, life has a way.

Less remarkable than having a breeding population I think

Isn't it odd why almost all photos or videos of alleged big cats are out of focus. Even the simplest digital camera/phone has auto focus yet hardly ever is there a good clear photo or video of a big cat. Hmmm.

Dave