Merged Alien Big Cats in the UK?

[Nomada]

Refering to an post a page or so back: Even if a dog did not peel back the skin, in the UK I have read badgers meles meles sometimes kill and 'skin' rabbits and leave behind their inside-out skins. So badgers would be quite cabable of helping themselves to an already dead sheep/cow and leaving behind a partially skinned carcass.

 

[Soapy Sam]

It's not a Maine Coon, it's a domestic shorthair.

Rolfe.

I'll take your word for it. It sure ain't no snow leopard. (I could take one of those cubs home quite happily and I ain't the world's greatest cat fan, as you know.)

What I find puzzling in the "Cryptozoology" sense of this thread is why anyone would expect any sort of "Mysterious" large land mammal in New Zealand. Except seals, or Jonah bloody Lomu.

I presume therefore these guys in the video are supposing the puddy tat to be something deliberately released recently, rather than any sort of cryptozoon?

 

[Jono74]

what poppycock.
those markers come up to about waist height, iliac crest/bellybutton tops, on ave height male. its a cat. a feral cat. reminded me of my old fishing stories. it was this.... THIS big, arms growing steadily wider apart, hah.
slightly off topic, some in nz believe there are moose(?) right down south of south island in fiordland area I think. possible sightings come up occassionally in the news, usually on slow news days i think people have set up cam traps for them, just like some apparently do for bfoot, but to no avail as yet. Aparrently moose(?) were actually imported into nz in the early years.
Also, from memory I think there are some still shots (out of focus, naturally) of another big black cat in nz, that was claimed to be "****** huge"

 

[William Parcher]

"Its movements seemed to be confident, not furtive."

Aberdeenshire - Scotland

Kemnay is a reasonably large village with a main road in front of the hotel, and plenty of houses nearby so we were not expecting to see anything of this nature! I should have measured the table - small sawbench rather than a seat height. We estimated that the animal was too large for a domestic cat but smaller than a panther.

 

[William Parcher]

'Big cat' snapped by walker

It was snapped by Taunton man Alan Griffin, who spotted it during a walk in Burrow Farm Gardens, near Axminster.

"My wife and I saw this large cat on the other side of a wire fence – it was pretty big and definitely not a domestic cat," said Alan.

Two workers also saw the animal, which Alan thinks may be a puma, and there have been a number of reports of big cats in the area over the years.

 

[Rolfe]

The first one is obviously a moggie. The second one has nothing to allow you to guess the size of the animal. The shape of the silhouette suggests a lion clip to me.

Rolfe.

 

[The Don]

Yep, they look like moggies to me

 

[Tomtomkent]

Now am I alone in thinking that of all the "cryptoids" that capture the public imagination the Alien Big Cats around the UK (Beast of the Moor, etc) may be the only ones with even vague hopes of being viable? I don't mean I think they are real, but if any were real they might more likely than many.

The story, as I am sure you are aware, is that when the dangerous animal legislation was passed in the sixties, and pet pumas or leapords became frowned upon many exotic pets were let loose rather than put down, and have bred in the wild with feral offspring, cross bred with wildcats already out there.

Now I have trouble with the idea of random big cats being able to breed successfully with other random big cats. A puma or panther getting frisky with a lynx? Really? For many generations?

My suspicion is that many people have seen something bigger than a cat, that is cat shaped, and have actually some of the wildcats native to the UK, and mistaken them (with out a frame of reference) for something moderately larger.

However, that theory would rely on a lot of dead sheep and cattle being brought down by canine, instead of feline, predators, despite some compelling evidence. But is a hunting big cat proof of breeding big cats? Nope. Sorry.


Any other views?

 

[Stray Cat]

My suspicion is that many people have seen something bigger than a cat, that is cat shaped, and have actually some of the wildcats native to the UK, and mistaken them (with out a frame of reference) for something moderately larger.

There are no wildcats native to the UK.

I spent a very small amount of time (comparatively) hanging around Bodmin moor at silly times of the morning looking for the Beast of Bodmin and can see how even a badger could appear like a large stalking cat.

It is possible that a few large cats (pumas etc) were released into the wild in the 60's but really there isn't anywhere solitary enough for them to have managed to completely avoid human detection whilst somehow managing to find similar large cats to breed with.

 

[geni]

There are no wildcats native to the UK.

The European Wildcat has a limited territorial range in northern scotland. However it is really only a little larger than the standard domestic cat.

It is possible that a few large cats (pumas etc) were released into the wild in the 60's but really there isn't anywhere solitary enough for them to have managed to completely avoid human detection whilst somehow managing to find similar large cats to breed with.

Oh we know it a few large cats have been escaped or been released over the years. They tend to be rapaidly recaptured or shot:

http://web.archive.org/web/20061210...de/vertebrates/reports/exotic-cat-escapes.pdf

 

[sphenisc]

There are no wildcats native to the UK.

http://www.scottishwildcats.co.uk/sightings.html

 

[geni]

Now am I alone in thinking that of all the "cryptoids" that capture the public imagination the Alien Big Cats around the UK (Beast of the Moor, etc) may be the only ones with even vague hopes of being viable? I don't mean I think they are real, but if any were real they might more likely than many.

The problem with the idea is the UK's very high population densities. There simply isn't anywhere something as large and as mobile as a the larger members of the cat family to hide. The record for being at large appears to be a Clouded leopard that managed to avoid capture for about a year back in the 70s although it is possible that a puma managed to remain at large for as much as 2 years in scotland:

http://www.ambaile.org.uk/en/item/item_audio.jsp?item_id=38933

 

[Stray Cat]

The European Wildcat has a limited territorial range in northern scotland. However it is really only a little larger than the standard domestic cat.

OK sorry, I was too quick off the mark (is Scotland still part of the UK )...

But, they've been breeding with feral cats for centuries (I think if it weren't for feral cat populations, the last remnants of the Scottish Wild Cat would most likely have become extinct) and I think it would be less than probable that they'd be mating up with large wildcats like pumas. Would kind of be like a St.Bernard mating with a Chihuahua which whilst not biologically impossible would have certain impracticalities and complications.

 

[William Parcher]

We already have this thread. Although it is titled "Big cat sighted in Scotland" it has been used to discuss alien big cats in the UK. I'd suggest a thread merge but then using the title of this thread.

 

[demonunderyourbed]

well i can tell you 100% where i used to live this happened to me and a girlfreind one night..i lived in a huge house in a private lane,close to some large woods..we came in late one night in the car,turned into the lane and the lights hit this huge head about 20ft infront comming out of a bush..huge yellow eyes..we stopped.and this thing walked down the side of the car..huge black leopard no question..ive worked in chester zoo for over ten years..i know what a black leopard looks like ..it started to run so i got out(stupid i know)..too see it going up into the trees.huge tail behind.we rang the police as her dad was in the local force..within ten mins two cars and a dog van came screaming round.they had had reports in the past of a huge black cat roaming round.next day we had a visit from local ranger who first sentence was oh its moved over your side of the woods now..lol ooooh k..then chester zoo got in touch,can we come out and have a look round..sure, who told you??? er local police..researched it abit and where i lived is right next to a docks.where ships from all over the world come in..they say it might have been on a container ship from abroad.
for the police to send two cars and a dog van within ten mins of someone reporting a black leopard running round.says to me they already knew.about it..
i remember i few yrs before a story in the ellesmere port pioneer about a huge black cat scaring a local woman walking her dog in the woods..the woods were about two mins from where i lived..

found this article...this is the same place i lived.
Tracing The Lynx In Valley Beast Cases
By Chris Smith.
IT MIGHT be six years since we last reported on it but the Beast of Rivacre is alive and well.
Last week, after a London man was attacked by a panther-like creature in his garden, we recalled the stories we carried about a similar animal being seen by several people over a number of years in Rivacre Valley.
And we asked if anyone had any further sightings to tell us about.
One woman who got in touch believes not one but two big cats are stalking Ellesmere Port.
The Rivacre resident says she's seen a panther-like creature and, in a separate incident, a lynx.
She contacted the Pioneer about her encounters with the animals, which some zoologists call Alien Big Cats (ABCs) because they are alien to Britain.
Her first encounter came with the panther, dubbed the Beast of Rivacre, while she was walking her greyhounds 10 years ago.
'We were opposite what is known as Foxfields on a frosty night. I let the dogs off and they gave chase.
'The panther ran off. I've never been there again,' said the woman, who won't be identified.
About a year later she was walking her dogs down near the Vaux-hall Motors plant when a different creature made an appearance.
She said: 'We were walking down the path and a big lynx came right out in front of me, and stared at us before walking off. I ran straight home.'
The woman said she has also seen the animal sitting in a neighbour's oak tree in The Breck, Rivacre, and explained: 'It was eyeing her dog up.
'The animal was definitely a lynx. It was grey, mottled, with tassled hair at the end of its ears. It was also seen in another neighbour's garden.
'And my daughter spoke to a woman in Hillside Drive a few days later who said her cat was grabbed by a lynx, but the dog ran out and the lynx dropped the cat.'
Robert Hughes of Veronica Way, Little Sutton, told us he had spotted the black panther while walking his dog near Rivacre Brook one day last year.
He said: 'It was very big - about five feet long - and looked as if it was stalking something. Luckily, I don't think it saw me!
'I reported it to the ranger but he just looked at me a bit bemused.'

Ellesmere Port Pioneer: 6th April 2005

vauxhall motors listed here backed onto where i lived...

 

[Mojo]

There was a sighting in Hampshire earlier this year.

It is understood that the tranquilliser dart was not used.

 

[Rolfe]

Nobody mentioned Felicity yet?

She was real enough, and it appears her original owner took her to the most remote place he could find and let her loose at the time of the dangerous wild animals legislation. It worked for a while, but even there her impact on the sheep population was noticed and resented, and in the end she was captured and spent her later years in a wildlife park. She certainly didn't breed in the wild. (I seem to recall a theory that two pumas were originally released, but one died and the body wasn't found.)

It's absolutely impossible for anything big enough to eat sheep to be loose undetected in Britain for any significant length of time. Farmers count their sheep, and investigate losses, and every time anything large has got loose there have been the dead sheep to testify to it.

No half-eaten dead sheep = no free-living big cats. It's as simple as that. If Felicity couldn't even live unnoticed north of the Great Glen, there's nowhere. The chances of something her size living undetected in Hampshire or wherever are sub-zero.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Also, consider the subject of the thread William mentioned. It was started in reference to this report on the BBC, which received wide coverage including a bit on the national TV news.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8172064.stm

Shaun Stevens, a researcher with the Big Cats in Britain group, said: "We have regular sightings reported every year of large black cats in the Helensburgh area and it appears to be a favourite haunt of these animals. "In Argyll, I probably get to hear of maybe 20 or 30 sightings in a year. In the UK we get a sighting practically every day."
Mr Stevens said he believed the cats could be a hybrid species, or possible an entirely new species.
"I myself have photographed a black hybrid cat of over 3.5ft in length," he said.
"Knowing the width of the rail tracks in Chris's video is 4ft 8.5in, the animal photographed by him is clearly in excess of 4ft and as such is certainly not a domestic cat.
"Initial first impressions are very exciting, as I think this could be one of the best pieces of footage of a big cat in the UK ever."

The follow-up came about a month later, but was reported only in the local newspaper, without a single mention by the BBC.

http://www.helensburghadvertiser.co.../391050-moggy-sparks-debate-in-big-cat-claim/

Puss-Puss' owner is 11 year old Sophie Wallace, and her mum told the Advertiser how people had suggested to her that the cat in the original footage was theirs, but she just laughed it off. "I suppose you could say that it looks bigger than it actually is.
"All the boys thought it was him when they heard about the footage the first time.
"Puss-Puss wanders around the neighbourhood a lot and to our knowledge is the only black cat around here.

The trouble is, the first report got wide circulation, while the second (accompanied by an almost identical video to the first, but which has enough detail to show the cat is only a moggy) was buried. And that whack-job Stevens is still touting the first video as being "a hybrid" and disputing that it's the same cat.

You can't win.

Rolfe.

 

[The Don]

puss-puss' owner self-nominated designated care provider is 11 year old sophie wallace

fixed for you

 

[geni]

Nobody mentioned Felicity yet?

Yes.

She was real enough, and it appears her original owner took her to the most remote place he could find and let her loose at the time of the dangerous wild animals legislation. It worked for a while, but even there her impact on the sheep population was noticed and resented, and in the end she was captured and spent her later years in a wildlife park. She certainly didn't breed in the wild. (I seem to recall a theory that two pumas were originally released, but one died and the body wasn't found.)

It's absolutely impossible for anything big enough to eat sheep to be loose undetected in Britain for any significant length of time. Farmers count their sheep, and investigate losses, and every time anything large has got loose there have been the dead sheep to testify to it.

No half-eaten dead sheep = no free-living big cats. It's as simple as that. If Felicity couldn't even live unnoticed north of the Great Glen, there's nowhere. The chances of something her size living undetected in Hampshire or wherever are sub-zero.

Rolfe.

However at least some of the suppose alien big cat cases such as the Beast of Exmoor have involved claims of dead sheep. Actualy that one is a little odd due to the extent the authorities did get involved.