Merged Alien Big Cats in the UK?

Darat said:
Beat me to it. Heard it being talked about on the telly - still had to give some air time to a nutter! :mad: Really hope the BBC can get back to actual "balanced reporting" - which doesn't mean every story has two equally valid sides.
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It was on Radio 4, too, though they were slightly less credulous than the TV reports. There was an interview with someone who had done the DNA analysis of the deer corpse saying that they had found only fox DNA and no feline DNA (despite looking pretty hard for it). He was apparently keeping an open mind on whether there was a big cat out there, though. (I'm guessing that maybe he doesn't want to turn down any future opportunities to do testing.)

From Twitter (@BBCr4today):
Univ of Warwick's Dr Robin Allaby says DNA shows only fox having been in contact with deer carcass but 'open-minded' on #bigcat thesis
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The recording of the interview is here, but may be UK only (it's not working for me from behind a firewall that appears to be outside the UK).

Beast of Woodchester 'highly unlikely'

Fears that Gloucestershire might have its very own answer to the Beast of Bodmin Moor were raised after a deer carcass was found with wounds which some thought could have been caused by a large feline predator.
Scientists at the University of Warwick have analysed the carcass and Dr Robin Allaby, of the School of life Sciences at the University of Warwick, describes what they found.
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They also (and I'm not sure if I heard this on the radio or TV) interviewed a guy, I think the name was Frank Tonbridge, who was "100% certain" that there was a big cat at large.
 
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The argument by Frank Tonbridge was that there was no way a fox would eat that much meat. So now he's an expert on fox consumption? Maybe there were several foxes. Also it's possible that the foxes took away a lot of meat and buried it; foxes do that apparently.
 
Soapy Sam said:
Scottish Wildcats are near as elusive as Nessie. I've never seen either.
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On Springwatch (or Autumnwatch, I forget which) a couple of years ago they set up a base in Scotland somewhere where Wildcats had been seen and settled themselves in for a long week of disappointment. They even specifically said to the audience at home that they were almost certainly going to be wasting their time because Wildcats were incredibly rare sightings. And they got up close and personal with one the very first day.
 
On the BBC Breakfast report, they interviewed a local councillor, who remained convinced there was "something" about. I couldn't help being reminded of the recent Sherlock episode, in which Dartmoor locals fostered the myth of the "Baskerville Hound" because it was good for the tourist trade!
 
Attached is another Welsh big cat sighting.



For scale, the bush immediately behind the creature is 8ft tall :D
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
On Springwatch (or Autumnwatch, I forget which) a couple of years ago they set up a base in Scotland somewhere where Wildcats had been seen and settled themselves in for a long week of disappointment. They even specifically said to the audience at home that they were almost certainly going to be wasting their time because Wildcats were incredibly rare sightings. And they got up close and personal with one the very first day.
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Sounds like a set-up. I bet it said "Meow!" with a RADA-trained accent!

My time in the highlands was mostly walking and camping. You could do this for decades and never encounter a wildcat. For that matter, the only times I saw Pine Martens were from inside a car.

Obviously, if you go where they are known to be and sit for days, the chance of a sighting goes up.
Question nowadays is whether any Scottish Wildcats are actually 100% wildcat, as opposed to being hybrids with feral domestic moggies.
 
Soapy Sam said:
Sounds like a set-up. I bet it said "Meow!" with a RADA-trained accent!
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I don't think so. It left them with the rest of the week with nothing to do. It made the segment pointless for the next 4 days. If it were a set-up, then surely they'd have teased it throughout the week and finally caught it on camera on the last day?

Besides, they've had these types of segments where they find absolutely nothing.

Obviously, if you go where they are known to be and sit for days, the chance of a sighting goes up.
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That's exactly what they did. Although they sighted it on the first day and then just sat there doing nothing for a further 4.
 
Essex Police investigate 'lion' sighting near St Osyth

Bump for another one.
Police in Essex are investigating reports that a lion has been spotted in a field near St Osyth.

Police - who have told residents to enjoy the bank holiday but "be cautious" - are looking for signs after the sighting off Earls Hall Drive.

Essex police are working with experts from Colchester Zoo who believe the reports to be genuine after being shown a photograph by a member of the public.
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BBC link.
Essex police.
 
The Sun will be publishing naked pictures of the lion. They're in the public interest due to raising issues regarding its security arrangements.
 
The stupid Victorian government has caved in to idiot farmers to start a formal, government funded hunt for big cats.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/vi...ported-sightings/story-e6frf7kx-1226455280709

Just weeks after it shelved plans to solve the decades-long mystery, the Victorian Government now wants to put the matter to rest once and for all.

Witness sightings have been recorded, over at least 60 years, of cougars, panthers or pumas in a wide stretch of Victoria from Gippsland to the Otways, the Grampians, central Victoria and at Beechworth in the northeast.
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Utter waste of public money.
 
Radio 5 just reported that police in Essex think it was just a cat.

Any reports of roars must have been due to overactive imaginations.
 
The Don said:
Radio 5 just reported that police in Essex think it was just a cat.

Any reports of roars must have been due to overactive imaginations.
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this is one of the pics of the alleged pussy cat...looks like a lion to me.
 

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demonunderyourbed said:
this is one of the pics of the alleged pussy cat...looks like a lion to me.
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Clearly not the same cat as in the other pics. I'm guessing you are chain yanking.

Or, the 2009 sighting thread should not have been merged???


Never mind, I see the current thread wasn't merged, someone just brought up this older one. It's still not the same cat.
 
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