Merged Alien Big Cats in the UK?

[William Parcher]

It's just "some feral cats exist which are larger than average, and black, because they have a little bit of exotic cat in their ancestry courtesy of an escapee in the 1970s" isn't really a very newsworthy item.

Beyond that, hey, some feral cats alive now might have a little bit of exotic cat in their ancestry, and these may be larger than average and black.

Right, but we are talking about possible hybrids within the genus Felis. Increased size, but with limitations. The Big Cats are genus Panthera. We are not expecting Felis x Panthera (which would really kick-up the size).

The issue is that so many eyewitnesses are compelled to estimate the size of their beast as being in the domain of Panthera, not a Felis x Felis hybrid. The hype is for these wild or escaped exotics to be Panthera, not Felis. If you look at the enthusiast websites, you see many comparison photos of melanistic leopard (Panthera).

 

[Rolfe]

Well, exactly!

Rolfe.

 

[William Parcher]

Cougar Hysteria

In the last year alone, we have witnessed television and newspaper news alerts, warning signs posted along public trails, public school and work-site closings, and city police warnings issued in several eastern states over nothing more than reported sightings backed up with videos and photographs of bobcats and housecats mistaken to be cougars and black panthers. It seems that deep down, somewhere in our psyche, many want these animals to exist so much that these kinds of events have become commonplace, even in our populated and heavily-modified environments. This phenomenon even exists in Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries that don’t have native large cats. The term often used to describe these mysterious sightings of pumas or panthers is “Phantom Cats” or Alien Big Cats (ABCs).

 

[Marduk]

No, you have no evidence that "they're out there". And that last link is just another story along the same lines as the mauled horse. Pure conjecture.

well I think we can all see which side of the fence youre sitting on, to claim that big cats aren't occaisonally spotted in the UK is ridiculous when I have actually posted pictures of some of them.

I am not saying that I totally agree with either of the two schools of thought that I posted, but we do have alien big cats on the loose, they turn up bodily too often to deny it. Before you go mocking my use of Alien there, you'd best be aware that it is the right termnology for a creature that isn't native which is in evidence.


btw the last link was backed up by several eyewitnesses and the testimony of the boy himself, who managed to describe the usual method used by panthera when attacking bipeds in its native habitat and displayed the wounds to prove it. I expect you'd claim he saw it on a tv show and then faked the injuries, and then went on to convince his parents, friends and the local constabulary that he had really been attacked. I expect he hasa future as a oscar winning actor, wake up, he was 11, not 30
To claim that it is conjecture is the grossest exaggeration, do you know what the word actually means or is it just an attempt on your part to defend your earlier position which you had decided on before you knew any of the evidence

as for me not examining the defra list properly, perhaps you can tell me then why there are not 6 unknowns listed but 11. I suggested you just look at the last six, I said nothing about ignoring the rest of the data
This means that 1/3 of the proven cats are from an unknown source, not 1/5 so in fact, you didn't really bother to read it at all before rendering judgement did you.



and no, 2052 sightings is not just like bigfoot, we have a far smaller area and the witnesses on the whole were not a bunch of rednecks out to make some bucks from the local rag. The 2052 were reported in a 14 month period, since 2000 there have been over 12000 sightings and current government policy is that it is a police matter admittedly some of the claims were that they had spotted Top cat, the pink panther, Garfield or Simba, but these are not added to the figures
you say they arent there, thats fine, but the British Forestry commission don't agree with you
http://phantomsandmonsters.wetpaint.com/page/British+Forestry+Commission+Confirms+Big+Cats+Roam+UK
let me guess ?
conjecture again ?

this is a sceptic site, one of the rules of scepticism is that you are aware of the evidence and make an informed decision based on it, by claiming that there are no big cats in the wild in the UK you have shown a shocking ignorance of the facts

for shame

 

[William Parcher]

and no, 2052 sightings is not just like bigfoot, we have a far smaller area and the witnesses on the whole were not a bunch of rednecks out to make some bucks from the local rag. The 2052 were reported in a 14 month period, since 2000 there have been over 12000 sightings and current government policy is that it is a police matter admittedly some of the claims were that they had spotted Top cat, the pink panther, Garfield or Simba, but these are not added to the figures

It is because of the context you used. Thousands of sightings... they can't all be wrong. You sound unfamiliar with Bigfootery. Plenty of witnesses are not "redneck", nor out to make money from it.

you say they arent there, thats fine, but the British Forestry commission don't agree with you
http://phantomsandmonsters.wetpaint.com/page/British+Forestry+Commission+Confirms+Big+Cats+Roam+UK
let me guess ?
conjecture again ?

The official confirmation came yesterday — proving thousands of members of the public have been right for years.

Do you have a link to the actual government confirmation, instead of a blurb from a paranormal site?

The government is saying that this photo (on that link) shows a black leopard in the UK wilds?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Cougar Hysteria

And here I thought the link was going to refer to Desperate Housewives!

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

ETA: removed a comment that was based on a misunderstanding of a post.


I once heard a news story about incursions of mountain lions into Missouri and Iowa. IIRC, part of the issue is that farmers and ranchers want laws changed to protect their property from just about anything, and reports of big cats can lead to a scare that might support passing such laws. So it might not be simply a matter of mistaken sightings but more about people who are motivated to see big cats.

 

[William Parcher]

And here I thought the link was going to refer to Desperate Housewives!

As I posted it, I thought that there is no way this forum will let that title pass. I intentionally left off the subtitle just for fun.

 

[Marduk]

It is because of the context you used. Thousands of sightings... they can't all be wrong. You sound unfamiliar with Bigfootery. Plenty of witnesses are not "redneck", nor out to make money from it.

Probably an error on my part mentioning bigfoot in the same breath, duh

Do you have a link to the actual government confirmation, instead of a blurb from a paranormal site?

The government is saying that this photo (on that link) shows a black leopard in the UK wilds?

I have the local gloucestershire news report that includes a police telephone number and a comment from the environmental health officer which is a lot more credible and is obviously the source for the earlier site
http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co...ats-Forest/article-586302-detail/article.html

and

Earlier this year, Forestry Commission chiefs admitted for the first time that their own rangers had reported sightings of big cats in the Forest of Dean, in 2002 and 2005. The incidents were only made public after a request was made under the Freedom of Information Act.

http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/wdp/lifestyle/s-lurking-garden/article-732345-detail/article.html
which may go someway to explaining why government sites weren't blazing it across their front pages

 

[William Parcher]

So it might not be simply a matter of mistaken sightings but more about people who are motivated to see big cats.

JTJ, cougars are confirmed in Missouri and Iowa.

 

[William Parcher]

I have the local gloucestershire news report that includes a police telephone number and a comment from the environmental health officer which is a lot more credible and is obviously the source for the earlier site
http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co...ats-Forest/article-586302-detail/article.html

In new information revealed under the Freedom of Information Act the Forestry Commission has confirmed two reliable sightings of large cats.

Rangers taking part in a deer survey using thermal imaging cameras spotted the creatures on two separate occasions in different areas of the Forest.

Deputy surveyor Rob Guest said they were reliable sightings of the mystery beasts.

He said: "Both were observed at night using heat-activated night vision equipment, used to undertake deer census, so the colour of the animals was not determined."

The first sighting was at the edge of Churchill Inclosure east of Parkend in February 2002 and the second was on the southern slopes of Staple Edge in March 2005."

But Mr Guest said there was no sign of large cats during the most recent deer census in March 2008.

Despite no concrete photographic evidence of big cats in the county, Gloucestershire police believe there are pairs living in the Forest of Dean and around the Cirencester area.

There could be problems with estimating size using thermal night-vision. They have no photos. It's not a proper confirmation.

The thing is, these Big Cats should be rather easy to locate and confirm. They are territorial and creatures of habit. They use game trails and scent-mark, etc. Camera traps will take pictures of them. Is the gov. presently engaging efforts to properly confirm them? Camera traps, meat baiting, scent baiting, hair traps, etc. all work VERY WELL for wild or escaped felids.

 

[Marduk]

There could be problems with estimating size using thermal night-vision. They have no photos. It's not a proper confirmation.

The thing is, these Big Cats should be rather easy to locate and confirm. They are territorial and creatures of habit. They use game trails and scent-mark, etc. Camera traps will take pictures of them. Is the gov. presently engaging efforts to properly confirm them? Camera traps, meat baiting, scent baiting, hair traps, etc. all work VERY WELL for wild or escaped felids.

totally agree, the police as always do not require evidence of an animal to take reports from a government source seriously. I think they would rather err on the side of safety than have to say "we did nothing" when someones toddler goes missing.

but heres the thing, we are a country that has reports of big cats roaming the countryside
we are a country that has recovered bodies of those big cats which were roaming the countryside
we have testimony from people attacked by those big cats roaming the countryside

so does it really matter if theyre recent escapees or breeding in the wild, either way, theyre still out there aren't they

found in a field by a farmer in Devon in 2006

identified as a puma

 

[William Parcher]

Camera trapping research project to survey for cougars in Western Kentucky/Tennessee. They didn't capture any on camera but got lots of other animals. No Bigfoots either.

The report contains some very interesting data from a project in Myanmar to survey tiger populations...

How do you know if an animal is truly absent?

Carbone et al. (2001) used camera trapping rates and computer simulations to estimate the minimum effort required to determine if tigers (or any other species) were present in an area.

Carbone et al. (2001) found that camera trapping programs running for 1000 trap nights had a 95% chance of obtaining at least 1 photograph at simulated low tiger densities of 0.4-0.7 individuals per 100 km2.

If trapping effort were 10,000 trap nights tigers presence could be determined when cat density was very low 0.05/100km2.

I think "trap nights" = number of cameras x nights in use.

 

[Rolfe]

well I think we can all see which side of the fence youre sitting on, to claim that big cats aren't occaisonally spotted in the UK is ridiculous when I have actually posted pictures of some of them.

Please show where I claimed that "big cats aren't occaisonally spotted in the UK". I said no such thing. I said that in every case you cited, there was no reason to believe the animal wasn't a recent escape from captivity. Which rather implies, unless something else got out last week, that there are probably none "out there" at the moment.

I am not saying that I totally agree with either of the two schools of thought that I posted, but we do have alien big cats on the loose, they turn up bodily too often to deny it. Before you go mocking my use of Alien there, you'd best be aware that it is the right termnology for a creature that isn't native which is in evidence.

Sorry, you have been totally unable to produce a single piece of evidence for an animal turning up which wasn't either definitely or most probably a recent escapee.

btw the last link was backed up by several eyewitnesses and the testimony of the boy himself, who managed to describe the usual method used by panthera when attacking bipeds in its native habitat and displayed the wounds to prove it. I expect you'd claim he saw it on a tv show and then faked the injuries, and then went on to convince his parents, friends and the local constabulary that he had really been attacked. I expect he hasa future as a oscar winning actor, wake up, he was 11, not 30

To claim that it is conjecture is the grossest exaggeration, do you know what the word actually means or is it just an attempt on your part to defend your earlier position which you had decided on before you knew any of the evidence

It's just another story, even less convincing than last week's mauled horse. Put it in the Bigfoot file.

as for me not examining the defra list properly, perhaps you can tell me then why there are not 6 unknowns listed but 11. I suggested you just look at the last six, I said nothing about ignoring the rest of the data
This means that 1/3 of the proven cats are from an unknown source, not 1/5 so in fact, you didn't really bother to read it at all before rendering judgement did you.

Yes, I did. I do work for the Scottish equivalent of DEFRA, I'm not a complete amateur. There are only five actual unknowns, as I discussed above. Unless you'd like to tell me how we can have a "date of escape" filled in, even though the animal is one of a wild-breeding population? For pity's sake, two of the "unknown source" cases are recorded as "recaptured". They simply don't have the full data on all the historical cases. The five with no recorded date of escape are the only ones they have no idea how long they had been out there for.

If you actually look at the data in detail, you can see that a lot of it is approximate (an awful lot of stuff seems to have happened on the first of a month, and especially the first of January, this suggests to me they sometimes only knew the month or even only the year, but Excel imposes restrictions) and some of it is missing. Some of the cases weren't reported till years after the event. Some of it is flat wrong - one lynx is recorded as having escaped in 1991 and then captured in 1950! Most of the animals were only on the loose for a very short time, so far as we can tell from the incomplete, approximate and questionable data.

There is absolutely NOTHING there to support any suggestion of a breeding population of any of these species being present in the wild. The range of species is wide, and the locations are widely separated. Exactly as you'd expect when the cause is sporadic escapes from (sometimes illegal) captivity.

and no, 2052 sightings is not just like bigfoot, we have a far smaller area and the witnesses on the whole were not a bunch of rednecks out to make some bucks from the local rag. The 2052 were reported in a 14 month period, since 2000 there have been over 12000 sightings and current government policy is that it is a police matter admittedly some of the claims were that they had spotted Top cat, the pink panther, Garfield or Simba, but these are not added to the figures
you say they arent there, thats fine, but the British Forestry commission don't agree with you
http://phantomsandmonsters.wetpaint.com/page/British+Forestry+Commission+Confirms+Big+Cats+Roam+UK
let me guess ?
conjecture again ?

Show me the helium bodies.

this is a sceptic site, one of the rules of scepticism is that you are aware of the evidence and make an informed decision based on it, by claiming that there are no big cats in the wild in the UK you have shown a shocking ignorance of the facts

for shame

I claim that there is no evidence of any big cats ever having been in the wild apart from a number of assorted escapes from captivity. I claim that there is no evidence that such cats are in the wild at the moment, or that there is or ever was a breeding population of anything beyond possible hybridisation of some small exotic cats with feral moggies. And even the last remains to be proved.

Listen, if something like this were true, it would make my day. It would be great! However, I know what my job would look like if there were anything big enough to prey on lambs anywhere around south-east Scotland, and I know that my colleagues around the country also make regular reports of the causes of livestock deaths they're seeing. The dog-worrying cases I mentioned above went into the reports. We know about the losses caused by the Sea Eagles. Big cats have to eat, and there's plenty around to prevent them going hungry.

Show me the bodies.

Rolfe.

 

[William Parcher]

but heres the thing, we are a country that has reports of big cats roaming the countryside
we are a country that has recovered bodies of those big cats which were roaming the countryside
we have testimony from people attacked by those big cats roaming the countryside

so does it really matter if theyre recent escapees or breeding in the wild, either way, theyre still out there aren't they

If I said "there are no Big Cats presently living in the UK wilds"... you would be powerless to prove me wrong using proper confirmatory evidence.

found in a field by a farmer in Devon in 2006 - identified as a puma

Wiki

In 2006, the British Big Cats Society reported that a skull found by a Devon farmer was that of a Puma, however, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) states, "Based on the evidence, Defra does not believe that there are big cats living in the wild in England."

Why would they say that after the skull find?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

JTJ, cougars are confirmed in Missouri and Iowa.

I know, but not in the numbers that present a serious threat--that's what the story was about. In fact, when I heard the story (some years back), conservation officials said the Iowa sightings were probably just "visiting" cougars--that is, at the time there wasn't a "resident" population, and the numbers of sightings being reported in the news were not credible.

Anyway, my point is that the "thousands of sightings" (in the U.K.) that could indeed all be wrong could include accounts from people who are motivated (for one reason or another) to embellish the truth aside from accounts of people who just saw some other animal and honestly mistook it for a big cat.

 

[Arisia]

JTJ, cougars are confirmed in Missouri and Iowa.

Now we just need them to jump that big ol' river and keep heading east!

(Confirmed as being wild North American cougars, not escaped/freed exotics by more than just eyewitness accounts/photos, I take it.)

 

[William Parcher]

conservation officials said the Iowa sightings were probably just "visiting" cougars

Natural dispersion from a large and growing population in the Dakotas. It is predominantly roaming males looking for females away from other male competitors. But, the further they get from the Badlands the lower the odds become for finding females (who do not disperse at the same rate). Without females there is no chance to establish a population.

Anyway, my point is that the "thousands of sightings" (in the U.K.) that could indeed all be wrong could include accounts from people who are motivated (for one reason or another) to embellish the truth aside from accounts of people who just saw some other animal and honestly mistook it for a big cat.

It's that romanticism of belief and the hobby that comes with it. This is very much like Bigfootery.

 

[William Parcher]

Now we just need them to jump that big ol' river and keep heading east!

(Confirmed as being wild North American cougars, not escaped/freed exotics by more than just eyewitness accounts/photos, I take it.)

This has already happened with confirmations in Wisconsin and Illinois. Those cats crossed the river with their origin being the big population in the Badlands. We now have DNA profiles of the various population areas and can talk smart when addressing the question "Where did this cougar come from?"

ETA: There is a way into Wisc. at the very far north that doesn't require a Mississippi crossing.

 

[William Parcher]

This has already happened with confirmations in Wisconsin and Illinois. Those cats crossed the river with their origin being the big population in the Badlands.

Nonetheless, the Mississippi River does seem to be a natural barrier of sorts. Look at this map and see what happens at the river.

Cougar Network is an excellent source for no-nonsense coverage of cougars in "the east". Young male mountain lion asks: where are the MILFs?