Akhenaten
Heretic Pharaoh
That's more of a personal choice than a matter of definition. Whatever rocks your boat really.
Merged Alien Big Cats in the UK?
- Thread starter mummymonkey
- Start date
That's more of a personal choice than a matter of definition. Whatever rocks your boat really.
Rolfe
Adult human female
Well, well. You guys really put the E into JREF!
I was serious about being glad I hadn't done that at work. Six months ago one of my colleagues was carpeted, as it turned out, he'd been looking at porn on his work computer. On the way home from the disciplinary hearing, he killed himself. The only information I saw about the affair talked about "porn featuring women over 40" and "granny porn".
So it's probably a very sensitive subject with our IT squad.
Rolfe.
I was serious about being glad I hadn't done that at work. Six months ago one of my colleagues was carpeted, as it turned out, he'd been looking at porn on his work computer. On the way home from the disciplinary hearing, he killed himself. The only information I saw about the affair talked about "porn featuring women over 40" and "granny porn".
So it's probably a very sensitive subject with our IT squad.
Rolfe.
William Parcher
Show me the monkey!
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- Jul 26, 2005
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- 27,489
Make joking now I do not want. 
Apology
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Neither am I, Rolfe. Look at the size of that jaguar! Why, it's got one sheep stuck halfway down its gaping maw, and the other is the size of a toy in its ghastly talons! I was lucky that I lived to tell the tale after it spotted me.
ponderingturtle
Orthogonal Vector
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I find this claim remarkable, how can they possibly stay conscious to count them all?
Rolfe
Adult human female
You haven't lived till you find that every time you close your eyes, all you see is a sea of Blackface faces. Trust me.
Rolfe.
Rolfe.
I'm unsure if that's sexist, racist or animist.
I was just regaled this evening with a tale of three women who spotted a "Big Cat", running faster than a dog (at the speed of a greyhound) , 600 yards away , in the Peebles area.
(About a night's walk from Rolfe's place).
When I expressed doubts I was assured many things go unreported by farmers in Scotland and that the women were all "intelligent" and that it would be unjust to doubt them because they were female.
This has left me baffled on at least three levels at once.
I congratulate the ladies on their eyesight however.
ETA- Though in no sense expert, I have seen lions (and once a leopard) kill, up close and personal in both Kenya and Tanzania. The leopard kill was , unusually, after dawn and in quite dense bush. The animal was an antelope of some sort, probably a gerenuk, but we couldn't get a clear look. It was killed in a fashion similar to the video clip of the cougar killing the deer- by a sustained grip on the throat leading to suffocation. In this case it was actually held against a rock, with its front hooves off the ground. The cat made no attempt to disembowel it and kept it's hind paws on the ground throughout the 2-3 minutes we watched it.
When it finally moved, the cat leapt up the rock- about 2-3 metres- in a couple of strides, carrying the antelope, which must have weighed at least 30kg.
The lion kills- actually lioness in 2 of three cases I saw, involved 2-3 animals dragging down young zebras by sheer power and weight, while one of them delivered the coup de grace - again by sustained, crushing bite to the throat or windpipe. Not much difference in method, only in the scale of the prey.
I was just regaled this evening with a tale of three women who spotted a "Big Cat", running faster than a dog (at the speed of a greyhound) , 600 yards away , in the Peebles area.
(About a night's walk from Rolfe's place).
When I expressed doubts I was assured many things go unreported by farmers in Scotland and that the women were all "intelligent" and that it would be unjust to doubt them because they were female.
This has left me baffled on at least three levels at once.
I congratulate the ladies on their eyesight however.
ETA- Though in no sense expert, I have seen lions (and once a leopard) kill, up close and personal in both Kenya and Tanzania. The leopard kill was , unusually, after dawn and in quite dense bush. The animal was an antelope of some sort, probably a gerenuk, but we couldn't get a clear look. It was killed in a fashion similar to the video clip of the cougar killing the deer- by a sustained grip on the throat leading to suffocation. In this case it was actually held against a rock, with its front hooves off the ground. The cat made no attempt to disembowel it and kept it's hind paws on the ground throughout the 2-3 minutes we watched it.
When it finally moved, the cat leapt up the rock- about 2-3 metres- in a couple of strides, carrying the antelope, which must have weighed at least 30kg.
The lion kills- actually lioness in 2 of three cases I saw, involved 2-3 animals dragging down young zebras by sheer power and weight, while one of them delivered the coup de grace - again by sustained, crushing bite to the throat or windpipe. Not much difference in method, only in the scale of the prey.
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That would be so cool if the owner of the kitty was on TV with the cat in the video.
As far as sheep (and goats) I've raised them for years, and even if you have say 48 of them, or even more, you still can tell when one is missing. Usually you've helped them get born, they have names, you can tell the different individuals from across a pasture at dusk, and a missing sheep or goat is a really big deal.
Rolfe
Adult human female
One of my colleagues from the veterinary investigation near Ayr centre phoned me this morning about an unrelated matter. I discussed the matter of the "mauled" horse with him, and he said he believed the "expert" who pronounced it the work of a big cat was some friend of the owner's who happened to be a vet. Nevertheless this ended up on all the media, including the TV news, with stock photos of pumas and things like that. Nothing was ever said about public alarm, but if you lived near there and had small children, would you be altogether relaxed about that sort of news?
My colleague confirmed that his local farms have not reported any untoward losses, and that, just as here, natural deaths out in the fields are only showing up with the usual carrion bird damage. Again, there isn't enough missing meat to keep a poodle alive.
We're thinking about a polite letter to the Veterinary Record telling our colleagues to engage brain before making such silly pronouncements.
Rolfe.
My colleague confirmed that his local farms have not reported any untoward losses, and that, just as here, natural deaths out in the fields are only showing up with the usual carrion bird damage. Again, there isn't enough missing meat to keep a poodle alive.
We're thinking about a polite letter to the Veterinary Record telling our colleagues to engage brain before making such silly pronouncements.
Rolfe.
Rolfe
Adult human female
I just spent half an hour in the post mortem room with the technician, who has just come back from holiday. He was having a good laugh about the whole thing. I remembered that he was born and brought up near where Felicity was found, and asked him about it. He said she was first sighted by an art teacher from his school, who was walking near Fort Augustus. The teacher literally came face to face with the puma, but didn't have a camera. She hurried home to get a camera, but when she got back the puma had vanished. She then did a very detailed drawing from memory of what she'd seen, and the animal was identified as a puma on the basis of that. She had no idea what a "puma" looked like, but because she could draw what she saw, it was possible to identify it. He says the drawing is on display in Fort Augustus. It's believed that Felicity followed the old Wade's military road from there to Cannich.
So you see, even when someone chooses a particularly isolated area to release a big cat, it's not too long before definite presence of big cat is estabilshed.
Rolfe.
So you see, even when someone chooses a particularly isolated area to release a big cat, it's not too long before definite presence of big cat is estabilshed.
Rolfe.
William Parcher
Show me the monkey!
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Cool!
I actually investigated the original site of this video. It was filmed by the neighbor of a friend of mine. My friend believed that it was a video of a cougar, and knowing about my interest in the subject, invited me to visit the site of the incident. I, of course, immediately pegged it as a house cat. My friend photographed me standing by the tree that the cat passes in the beginning of the video. He shopped the two images together, using the tree to get the scale right, and admitted that I was right. That 'cougar' is about 12" (~30 mm) tall.
Here's a link to the video -
http://www.klapetzky.com/kitty/kitty.mpg
EDT: By the way, W.P., that's Newark, New York, not Newark, New Jersery.
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Rolfe
Adult human female
Not funny at all. If the size was obvious from the pictures, they wouldn't be circulated as alleged "big cats" in the first place.
Given that there don't actually seem to be any real big cats in the locations stated, then obviously pictures of real big cats which are self-evidently big compared to easily-recognisable nearby objects aren't going to appear. So all we have is pictures of moggies with attitude, and these are only going to qualify if they lack appreciable size comparison objects.
Simple, when you think about it.
Rolfe.
Given that there don't actually seem to be any real big cats in the locations stated, then obviously pictures of real big cats which are self-evidently big compared to easily-recognisable nearby objects aren't going to appear. So all we have is pictures of moggies with attitude, and these are only going to qualify if they lack appreciable size comparison objects.
Simple, when you think about it.
Rolfe.
Rolfe
Adult human female
That was my thinking. I've never been to Cannich, but I can read an OS map, and I can visualise it perfectly well. Inverness seems likely, though I couldn't say exactly where.
I think the picture is probably a real publicity stunt got up by the museum. I'm just a bit confused by how old it looks when it must be from about 1985 or so. Still, we must remember that even in 1985 most newspapers were still printing most of their photographs in black and white, so it would be normal for a news photographer to be using black and white film. I think it's that that makes it look older - the actual cars aren't expecially archaic from what I can see of them.
It's also a bit odd that the only place the picture appears on the web is on the BBCS web site - I'd have expected a nice image like that to be traceable.
Rolfe.
I just emailed Inverness Museum. Maybe someone there knows.
ETA- in 1975 I spent 8 weeks running the youth hostel in Glen Affric.
Cannich was my Friday night holiday. I was last there about five years ago.
It hadn't changed drastically.
ETA- in 1975 I spent 8 weeks running the youth hostel in Glen Affric.
Cannich was my Friday night holiday. I was last there about five years ago.
It hadn't changed drastically.
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Rolfe
Adult human female
No sign of Marduk now that he's out of the penalty box. Maybe he's gone off to the Forest of Dean to find the panthers - it's only about an hour and a half's drive from where he lives. He better remember to turn west though, not south - south will get him the New Forest, in only about an hour. Where, as we know, there are no "feral sheep".
Rolfe.
Rolfe.
richardm
Philosopher
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2001
- Messages
- 9,248
It does seem to be a bit elusive - I'd guess it's a clipping from the Courier or something.
Edit: By the way, doing a Google Image Search for "Felicity Stuffed" is not recommended if you're at work.
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