Merged Alien Big Cats in the UK?

sphenisc said:
Okay, so we have a 3ft long dark brown creature, probably no more than 15" at the shoulder,
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I disagree.

What we have is a photo of a feline looking animal, but have no measurements at all to determine either length nor height.

If we had distances from the camera position to the game trail, to the tree in shot, girth of the tree, camera details including make, model, focal lenght, CCD dimensions (and preferably maker's angle of view specs), we might be able to get an approximation.

But given that we don't know the distance to the subject, given all the above, all we can come up is a theoretical size with estimated error margins.
with a long tail that appears to taper from about half way along its length to the tip, photographed on track leading down to a stream. Is there a more typical member of the Scottish fauna that would equally well fill that description?
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Domestic cat.
 
An aside for Cryptophotographers

Just thinking about the discussion we're just having.

If I was placing game cameras with the specific aim to capture potential cryptids, my solution to the guessing game on size would be to place markers (such as used for monitoring building movement) clearly in the camera's angle of view and would make sure I measured the distances between them and from the camera carefully.

With 2 in the foreground, mid and backgrounds you could at least be able to calculate relative body sizes of animals in a shot.
 
Marduk said:
True, all we've seen is edited photos

do you have the originals or not ?
:confused:
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... and do you have any photos of other identifiable animals at the same location?

If you had, you could (more) directly compare animals to get a relative size, i.e., "bigger than a badger but smaller than a deer".

At the moment I cannot see how 3ft has been determined to be the size of this particular subject.
 
McHaggis said:
No not paranoid.

BUT..............I do know from experience that information requested from a certain police authorrity, did not include information that a Police Superintendant actually showed me in his office when he did a search for me on his works pc, (off the record so to speak as he would have been in deep doo dah if he had been caught doing so in the presence of an unauthorised person, ie me)

I think it's a mixture of incompetance, laziness and on rare occasions deliberately.

As I've said, I've made well over 1000 FOI requests and you would be surprised how different the results are from these authorities, even though they were sent the same worded request.

In fact on one occasion, I got a local authority to change their FOI procedures, because they were trying to charge people illegally for FOI requests. After a few emails showing they were breaking the law, they actually thanked me for bringing this to their attention and changed their procedures accordingly.

Most authorities don't really understand what they are expected to have to do when an FOI request hits their desk, so it's very hit or miss as to what you get back.
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I deal with FOI requests fairly regularly and, from my experience, you are being paranoid. You may well get ambiguous answers back but, again only from my own experience, that may well be the way you've phrased the question. I've lost count of the times I've read a FOI request and thought 'Damn, I think I know what he's really after but he's asked the wrong question and what he's actually asked isn't going to be a whole lot of use to him'. This may be exacerbated by my working in IT and most questions come to me from people with a very limited understanding...

We're not allowed to question the request and heavily discouraged from inferring what they really should have asked (in case we get it wrong) so we end up having to answer the question exactly how it's (usually badly) phrased.

As for the time they take and the effort expended - they are given an extremely high priority in my organisation and often lead to us dropping other far more critical (IMHO) work to turn them around so they certainly don't suffer from not being treated seriously enough.

I would alslo say it is the most mis-used piece of legislation I've ever come across. Very few requests seem to match the spirit of the act and most are from people trying to use the info to push their own business. Those that aren't tend to be either extremely trivial or non-sensical.

Wonderful intentions behind it all but most of it seems to have just resulted in a massive waste of everyone's time and resources.

Hmmm, maybe I'll log my own FOI request asking how much resource has been spent satisfying FOI requests and how many hospitals or schools could have been built instead.....:(
 
McHaggis said:
Anyone who has any experience with game trail cameras will know that you place the cameras at heights where the IR beam could be trgiggered. There is no point placing a camera 6 foot in the air if the animal you are trying to photograph is only 2 or 3 foot high. It is common practice for the majority of wildlife organisations to place their cameras low to the ground. Cameras are usually placed on trees therefore you are slightly restricted as to where you place them. The idea is that you find the nearest tree to a trail and hope for the best. When the camera was first placed at the location, the grass was not long. Although it certainly has grown now:).
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I've done work setting up trail cameras for photographing jaguar. It involved making a fair sized clearing around the area each camera was set up in to ensure that anything triggering the camera would actually be photographed, and to avoid exactly the kind of obscured, ambiguous photo that you have presented. There were also no trees involved, although there were certainly plenty around, just stands for the cameras.
 
EHocking said:
I disagree.

What we have is a photo of a feline looking animal, but have no measurements at all to determine either length nor height.
....
But given that we don't know the distance to the subject, given all the above, all we can come up is a theoretical size with estimated error margins.
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I'm not sure where we disagree, 3ft was loosely supposed to indicate 3ft +/-0.5ft

Domestic cat.
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Try another member of the Scottish fauna. :)
 
sphenisc said:
I'm not sure where we disagree, 3ft was loosely supposed to indicate 3ft +/-0.5ft



Try another member of the Scottish fauna. :)
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I'm assuming you are refering to the Scottish Wildcat. If so, then although the size may be similar, the tail is completely wrong. Scottish Wildcats have thick tails ending in a large rounded blunt tip.

But you may be close to the animals identity. I am of the belief that some of these large hybrids/ferals have a good dose of wildcat genes in then, resulting in cats getting to some impressive sizes.

As for all you others demanding the original photo, the uncropped version was placed unaltered on the blog . And links to it are above.

But no matter what measurements are taken, or comparison animals viewed, it will not solve the identity of the animal. We cannot see it's head, we cannot calculate it's height because we can't see its feet. All we have is an ambiguous feline, of what I believe is approx 3 foot, (although others may disagree with this estimation). Until we get a clearer photograph, no-one can confirm either identity nor size 100%


But I appreciate your input and comments here, although I may not agree with them all.

If anything else comes up in this location, I'll let you guys know.:)
 
Ethan Thane Athen said:
I deal with FOI requests fairly regularly and, from my experience, you are being paranoid. You may well get ambiguous answers back but, again only from my own experience, that may well be the way you've phrased the question. I've lost count of the times I've read a FOI request and thought 'Damn, I think I know what he's really after but he's asked the wrong question and what he's actually asked isn't going to be a whole lot of use to him'. This may be exacerbated by my working in IT and most questions come to me from people with a very limited understanding...

We're not allowed to question the request and heavily discouraged from inferring what they really should have asked (in case we get it wrong) so we end up having to answer the question exactly how it's (usually badly) phrased.

As for the time they take and the effort expended - they are given an extremely high priority in my organisation and often lead to us dropping other far more critical (IMHO) work to turn them around so they certainly don't suffer from not being treated seriously enough.

I would alslo say it is the most mis-used piece of legislation I've ever come across. Very few requests seem to match the spirit of the act and most are from people trying to use the info to push their own business. Those that aren't tend to be either extremely trivial or non-sensical.

Wonderful intentions behind it all but most of it seems to have just resulted in a massive waste of everyone's time and resources.

Hmmm, maybe I'll log my own FOI request asking how much resource has been spent satisfying FOI requests and how many hospitals or schools could have been built instead.....:(
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Ethan,

I have no doubt your work with dealing with FOI requests is both professionally done and accurate in your replies.

HOWEVER,

I have contacted EVERY local council in the UK, every police force and many government organisations, all in all over 600 different authorities. Some are very much on the ball, very quick and very thorough. Quite a few are the complete opposite.
 
McHaggis said:
I'm assuming you are refering to the Scottish Wildcat. If so, then although the size may be similar, the tail is completely wrong. Scottish Wildcats have thick tails ending in a large rounded blunt tip.

....

If anything else comes up in this location, I'll let you guys know.:)
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I'm 95% certain it's

an otter.


Tail length and tapering, overall length, coloration, location and habitat all fit.
 
Cuddles said:
I've done work setting up trail cameras for photographing jaguar. It involved making a fair sized clearing around the area each camera was set up in to ensure that anything triggering the camera would actually be photographed, and to avoid exactly the kind of obscured, ambiguous photo that you have presented. There were also no trees involved, although there were certainly plenty around, just stands for the cameras.
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I wish I could make a large clearing in the forests, but the very nature of the commercial Forestry Commision Forests mean that this is almost impossible. We have to find small natural clearings or obvious tracks through the trees to place our camers.

Sadly, we also have to take into consideration whether the location could be visited by walkers or even hunters or poachers. I've had several cameras stolen, and now I restrict myself to locations away from areas when people walk. Sometimes this means a compromise is made where you are forced to place cameras in locations not totally ideal.
 
sphenisc said:
I'm 95% certain it's

an otter.


Tail length and tapering, overall length, coloration, location and habitat all fit.
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I disagree with the tail,

Check this tail..........

zoomcat.JPG


and compare the thickness of the tail to this tail

101.gif
 
McHaggis said:
I disagree with the tail,

Check this tail..........

[qimg]http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Vl14Fxv1bvE/TFauk0tedVI/AAAAAAAAAOY/SttYzSkGt3M/s1600/zoomcat.JPG[/qimg]

and compare the thickness of the tail to this tail

[qimg]http://www.leopardmag.co.uk/images/101.gif[/qimg]
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The only conclusion I can draw, is you didn't read my post very carefully. :rolleyes:
 
sphenisc said:
I'm 95% certain it's

an otter.


Tail length and tapering, overall length, coloration, location and habitat all fit.
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Oh sorry, I didn't click on the spoiler bit.

I'm still getting the hang of the forum:D

I did consider an otter at the time. However the numbers of known river otters in this part of Kintyre can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and sea otters have been spotted very rarely as well.

To be honest I would be just as happy if this image was an otter, as they are as rare round here as hens teeth:).

But I still think its a cat though.
 
The image contains at least one optical illusion. A leaf, flower or other plant structure in the foreground is causing a false outline at first glance. You think you can see the origin of the tail at about the genital/butt area but you are really seeing that whitish plant. This causes confusion about the length, thickness and taper of the supposed tail. Look...

388d04fb.gif
 
McHaggis said:
...But no matter what measurements are taken, or comparison animals viewed, it will not solve the identity of the animal...
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Were there any other animals captured by this camera at that location around the time period of the photo we're discussing?
 
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