Big cats. The showdown.

[SimpleSimon]

Right, I've just seen there's another thread popped up about the whole Big Cat/beast of so-and-so debate.

So I thought why not sort this out once and for all. This is a website packed full of people who spend anything from a fair portion of their leisure time, to basically their entire life, outside looking for wild animals. Being quiet and looking carefully and paying attention, often in places and at times when other people aren't about. There's no way we haven't seen between us, absolutely every living creature there is to see on land in the UK.

The question is a simple one, and the vote will be anonymous.

Have you seen a big cat, in the wild, in the UK?
SEEN with your own eyes, and known without any question that you were seeing a big cat. No "it definitely wasn't a fox" or "it looked too big for a farm cat" or "I couldn't tell what it was but the farmer said something had killed a sheep last week" or "I only caught a glimpse, but..."
Have you seen one?

 

[VSS]

Yes. Once. And no, it wasn't black.
My sheepdogs went ballistic at it!
Someone else saw it the next day in more-or-less the same place. They didn't know that I had seen it the day before.
It wasn't seen again after that.
Suspect it was just someone's pet gone walkabout for a few days before being recaptured.
No drama.

I do not believe that there are any "free living" big cats in the wild in the UK.
I suspect that most sightings are imagination / total fabrication (all the black ones), mistaken identity (farm cat, dog, etc), or, in very rare cases, an escapee that quickly gets sorted out (like the Borth Animalarium lynx).

 

[SimpleSimon]

I suspect that most sightings are imagination / total fabrication (all the black ones), mistaken identity (farm cat, dog, etc), or, in very rare cases, an escapee that quickly gets sorted out (like the Borth Animalarium lynx).

More or less my sentiments exactly on the subject. Plenty of well-meaning people who are just wrong, a smattering of loonies and attention-seekers, and just the tiniest percentage of genuine big cats in totally freak circumstances.
I believe there probably were more genuine sightings before and just after the dangerous wild animals act.

 

[Goingback]

Yes and black...........other colours exist as well

 

[Nickb]

Looks like 4 people need to go to Specsavers

 

[Goingback]

Looks like 4 people need to go to Specsavers

or four people have better sight and are more switched on than others.................

 

[NoIDeer]

My teckel saw what looked like a big cat yesterday walking along the fence, he told the neighbours all about it!

 

[doric_prince]

 

[doric_prince]

No man’s sheep is safe

 

[doric_prince]

 

[Mungo]

Right, I've just seen there's another thread popped up about the whole Big Cat/beast of so-and-so debate.

So I thought why not sort this out once and for all. This is a website packed full of people who spend anything from a fair portion of their leisure time, to basically their entire life, outside looking for wild animals. Being quiet and looking carefully and paying attention, often in places and at times when other people aren't about. There's no way we haven't seen between us, absolutely every living creature there is to see on land in the UK.

The question is a simple one, and the vote will be anonymous.

Have you seen a big cat, in the wild, in the UK?
SEEN with your own eyes, and known without any question that you were seeing a big cat. No "it definitely wasn't a fox" or "it looked too big for a farm cat" or "I couldn't tell what it was but the farmer said something had killed a sheep last week" or "I only caught a glimpse, but..."
Have you seen one?

Given the large number of trail cams and cctv out there, people with drones etc etc, if there actually was something, we’d have good footage by now.

 

[Foxyboy43]

View attachment 365397

Well that’s done it for me - we already have to contend with witches and banshees - I am never going out again in the dark!

 

[Nickb]

or four people have better sight and are more switched on than others.................

Yeah right , more like been on the happy baccy

 

[doric_prince]

 

[Donkey Basher]

My last evening out after the fallow back in April I saw a black cat - I put the cross hairs on it & was very tempted to send a copper bullet on its way but it was about 200 yards away & copper would have gone straight through without expanding. I didn’t fancy following up a wounded cat in the dark so didn’t squeeze off.

Oh, & it wasn’t full grown - about the size of a domestic moggy, so quite a small target at that range too!

 

[VSS]

Just to add to my comments in post #2, it was about 5 yards away from me, so no doubtful long distance ID involved.

 

[John Gryphon]

One basic problem is that these big black cats never show up in front of someone with a proper camera or a deer rifle.
They only show in front of people with myopic eyesight or fogged glasses and their cameras are vintage Box Kodak`s. or if they are using a digital camera there is always a thin slice of ham draped over the lens

 

[Morkai]

One basic problem is that these big black cats never show up in front of someone with a proper camera or a deer rifle.
They only show in front of people with myopic eyesight or fogged glasses and their cameras are vintage Box Kodak`s. or if they are using a digital camera there is always a thin slice of ham draped over the lens

I see there is a new lot of footage of a Thylacine spotting from Tas that people are currently debunking.

 

[FrenchieBoy]

Given the large number of trail cams and cctv out there, people with drones etc etc, if there actually was something, we’d have good footage by now.

My thoughts exactly! If we are to believe that there are all these "Big Cats" living wild in our countryside then why with all the high tech surveilence equipment around nowadays have we not got any conclusive proof?

 

[Jon P]

A number of years ago I had a report from a rural teams police officer that a big cat had been seen in a semi rural area near a residential area. It turned out to be a very large Maine Coon Cat.

Not the actual cat, in pic