Big cats - ever seen one in Britain (in the wild)??
Discussion
About five years we stayed at the NT cottage on Park Head in north Cornwall. One morning we sat in the garden and watched a black cat emerge from the bushes on the hill opposite,right across the small river valley so about 1/4 mile away, and proceed to do a bit of washing, a bit of rolling about and general cat things. At one point it obviously heard us talking and looked straight at us with big yellow eyes. It was only after it went and the cows came back into the same field that we realised that the whole place had gone eerily quiet at the time and that we couldn't see the cows' eyes at that distance as they were far too small.
Not something I'd go to the papers about (they always look nutters in the papers) but I've seen one. I was doing some work at a farmhouse above Ramsbottom in Lancashire & was outside getting some tools out of the trailer. Something must have made me look up, and in the field next to me (about 100m) was a big black cat. I must have startled it as it looked over at me then disappeared. From the stones in the wall I could tell how tall it was so I took my dog (Cocker) in the field the next day & would say the cat was very slightly taller but a bit longer (maybe Springer size).
I have spotted a couple in the Stourbridge area. First time I saw a large black cat bound across a field, the second time was when I was out running..... It made me run a little quicker 
it looked like a panther going by the outline and colour, definitely not a house cat! My mum also saw a large black cat near some bins one night, so had a pretty good object to judge the size of the animal. I had reported the sightings and the farmer who owned the land had reported the same incident which made me feel less of a loon!
Interestingly, a horse was found half devoured in the area shortly after and the local safari experts reckoned it was a big cat attack
I had a look for the news article but cannot find it 
it looked like a panther going by the outline and colour, definitely not a house cat! My mum also saw a large black cat near some bins one night, so had a pretty good object to judge the size of the animal. I had reported the sightings and the farmer who owned the land had reported the same incident which made me feel less of a loon! Interestingly, a horse was found half devoured in the area shortly after and the local safari experts reckoned it was a big cat attack
I had a look for the news article but cannot find it I am not one to believe in such things, But I don’t care what any body else thinks. I saw one near the A35 between Puddltown and Dorchester last summer.
My wife was driving and I saw this big cat Puma size, about 100 yards away in a field it was walking across the field, no doubt in my mind , clear as day it was a dark chestnut colour.
No I wasn’t drunk.
My wife was driving and I saw this big cat Puma size, about 100 yards away in a field it was walking across the field, no doubt in my mind , clear as day it was a dark chestnut colour.
No I wasn’t drunk.
About 20 years we were camping near Aviemore, ran out of gas for the cooker, and set off to find some.
Going down a little road, a large black cat, (as least as large as a German Shepherd), strolled out of a field, crossed the road and went into a stand of trees.
When I said to my now Ex 'did you see that?' she denied seeing anything.
Only last year she admitted she had seen a feck off big black cat, but didn't want to admit it as we were camping....Feminine Logic?
A friend had a large black cat run across in front of her car one morning, it then jumped a fence.
She went back in daylight with her husband, and it was a 6 foot high deer fence it had jumped.
This was 10 miles from Glasgow
And finally, a couple of summers ago, I took the dog a walk through a forest up to a hill, it was a route I hadn't taken before.
After a slight positional mishap, I eventually found a freshly cut path through the trees.
Beside the path was a s
t, at first I thought 'dirty B's, maybe it was whoever trimmed the trees'.
However, this wasn't human, or dog, it wasn't deer, cattle or sheep.
At this point the dog got spooked, and actually huddled against me, and there was a 'feeling' that something wasn't 'quite right'
Basically, I bricked it, and ran out of the woods to clear ground.
Telling this to my niece, who climbs this hill a lot, her dog had started barking at trees very close to this spot on 3 occasions, once running back to the car over 2 miles away.
Then what really, really spooked me was when my niece had gone the path I had seen the 'spoor' on in winter, and the dog had found a 'stick' frozen into the snow and ice, the 'stick' was actually a deer leg.
Now how a deer leg on its own appears in the middle of a forest at least 2 miles from the nearest road is puzzling to me, then I found these, 2 sightings which appeared timewise either side of my summer walk, and geographically in a straight line through the 'spoor' and deer leg finds.
http://caledonianmercury.com/2010/05/02/big-cat-si...
http://caledonianmercury.com/2011/02/10/another-bi...
Going down a little road, a large black cat, (as least as large as a German Shepherd), strolled out of a field, crossed the road and went into a stand of trees.
When I said to my now Ex 'did you see that?' she denied seeing anything.
Only last year she admitted she had seen a feck off big black cat, but didn't want to admit it as we were camping....Feminine Logic?
A friend had a large black cat run across in front of her car one morning, it then jumped a fence.
She went back in daylight with her husband, and it was a 6 foot high deer fence it had jumped.
This was 10 miles from Glasgow
And finally, a couple of summers ago, I took the dog a walk through a forest up to a hill, it was a route I hadn't taken before.
After a slight positional mishap, I eventually found a freshly cut path through the trees.
Beside the path was a s
t, at first I thought 'dirty B's, maybe it was whoever trimmed the trees'.However, this wasn't human, or dog, it wasn't deer, cattle or sheep.
At this point the dog got spooked, and actually huddled against me, and there was a 'feeling' that something wasn't 'quite right'
Basically, I bricked it, and ran out of the woods to clear ground.
Telling this to my niece, who climbs this hill a lot, her dog had started barking at trees very close to this spot on 3 occasions, once running back to the car over 2 miles away.
Then what really, really spooked me was when my niece had gone the path I had seen the 'spoor' on in winter, and the dog had found a 'stick' frozen into the snow and ice, the 'stick' was actually a deer leg.
Now how a deer leg on its own appears in the middle of a forest at least 2 miles from the nearest road is puzzling to me, then I found these, 2 sightings which appeared timewise either side of my summer walk, and geographically in a straight line through the 'spoor' and deer leg finds.
http://caledonianmercury.com/2010/05/02/big-cat-si...
http://caledonianmercury.com/2011/02/10/another-bi...
The Bagshot/Lightwater area has had lots of sightings over the years, I used to live on Bagshot Park, which is one of the menangeries that alledgedly let the big cats escape.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/surrey/hi/people_and_p...
I have a very big fluffy black cat so when i lived in Baghsot Park i knew what he looked like when he was a couple of hundred yards away in the far fields, so seeing a big cat shape in the same field tells me that it wasn't my cat and it must have been a few times his size.
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