Making the news today....

[monkeybusiness]

On 28/07/2023 at 15:52, Johnsond said:

Well I’d say anyone who survived those early days deserves every penny they got. The casualty statistics for that period make for grim reading. 1600-1700 a day at min for sat, the difference is I guess the cost of everything has rocketed and the tax bands have stayed put for years so the  benefits are not as great as they maybe once were. I mentioned in a previous post that I know a good few guys who are paying 60-80k a year in tax for the privilege of being locked in the bin for weeks on end, thanks to our ridiculous tax code you have guys onboard the vessel going tax free due to seaman’s regs ( even though they are not vessel crew )  but divers or dive supvs don’t qualify. 
 

This just popped up on FB coincidentally - my mate’s dad is on the left. 

[Mark Bolam]

I’ve seen a big cat, black, labrador size.

Broad daylight.

That was in Kent on Wye Downs.

 

A few mates back home have seen similar, keepers and farmers, not the sort of people to get them mixed up with badgers etc.

[Mark Bolam]

Here’s quite a good link -

 

New DNA evidence 'confirms' presence of big cats in the UK

WWW.DISCOVERWILDLIFE.COM

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Long-held rumours of big cats living in Britain have been reignited by the results of a DNA test, apparently...

 

[doobin]

I've seen a middle sized big cat, brown, in the snow in a chestnut coppice miles from any houses.

 

I've also found giant paw prints, no claws, in the snow around my digger on the South Downs. Nearby were some Great Dane sized turds, full of hair. I took them in a bag to a customer who headed up the local Big Cat research group- he sent them off for analysis but the results were inconclusive-though most likely feline.

 

Our local black panther was seen by a great deal of people. Often up trees, once with a pigeon in it's mouth three hundred yards and a week beofre from where I found the prints around my digger. It must have died some ten years ago as the sightings peaked and then nothing since, which is a shame.

[Mick Dempsey]

1 hour ago, Mark Bolam said:

Here’s quite a good link -

 

New DNA evidence 'confirms' presence of big cats in the UK

WWW.DISCOVERWILDLIFE.COM

---

Long-held rumours of big cats living in Britain have been reignited by the results of a DNA test, apparently...

 

The language used is ambiguous ‘potentially’ for example.
And yet, not one camera trap picture, just sightings and conjecture.

Its not beyond the realms of possibility, but surely in Gloucestershire of all places a dog being walked off the lead would flushed it out of wherever it was living and got ripped to shreds in front of its owner. It’s not exactly remote there is it?

 

[Mark Bolam]

The government and DEFRA don’t like admitting they exist.

Same with wild boar down here until the evidence became too much.

 

They’re definitely out there Mick, maybe not in the numbers some would suggest though.

[Mick Dempsey]

So are they leopards ?

 

I’d love it if they were living in the UK, and I saw on a nature program how adept they are becoming at living unseen amongst humans in cities.

 

But I don’t see it being true, maybe a couple over the years that have escaped from private collections, but even then no evidence has ever come to light.

Edited July 30, 2023 by Mick Dempsey

[Stubby]

What about that lioness in France on the news last week or two back . The authority said not to worry its a wild boar . From the photo I saw it looked nothing like a wild boar and everything like a lioness . 

[Mark Bolam]

I don’t think the one I saw was a leopard, it was black and apparently black leopards are pretty rare.

 

I know what I saw Mick, and my mate beside me in the cab.

 

We aren’t talking tiger-size, but domestic cats don’t come in labrador size.

[Mick Dempsey]

16 minutes ago, Mark Bolam said:

I don’t think the one I saw was a leopard, it was black and apparently black leopards are pretty rare.

 

I know what I saw Mick, and my mate beside me in the cab.

 

We aren’t talking tiger-size, but domestic cats don’t come in labrador size.

Now Dougal…..