Making the news today....

[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…..

[Mick Dempsey]

Then what? Puma? Assuming it had a tail (so not a lynx or bobcat) it could only be a leopard at that size or a puma.

[Stubby]

Puma / Cougar / mountain lion is in the panther class I believe . Very adaptable animal to change of habitat and until

  recently thought to be a solitary cat . Somewhere , can't remember where now it has taken to be in groups and to hunt that way . Small evolutionary beginnings ?