British big cats

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British big cats, sometimes referred to as ABCs, short for Alien Big Cats or Anomalous Big Cats, phantom cats or mystery cats, are non native big cats, possibly predatory, said to be roaming the countryside of the British Isles. For many years their existence has been debated and many scientists have dismissed them as fake. To this day they are thought of as an exotic part of British wildlife by some and as an urban legend by others. Those sighted are often claimed to be "panthers", "pumas", or "black cats".

Hundreds of sightings of big cats are reported in Britain every year, many by unimpeachable witnesses, and some at close quarters. Annual statistics and reports are published by The Big Cats in Britain research network.[1] Approximately 85% of these animals are described as black, while most others are unpatterned brown. The only species of big cat which can be black are leopards and jaguars, whose melanistic forms are popularly known as black panthers.[citation needed]

Contents

[edit] History and origins

Many stories have arisen over the years to explain how such animals could be living in the British countryside, ranging from allegations of fakery and mistaken identity, to proposals of surviving Ice Age fauna, or even that the cats have a supernatural origin. Some of these ideas are considered to be more credible than others, and some receive much more publicity than others. These are the major theories so far put forward:

[edit] Survivors from the prehistoric past

  • The Eurasian lynx was originally thought to have become extinct in the UK before the Romans arrived, but some bones in Scotland have been dated as from around AD 180. This means that small numbers hung on in remnants of the Caledonian Forest for longer than previously thought. More recent research by David Hetherington dates a skull found in Yorkshire to around 500 AD.[citation needed]

[edit] A form unknown to science

It has been suggested[citation needed] that reported sightings of big cats could be due to feral hybrids of domestic cats and either wild cats or a small exotic cats such as jungle cats or caracals. The Kellas Cat of Scotland is an example of this. Also suggested are hybrids of escaped exotics such as cougars and leopards, which have been produced in captivity and are known as a pumapards, but they are prone to dwarfism and none survived to breed. Although female hybrid big cats are fertile, males are sterile and a breeding population would be next to impossible.[citation needed]

[edit] Escaped or released animals that have gone feral

Cats could have escaped from traveling circuses in the Victorian era.[citation needed]

Cats could have been released by people who attempted to create a population for hunting or some other purpose in Victorian times, when many animals were released into the countryside. This was legal until the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.[citation needed]

Cats could have escaped during the 1960s and 1970s when it was easy to keep dangerous animals without breaking the law of the time.[citation needed]

Cats could have been released after the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976[2] came into force. Many owners did not want to have their animals put down or taken away, and could not afford to licence them, so they released them in remote locations where the animals established feral populations. This is considered the most likely explanation, and is the most often heard. The British Big Cat Society claims to have evidence of at least 23 releases of big cats in Britain, However this evidence has not been published.[citation needed]

However, the fact that 85% of big cat sightings are of black animals strains this theory. Black 'panthers' are rare and have always been valuable: it follows that any irresponsible owner wishing to save money would release the spotted leopards and sell the black ones. Yet in forty years, and among many thousands of sightings, no-one has ever reported seeing a spotted leopard.[original research?]

[edit] Supernatural creatures

  • Some people believe that the reported big cats are supernatural creatures or ghosts that haunt remote areas, or are in some way associated with the "Devil Dogs" or Barghests (such as the Black Shuck) of other areas of England.[3] A similar belief is that they are ghosts of cats which lived in the area in the past.[4]. Other people take the similarity of big cat sightings to reports of supernatural events to be evidence for their nonexistence, and suggest that such sightings typify cultural mythologies.

[edit] Intermediate creatures

One theory asserts that the reported big cats are what the Ancient Greeks, in particular the Syrian Neoplatonist Iamblichus (died AD 326), defined as daimones or in English 'daimons'. These are intermediate beings, both material and immaterial, well known to traditional societies as, for instance, trolls, brownies, fairies, kobbolds and so on, but discredited by modern Western culture. It is the daimons' relegation to the cultural dustbin, so the theory goes, that has forced them to adopt rather more insistently noticeable forms such as big, menacing 'black panthers'. This idea was first put forward by Merrily Harpur in Mystery Big Cats (Heart of Albion 2006) and has the merit of reconciling the overwhelming eyewitness evidence for ABCs with their apparent uncatchability.

Further discussion of the pros and cons of various theories of provenance is at the Dorset Big Cats Register: [3]

[edit] First sightings

In the 1760s the great radical writer, William Cobbett recalled in his Rural Rides how, as a boy, he had seen a cat 'as big as a middle-sized Spaniel dog' climb into a hollow elm tree in the grounds of the ruined Waverley Abbey near Farnham in Surrey. Later, in New Brunswick, he saw a 'lucifee' (North American lynx – Felis lynx canadensis) 'and it seemed to me to be just such a cat as I had seen at Waverley.'[5]. Another old report was found by David Walker from The Times in 1827 of a "lynx" being seen.[6]
Farther back there is a medieval Welsh poem "Pa Gwr" in the Black Book of Carmarthen which mentions a Cath Palug "Palug's cat" or "clawing cat" which roamed Anglesey until slain by Cei. In the Welsh Triads, it was the offspring of the monstrous sow Henwen.[7] However the first regular sightings of big cats in Britain were in the 1960s, and since then they have been gradually increasing over the past 40 years to the present.

[edit] Evidence

Although much evidence has been put forward over the years, none has led to official acceptance of the big cats' existence. Many of the pictures were either taken from such a distance that it is impossible to make out the animal, or the picture is of poor quality. A few examples of hoaxes have also been exposed.

[edit] Captures and remains

There has been only one capture of a big cat - a puma which though not officially classed as a big cat is of leopard size. "Felicity the puma" was captured by farmer Ted Noble at Cannich, Inverness-shire, Scotland in 1980, after a string of sightings from the area, and they continued after her capture. She lived out her days as a tourist attraction at the Highland Wildlife Park, Kingussie. There remains some controversy over whether she had ever been "wild" for any period of time. After her death she was stuffed and mounted and is now on display in the Inverness Museum, Inverness, Highland.

In July 2005 a farmer in North Devon discovered a large cat's skull, which has since been identified as a puma's. It was apparently taken for scientific analysis, though no results have ever been released. It follows many reports of cats in the area (Beast of Exmoor), and even a report of a farmer shooting and later burying a puma.[8]

A Eurasian lynx was shot in summer 1991 near Norwich, Norfolk. It had killed around 15 sheep within two weeks. The story was only reported in 2003, and the lynx is apparently now in the possession (as taxidermy) of a collector in Suffolk. For many years this incident was considered to have been a hoax, particularly by the hunting community, But in March 2006 a police report confirmed that the case was true. It was probably an escapee from a facility in the area that bred animals including Eurasian lynxes.[9]

A clouded leopard, a rare cat species of southeast Asia, escaped in Kent in 1975. She was shot nine months later and had fed on rabbits and lambs in the meantime.

A jungle cat (presumably killed by a vehicle collision) was found at the side of the road near Ludlow, Shropshire, in 1989. It was rumoured that the cat mated with farm cats in the area and produced offspring, including a cat, called "Jasper", who had all the characteristics of a hybrid.

A leopard cat was shot by Stuart Skinner on the Isle of Wight after mistaking it for a fox taking his poultry. However it was not reported immediately because he thought he had shot a protected species.

A Eurasian lynx was captured in Cricklewood (near Golders Green), Greater London in 2001 after a witness reported "a leopard sat on her garden wall". The lynx was captured and later taken to London Zoo.

A Eurasian lynx was shot by an RUC marksman in Fintona, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland in 1996. Its body is currently in the freezer of a museum in Belfast.

A puma was shot in 1987 by police officers near to the Greenwich Observatory, Greater London.

A jungle cat was killed as it crossed the road at Hayling Island, Hampshire in 1988.

In 1988 a leopard was shot and killed by a farmer at Widecombe-in-the-Moor, Dartmoor, Devon.

In May 1980, a dead lioness was found in a lake near a disused railway quarry in St Helens, Lancashire. However, this story may be false due to allegations that the animal had been deliberately drowned.

In the late 1970s, a puma was caught near the Civic Centre in Barnstaple, Devon.

[edit] Video and photographic evidence

Many photographs have been taken of "cats" over the years, nearly all indeterminate, some fakes. In recent years indeterminate evidence has also come from CCTV cameras.

  • The legendary "Fen Tiger" was filmed by Mr. William Rooker in Cambridgeshire in 1994. The video lasts for around 2 minutes, and it remains the best video footage to date. The video probably shows a black panther stalking a field.
  • A photograph of a large black cat was taken on the Kent marshes in 1998. The animal in the photo is definitely feline, very dark brown in colour, but not a black leopard. It is difficult to judge the size of the cat in the photo, and some have said that it shows a jungle cat.
  • Two pieces of video footage, one from Cornwall in 1999 and one from the Isle of Wight in 2001 appear to show large black cats.
  • A probable puma was caught by CCTV cameras at a car park in Hertfordshire in August 2005.
  • A probable black panther was recorded on a CCTV camera in a working brickyard near Telford, Shropshire in the summer of 1999.
  • A photo of a large, black cat at Bexley, Kent was taken in February 2006. Sightings had been reported there since 2003.
  • On more than one occasion, police helicopters have tracked what are thought to be big cats on infra red surveillance cameras. However, many of these animals are soon lost amongst dense woodland.
  • In June 2006 a large black cat was filmed in the countryside of Banff, Aberdeenshire. Footage of the cat was broadcast by the BBC on 24 May 2007.[10] The cat filmed has been assumed to exemplify the characteristics of a small panther or lynx and meets the accounts given in separate sightings.
A Eurasian Lynx
A Eurasian Lynx

[edit] Livestock kills

  • Many accounts of famous animals stem from livestock kills, mostly to sheep. The Beast of Exmoor and the Beast of Bodmin are examples. In recent years, cows, sheep and even horses have been attacked.
  • Between April 2004 and July 2005 there were five reported attacks on horses and 37 incidents regarding sheep kills.
  • Deer kills are also noted, and have been recorded on Roe deer in Somerset and Shropshire. A deer carcass was found stashed in a tree in Somerset in 2004.
  • Livestock kills have been noted in many counties, but they are centred in Devon.
  • In January 2004 a farmer with pastures in Stoke St Michael near Shepton Mallet, Somerset, reported that he had lost four ewes to predatory animal attacks but what was more surprising was a fatal attack on a six-month-old Aberdeen Angus calf that weighed more than twice the weight of an average adult human. The bodies of the animals had large puncture marks around their throats and heads and in some, their stomachs had also been eaten. He described how these attacks had affected the behaviour of his remaining livestock, with animals that were fairly friendly before becoming nervous and almost aggressive after the incident.

[edit] Sightings

It is impossible to establish how many people have seen big cats in the UK, as many go unreported. However the research group Big Cats in BritainBCIBpublishes reported sightings annually by county.

Upon seeing a big cat, many advise that it be reported immediately to the land owner and the local police, although there is no legal requirement to report it to anybody. A number of organisations exist that monitor these animals, these vary in size from one individual to a group with 40+ members. Most will happily share their data with other workers in the area if they don't have a local worker. If reporting your sighting to a group, particularly if you want advice, confirm that they have a local member that you can contact - it saves time with describing the geography of the area, etc. Sightings can be reported via many of the websites below.

Police often advise against trying to shoot the cats where sightings have occurred to deter "big game hunters". However, nobody has gone public to date about actively setting out to shoot one with any success.

As of 2007, the only county in England where no sightings have been reported is Greater Manchester.

The "top ten" counties or regions of Great Britain between April 2004 and July 2005 were:[11]

County Devon Yorks Scotland Wales Gloucs Sussex Cornwall Kent Somerset Leics
Number of Sightings 132 127 125 123 104 103 99 92 91 89

These figures though are seriously disputed and one of the biggest study groups maintains that Yorkshire has far more sightings than any other county.

The numbers of sightings by region between January 2003 and March 2004:

Region or Country The Midlands South East (includes London) Scotland Wales South West East Anglia The North Northern Ireland
Number of Sightings 368 329 226 102 430 246 288 62

[edit] Paw prints

  • Many paw prints have been photographed over the years - some have even been taken as a plaster cast. However, some people have found tracks thinking they are of big cats to find they are of other animals, such as dogs, foxes, badgers, and in one case even rabbits.
  • In March 2006, Warwickshire Museum put a cast of a huge paw print on display. The cast was taken by a farmer from Barford in November 2004 and donated to the museum. The farm's gamekeeper had watched what he believed to be a large black Leopard, hunt and catch a pheasant and noticed the fresh print in the mud. The print can still be viewed at Warwickshire Museum, England.
  • Golfers using a course near Bewdley, near Kidderminster in Worcestershire have grown used to finding large paw marks in the bunkers. They claim that the marks appear every two or three weeks and have been a regular occurrence for several years.
  • During heavy snowfall in Droitwich in Worcestershire in the winter of 2002-3, a woman living on the Chawson estate reported seeing a large, black cat in her garden, followed by the discovery of large paw prints. This story differs from other big cat reports in that it takes place in the middle of a residential area rather than a rural area. The countryside around Droitwich is thought to be home to a population of big cats, and a local farmer has even purchased two llamas to protect his sheep.
  • Large paw prints were found near to Huddersfield in 2005, which prompted the local paper 'The Examiner' to offer a £500 reward for photographic images of the animal that made them. The cash is yet to be claimed.
  • February 2006 saw Police claim that they had found the first conclusive proof a Scottish big cat that had been dubbed the "Beast of Balbirnie" after sightings of it in Fife. Officers took a plaster cast of a paw print which was later verified by experts as that of an 18-month-old exotic large cat, most likely the print of a black leopard's paw. After several sightings at once on the Balbirnie Estate near Glenrothes the police investigated and discovered the print. Experts could not be species-specific due to a lack of specific clarity in the heel pad but believed that judging by the size of the print, the animal was around 18 months old.

[edit] Skulls

Three hoax skulls have been found in the UK, all in Devon and Cornwall. They were found on Dartmoor, Bodmin Moor and Exmoor. They were all sent to the Natural History Museum, where they were all found to have been mounted on hunting trophies or rugs. However, in July 2005 another skull was found in North Devon. This skull is thought to have come from a puma, though it is still to be confirmed as to whether it is genuine.

[edit] Hair samples

  • As with paw prints, many hair samples have proved to be from other animals, but between April 2004 and August 2005 six samples were found across the country and are currently being analysed.
  • In the 1990s, puma hairs were positively identified on Exmoor.

[edit] Tree damage

  • Cats often sharpen their nails on wooden objects, and trees thought to have been damaged by big cats have been discovered in Britain in Gloucestershire in 2001, Yorkshire in 2002 and Kent in 2003

[edit] Hoaxes and misidentifications

A few fakes have been exposed over the years, and although most are obvious, some can go on for some time before being proven.
One such example is of the photo of a stuffed toy panther in Wales being taken seriously by the British tabloid press before being exposed as a publicity stunt by researchers of the national research network Big Cats in Britain. The photo had initially been confirmed as genuine by the British Big Cat Society which was then obliged to reverse its verdict. The same make of toy was later used in another hoax, having been photographed using a mobile 'phone camera in Yorkshire.[citation needed]

[edit] Misidentification

It is sometimes claimed that with sightings of big cats people "see what they want to see" - for example people living on Exmoor may glimpse an animal, not fully focus on it, and "think" that they have seen "one of those big cats". In fact most people say that they at first assumed the animal was a dog, for example a black Labrador retriever, only to become curious - then shocked - at the progressive revelation of feline characteristics. Going on photographs of so-called black panthers it seems a surprising number of people have confused black domestic cats with the "real thing". Against this may be set the extraordinary number of sightings of ABCs at close quarters by farmers, gamekeepers, poachers and similar country people who are used to distinguishing between different species of domestic and native animals.

[edit] Hybrid domestic cats

New breeds of domestic cat where genes from other species have been introduced into them are sometimes bigger than ordinary domestic cats and have caused big cat scares in a number of areas. A Bengal cat (a domestic with spots containing leopard cat genes), was shot in Lancashire by a game keeper when it attacked pheasants.

[edit] Dogs

When the Beast of Exmoor story first came about, many people thought it may have been a dog. This may have been the case to a certain extent, as some dogs can kill sheep and do so regularly. Generally dogs will harass the whole flock of sheep, but cats will single out a sheep and kill it with injuries to the neck. Cats will also generally eat most of the carcass, but dogs will kill for the sake of it. Cats may drag the body to a special "hiding place" or even store it in a tree. Feral dogs and dogs used for poaching make this picture more confused, and sheep that die naturally may be scavenged by foxes, buzzards, and other animals to make it look as if the sheep has been killed by a predator.

[edit] The possible species of British big cats

The world's big cats comprise lions, tigers, leopards and jaguars.

Black panthers are the melanistic form of leopards and jaguars. They are the size of big dogs with long tails which typically reach the ground and turn up again in a loop. They are the only big cats to have a black form, and thus most closely resemble the most commonly reported kind of ABC. Potential prey for them includes Roe deer, red deer, sheep, rabbits, pheasants and chickens.

Not technically members of the 'big cat' family, but big enough to cause alarm, are pumas and lynxes:

  • Lynx were once native to Great Britain. They are hefty with large paws, brown and spotted in colour and have a very short tail. They have been reported from East Anglia, Kent, Wales and the Scottish Borders. Their diet includes Roe deer, rabbits, rodents and gamebirds.
  • Cougars (also known as Pumas, amongst many other names) are large, brown cats. No black pumas have been proved to exist in their native America or anywhere else. They are very adaptable and could easily survive in the UK. Reports have mainly come from the South West (Devon, Somerset and Cornwall), the West Midlands and Surrey. Their potential prey includes red deer, Roe deer, sheep, rabbits, gamebirds and rodents.
  • Caracal are more slender, lynx-sized cats. They originate in Africa, and are identified by their light brown coat and very pointed ears. They are very agile cats and can climb trees and jump high enough to snatch birds out of the air. They are capable of taking small deer, sheep and gamebirds. They are only occasionally reported.

Smaller exotic cats:

  • Jungle Cats are medium sized grey-brown cats with a short tail. They are only capable of taking rodents, rabbits and amphibians. Seven jungle cats have been found dead in the UK.
  • Other Cats: Species that have been noted only occasionally include the leopard cat, which are the size of domestic cats but with leopard-like spots, a clouded leopard, a specialised species from the tropics which was captured after living wild in Kent in 1975, and there are even extraordinary cases of lions being reported in Devon and Somerset.[12]

Native small cats:

  • Wild cats are native to Britain, and are still present in Scotland. They prey on rabbits, hares, rodents and birds.
  • Kellas cats are stereotyped hybrids between wild and domestic cats that have been recorded in the Scottish Highlands.
A melanistic jaguar, sometimes called a black panther
A melanistic jaguar, sometimes called a black panther

[edit] Anomalies in colour and shape of British big cats

While many big cat reports describe the known species as listed above, just as many do not. The attempt to shoehorn detailed witness descriptions into these standard forms often fails. Some of the theories of provenance, such as hide-out, hybridisation, shape-shifting etc. attempt to account for these disparities.

Lions and tigers. Curiously enough lions and tigers are also occasionally reported at large in the British countryside. Ensuing police hunts have invariably proved fruitless.

[edit] Naming the cats

It has become common for the press or media to "name" any cats after the immediate area to the sighting, for example the Beast of Exmoor or the Beast of Bodmin. Sometimes they are named by the area where they are sighted followed by the species, e.g. the Surrey Puma or the Wrangaton Lion.

"The Beast of" followed by the location is the most common name given.

[edit] Famous cats

[edit] Attacks

Claimed attacks on people by big cats are very rare, and no fatalities have been blamed on wild big cats in Britain.

One recent alleged "attack" is the story of how during January 2002 a man from Gravesend, Kent, claimed that his hand was scratched by a Eurasian lynx after approaching it in order to rescue a pet rabbit from its jaws. His original thought was that the animal was a fox, but as he got nearer he claimed it was actually a lynx. The victim suffered a three parallel lacerations to the back of the hand. However, the wounds did not appear to be typical of a lynx attack,[14] and lynx are not known to spontaneously attack humans.

[edit] Government involvement

In 1988, the Ministry of Agriculture took the unusual step of sending in Royal Marines to carry out a massive search for the rumoured Beast of Exmoor after an increase in the number of mysteriously killed livestock, and farmer complaints over subsequent loss of money. Several Marines claimed to have seen the cat fleetingly, but nothing other than a fox was ever found. The Ministry concluded that reports of the Beast were nothing more than mass hysteria.[15]

As of 2008, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs do not believe there to be any breeding pairs of predatory cats in the United Kingdom. On the confirmation that a lynx was killed in Norfolk in 1991, a Defra spokesperson said that "Defra are not denying that there are big cats out there, and say that they have certainly found no evidence of any big cats breeding in the UK".[citation needed]

Defra has published a list of predatory cats that they know to have escaped in the United Kingdom, although most of these have been recaptured.[16]

[edit] See also

[edit] Further reading

  • BCIB Yearbook 2007, Ed. Mark Fraser, CFZ 2008
  • Beer, Trevor The Beast of Exmoor: Fact or legend? Countryside Productions 1988
  • Brierly, Nigel They stalk by night - the big cats of Exmoor and the South West Yeo Valley Productions 1988
  • Francis, Di The Beast of Exmoor and other mystery predators of Britain Johnathan Cape 1993
  • Francis, Di Cat Country David and Charles 1982
  • Harpur, Merrily Mystery Big Cats Heart of Albion 2006
  • Moiser, Chris Mystery Cats of Devon and Cornwall Bossiney Books 2002
  • Moiser, Chris Big Cat Mysteries of Somerset Bossiney Books 2005
  • Moiser, Chris Mystery Big Cats of Dorset Inspiring Places 2007
  • Shuker, Karl Mystery Cats of the World: From Blue Tigers to Exmoor Beasts Robert Hale 1989

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ The Big Cats in Britain research network
  2. ^ Defra, UK - Wildlife & countryside - Global wildlife - Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976
  3. ^ An example of this idea is found in Bord, J & C. "Alien Animals" (Granada 1980), p.204.
  4. ^ Alien Big Cats - Paranormal Panthers - Shape-shifters?
  5. ^ William Cobbett: Rural Rides (1830), p204 in Penguin 2001 edition
  6. ^ Inverness Big Cat
  7. ^ Arthur and the Porter
  8. ^ British Big Cats - British Big Cats Society, Prove and Protect, Big Cat Sightings, Official Website
  9. ^ [1] BBC News
  10. ^ [2] 'Big cat' sighting on video, BBC Scotland, 24 May 2007]
  11. ^ BBC Wildlife Magazine, April 2006
  12. ^ Dartmoor Lion
  13. ^ Bucks Examiner 23rd June 1995
  14. ^ Man scratched by lynx in Kent
  15. ^ www.ukbigcats.co.uk - The Definitive Guide To UK Big Cats
  16. ^ http://www.defra.gov.uk/wildlife-countryside/vertebrates/reports/exotic-cat-escapes.pdf
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