Big cat sightings - Do you believe in them or have you seen any?

[Unknown2020]

So I’m fully prepared I may get told I’m crazy...

I live rurally, think fields backing onto each other, forests etc..

One day a few years back I was driving down a quiet country lane and in the distance I saw something black creeping along in the field amongst the corn growing. I actually came to a stop in a little lay by and watched thinking maybe it was a lost dog (nothing else about for miles, and not a typical walking area) On further watching it was definitely not a dog, it was like a cat but much bigger/longer and with a long tail and it moved about like a cat.

I mentioned it to a family member at the time and they said they were sure many years ago of seeing a puma that ran across in front of there car. Again too big to be a cat/too big to be a dog but moved like a cat.

Has anyone else actually spotted anything like this in the UK?

There are proper studies and cameras set-up for big cats in my current area.

When I was about 10 we were driving to Cornwall on holiday and I was staring out of the window. I saw a black animal, taller than the second strand of a two strand fence walk alongside the fence and then duck underneath the bottom strand. It went under the fence much more like a cat than a dog; slinky and in one fluid movement rather than like a dog that would stick their head under then wiggle, if that makes sense? This seemed strange enough to me even then that I asked my parents if they had seen it. They sort of laughed it off but admitted years later that they were inclined to believe me because unbeknownst to me we were driving through Bodmin Moor!

I can still still the scale and movements in my mind so don’t think I made it up but did have a very active imagination even if I wasn’t aware of the Bodmin stories at that point!

Everyone has a smartphone these days and happily takes pictures of anything and everything that they see - why aren't there hundreds of photos of these things on this thread?

I've thought about this too and I think it's because the ones which would have released back in the seventies/eighties would all be dead by now surely? No smartphones back then. Also you don't hear of nearly as many sightings now as we did back because they all died out. I wonder too if some of these animals escaped accidentally and were recaptured or shot by those they escaped from, but it was all kept very quiet. No one is going to be shouting about that if they're responsible are they?

Further to my mentioning optical illusions - I think this would have been a better example that the one I gave. Both yellow lines are the same length.

I get the thing about optical illusions but in my case the cat was very close to and the same size as a large greyhound. There was also something very “not moggy” about it, very powerful shoulders/hump, head Seemed small in relation to body, longer tail than I’d expect on a moggy.

I didn’t actually have a smart phone with me.

Even if I had, it happened quite quickly and I don’t think I’d have got it out my pocket, hit the unlock button, tried to get face recognition to work for a while, given up and put my number in, turned the camera on, taken a picture.

Although some domestic cats like Maine Coones can grow to an astonishing size, I wonder if some of the sightings are cats like those?

Maine coons can be huge but they’re long haired, with massive fluffy tails. You wouldn’t confuse one with a puma. I suppose one could pass for a lynx if it was sitting up and you couldn’t see its tail. And I don’t think any other domestic breed comes close to that size.

I saw one last year when walking my dog in a very remote area (Suffolk) It crossed the footpath a few hundred yards in front of me both me and the dog stood with our mouths open for a few seconds processing it, when we crossed the trail a minute or so later the dog went absolutely bananas tracking the sent. I have no doubt what I saw. A neighbour farmer a few years ago came home late and found a Roe deer dead hit by a car at the top of his drive, when he came out early the next morning to move it it had been nearly completely stripped. There is a radio clip of Clare Balding seeing one when she was recording an interview

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2659961/TV-host-Clare-Balding-spots-mysterious-panther-prowling-Herefordshire-beauty-spot-recording-radio-show.html

Panthers have a lifespan of about 15 years so the 70/80s sightings can be believed but more recent ones and the lack of decent footage do lean towards disbelief.

Given the size of their territory, it's not that mad to think they could be breeding (though in a very limited way).

www.express.co.uk/news/uk/776289/big-cats-britain-leopard-yorkshire-ilkley-moor
Been scrawling online as this is really interesting, the photo in this article is possibly the most realistic one I’ve seen.

I don't doubt there are mistakes, however, I can safely say the growl I heard was very distinctive, I can't explain how out of place and loud it was. I will never know because I didn't see anything. I was comforted by the fact someone else did, as I felt I was a bit mad and it bothered me for ages (and ruined my circuit training!).

Not the same but a bit further down the A1 to where I live now, my then boyfriend and I saw a Wallaby in a field, quite happily bouncing about. However, these weren't unheard of sightings as there had been a group of escapees a few years previously from a zoo and they had settled in Herts countryside. Not heard of any sightings recently, this was around 20 years ago now.

I don't think anyone is suggesting there are many, or that some rl accounts are faked or mistakes, just that they do exist in small numbers. I imagine the rarity explains why bodies aren't found. Badgers definitely exist and barring those killed/ injured by humans it's rare to find their bodies too.

Yes saw one in my garden. I remember yelling to DH that OMG what the HELL is that!?!

Neighbour's Maine Coon, as it turned out. Massive beast.

This is fascinating - optical illusion not so much

katherina my friend has a maine coon and when she moved house the new neighbours phoned the police and rspca and reported a lynx they showed up to the massive fluffy purring maine coon kitty.

Well I can assure the disbelievers that I am definitely not the type to hop onto an anonymous forum to pretend i saw one ten years ago...! Why would anyone? Equally Claire Balding doesn't strike me as the type to make it up. It was an extraordinary moment. That's all.

Well I can assure the disbelievers that I am definitely not the type to hop onto an anonymous forum to pretend i saw one ten years ago...! Why would anyone? Equally Claire Balding doesn't strike me as the type to make it up. It was an extraordinary moment. That's all.

I don't deny people have seen things they think are lions and tigers are pumas (oh my!) out there but, for a very visually orientated species, we can be very bad at actually looking at things. Even in ideal conditions, and under strict instruction, we can see - or not see what is literally right in front of our faces. Like the famous experiment in this video shows.

Nah. Not in my case. It was too close and too clear. Anyway. Whatever

I've been on safari. You can spend weeks searching and searching for leopards, and they are pretty much impossible to spot, even when you know they are there. They are so secretive. One day our guide took us out very early one morning, and pointed into a tree quite close by. It still took us about 5 minutes of gazing into this tree before we could see it, the camouflage was so good. If he hadn't pointed it out to us, we would never have seen it at all.

I believe that there could easily be big wild cats living in the UK.

I'VE SEEN LOADS! A shit tonne in fact. I live in Knowle, Bristol and for some reason there's been 3/4 tigers roaming since I started quarantine. Anyone else experienced this?

@KarenQuinn
Seriously? or are you hitting the wine too much?

I think she's confusing tigers and pink elephants.

On the pink gin maybe 🤣

I saw a big cat near Hemel Hempstead! I used to work in a zoo and would like to think I can tell the difference between a domestic cat and a big cat.

I was dropping my DD off at a scout camp and saw it when I was getting her stuff out of the car. It was passing on the other side of the fence around 6m away.

Hertfordshire is the place to be to see big cats it seems, a few posters from that neck of the woods have spotted them. I've not seen or heard of any in my area (West Sussex).