AIBU to think friend was mistaken about seeing a 'black panther' behind my house?

[HourOrTwo]

So last week friend turned up on my doorstep in a right state, saying she'd just seen a 'black panther' run across road and disappear into field behind my house!! I said it must have been a dog or badger but she no it was definitely a big black cat. She was very upset and shaken (left her bike in road and ran to my house on foot, would not tell me what was wrong until we were inside!)

FYI we live in a rural area, only one other house nearby. Our garden backs onto fields with woods nearby. Road is more of a lane, hardly any traffic.

Friend said she'd cycled round bend in road when big black cat about 5ft long with a long tail ran into road about 10m from her, she braked, cat froze and 'snarled' at her then ran rest of way across. She saw it go through hedge then lost sight of it. She said it sort of 'slunk' across moving low to ground and had a strange shaped head. I can't think of anything else to fit this description, any ideas?

I told her it had to be a big black dog but she was having none of it, insists it was a big cat. Apparently it moved like a cat. She doesn't have any vision problems, she wasn't drunk or anything (I did wonder at first). She does get scared easily though and can be bit hysterical e.g. she is scared of wasps and dogs. She wanted to phone police but I talked her out of it and when DH came home he gave her a lift home.

Thing is DH has taken this seriously!!! He won't let DD (7) play in garden unsupervised, has cut back all bushes around house and won't let me walk DD to school (2-mile walk through fields). He also reported it to police though unsurprisingly they declined to investigate. They said there haven't been any other sightings. DH has been examining garden 'for signs'. Last night he thought he heard 'a big cat coughing' (!!!) when he was standing at end of garden. Naturally he didn't see it.

AIBU to think this is all crazy and my friend must have made a mistake?

In the early 90s, tiny village, I was having a cigarette in a field near my local park, ( classy I know) I was with my best friend, who had better sense and didn't smoke, saw something move out of the corner of my eye and I this big fuck of black cat walked out the bushes, I blinked and blinked, thinking it was my eyes, my friend nattering away about something I can't remember, I interrupted her saying "wtf is that?" She turned and did the same blinks thing, it's was looking a us and we both just stood gawping back at it, it slonked off I to the next feel and my grind and I looked at each other, then sprinted as fast as we could back to my house, bursting in the door telling her everything after which I got a bollocking and a months grounding for smoking!

That was county Durham, and I didn't know about the local rumours at the time when I saw it, I'd never have gone to that place for my sneaky cigs as farmers had reported sightings often. People take the piss when I tell them but I know what I saw.

Ffs sorry for typos, it's excitement taking over me again.

Eek, where was this INicked? I live on the outskirts of a tiny village in Co. Durham, should I take a chair and whip out with me when I go to bring my washing in?

Entirely possible, but your DH is being a little over the top, in a caring way.
We are in deepest Devon and my DF is certain he saw two black cats one evening years ago when on a shoot. They turned to face him and their eyes reflected a different colour to a dog/badger/fox, he didn't take a shot and left them to their business (I think he was too scared!).
As mentioned previously, it has been a rumour here too that 'pets' were released after the dangerous animal act came in.

Lots of sightings where I used to live in North Devon about 15 years ago, and looks like they're still going:

www.northdevonjournal.co.uk/Police-receive-reports-big-cat-killing-sheep/story-21140150-detail/story.html

I am certain they are out there. I've spoken to a ranger from Dartmoor once in the pub and he said they regularly find big cat scat in an area of Devon, claw marks far too high up trees to be foxes/domestic cats. There was a deer carcass found in a tree a few years back as well which I think is fairly conclusive! No native breeds could drag an adult deer carcass into a tree!

I've never seen one but someone I know and trust in my neighbourhood had a large Lynx-like animal perched on a shed roof looking into her chicken run. Her dog was freaked out. Police said it was a large domestic cat or fox - she knows what a large domestic cat and a fox look like and says definitely not. Early morning commuter saw something similar along the railway track nearby.

My DH has seen one. He was working for someone at their house and the bloke told him to watch out for the Puma. DH just thought he was a bit nuts.

And then saw said Puma standing next to a fence post. He did not run away like a sensible person, he walked towards it. Puma ran away. DH could see it's size in comparison to the fence post so knew it wasn't a domestic cat. Though I tease him that it was just Tiddles out for a stroll.

That was back in the 90s in West Sussex.

I'm disappointed I've never seen one.

Be pmed you vindscreenviper

Ooh, I'm about 5 miles away! Mind if this was the early 90's it might be slow and toothless by now. I wonder if they have these big cats up Consett way to chase the big rats?

All my life I've spent lots of time out watching wildlife in various habitats. Just in the last week I've seen nine different species of (native) wild mammals, and got photos of most of them. Never seen an ABC though!

According to a website I've just checked, Puma are mainly nocturnal or crepuscular so it is not surprising that many Brits have never seen one wandering around during the day.
As for photographing them - I was sufficiently close to know what I saw but to get close enough to take a photo on my phone would have meant a) getting too close! b) alerting the cat to my presence and thereby scaring it away and c) put my dogs in danger

Melanism in leopards is the result of a recessive allele (though dominant in jaguars). That means that if you had a founder population of only black leopards, all of the progeny would be black, while in jaguars a pairing of spotted adults could potentially produce black cubs. Black pumas don't exist AFAIK.

The lack of roadkill and lack of any clear photos makes me a bit dubious about sightings, or at least at the very large volume of sightings. I also know first-hand how bad people are at estimating how big things are (!). I've often been asked to identify birds in photos and then been told that it couldn't be a greenfinch, dunnock or whatever because it was three times the size it should be... but the photo clearly shows what the species is.

Gerund - if some of the sightings are genuine, are you suggesting that the cats are leopards?

I've just googled black leopard - would fit what I saw but I have no idea how to gauge relative size. I just know that what I saw was WAY too big to be a domestic muggy, even if it had been on steroids! It was just so long and its tail was less tapered that a house cat.

Black leopards (panthers) and black jaguars occur relatively frequently, while black forms of other big cats are very rare or not known at all, so a black big cat is probably a leopard or jaguar. Some other smaller (but still bigger than domestic cats) species such as jaguarundi and serval also have melanistic forms.

Gerund you are so right about how hard it is to estimate size.

About 10 years ago, when I was living in NE Scotland, I was walking back home from the village & glanced over to a recently ploughed, sloping field. I saw a very large black cat walking across it, that I was convinced was a panther or jaguar. It was only as it got to the gate that I realised it was just a large domestic cat - the emptinesss of the field & the lack of anything to give a sense of proportion was what fooled me.

It seems there are people breeding and selling Servals - and their hybrids(!) in the UK www.hotspotexotics.co.uk/page6.php

catsrus where I live that would result in jail, owning or breeding wild animals is against the law, you can't even keep snakes or rats. I'm shocked big cat breeding/owning is not illegal in the UK.

In aberdeenshire here, and lots of friends have seen one. I may have seen one twice - once from a distance so could be mistaken , and another time one crossed the road in front of me. The only doubt I had was that the van between us didn't stop, and I would have thought it would have if it'd been that close.

I freaked out a bit walking my dog this winter though - I was in a forest on top of a hill by myself. It had snowed. I suddenly realised there were massive footprints - larger than most dogs - but no human footprints.

Midlands here and my very sensible MIL is 100% sure that she has seen a bigger than normal cat several times - she occasionally looses 2-3 week old lambs and is certain that it is not foxes as a) at 2/3 weeks they are fairly big b) the smell of a cat is RANK and noticeable c) no debris in manner of fox kill.

She thinks what she sees is some sort of hybrid between a released/escaped exotic pet (jungle cat maybe) and a domestic cat - she says that as it was much larger than a house cat but not gigantic. No, it wasn't a Maine Coon. According to her info, it takes about 3 generations to 'breed out' wild traits if you breed a big cat with a house cat so no reason to imagine aggressive big cats stalking the population.