To wonder if big cats really can be roaming the countryside?

[Qantaqa]

Local news this morning reports "scratch marks" in trees in area where big cat sightings taken place over last decade.

I totally get that back in the 70s various big cats were released rather than people comply with the new laws coming in, but 50 years later can they really still be there?

Enough might have adapted to live wildly themselves (I assume many didn't, or died from cars etc), but they don't live 50 years so we must be on a 2nd / 3rd generation - surely mating with cross species? Aren't they quite territorial and solitary? Where do the next gen go when they mature? It's not like there is loads and loads of places they can hang out? Even if we didn't see the cats wouldn't there be more signs of them?

I'd love to see a TV show this too. The fact there isn't one - unless we've all missed it - suggests even more that any legit sightings stem from dubious legal situations.

I vaguely remember a programme a few years back.
it had people with checklists, maps, walkie-talkies, dear stalkers who appeared slightly bonkers
no evidence was found if I recall.

I just found this
imma watch it now. (My sister would also say I deserve to be eaten for use of "imma") 😂

Well, yeah, that is an excellent point. Perhaps it is.

This is one of those things that's probably not true but I would really like it to be. I lived in Gloucestershire 16 years ago and was camping with my sister and our dad when we say a cat that was bigger than any cat we ever saw sauntering I to the woods. It's tail was the thing that perplexed us because it was so long and the way it was moving was so different from a domestic cat. The thing was huge, easily the size of a Labrador but longer. To this day I have no idea what we saw but it was beautiful 😍

I really hope there are happy cats in the wild but I also hope we never know for sure because you know that the hooray Henry crowd that run our government woul absolutely allow hunters to go after them/farmers will want to cull them etc.. if they are here? Let them be.

This must be 20 years ago now. I set off for work in torrential rain. About half a mile from home I saw something up ahead come out of a small spinney at the side of the road. My first thought was that it must be one of the german shepherds escaped from a secure compound that had guard dogs and that it must be soaked through because it was so black and its tail was so long and skinny for a dog. As I got nearer it hesitated in the middle of the road and looked at me. It was definitely, 100% not a dog. It then scooted off through the hedge. If it had not been raining so heavily I would have pulled in and tried to see it as it went across the field. I mentioned it to my DH later and his only reaction was that I shouldn't drink gin for breakfast!

Couple of days later I came across my neighbour walking back from the allotments looking extremely shaken. He said he had just encountered a huge black big cat lying on his compost heap. I told him what I had seen a few days earlier but neither of us thought to report it. Scared the crap out of him and he wouldn't go down there for ages alone or without a big stick.

Again, a couple of weeks after that there was an aritcle in our local paper where someone had reported seeing a black big cat on the roadside late at night.

I don't think all three of us could have been so mistaken over such a relatively short period of time. I often wonder what happened to it - highly unlikely that it found a mate.

They have though. If you look on the Wikipedia page for big cats in the uk there have been several found hit by cars etc and they're now taxidermied and in museums!

This is very similar to the picture that a neighbour shared with me about his sighting.

Another friend in a totally different location in the UK described a very similar animal.

I don't understand how they are about if they're not mating but I 100% believe these people saw what they saw.

Recently though TootsAtOwls? I can believe that after the fashion in the 70s for keeping big cats was made illegal there might have been a few let loose to roam, but now?

I can believe that some unsavoury characters would have large cats as pets/security etc. I have probably read to many crime stories - and can see that ahem, big cats being fed with meat from ‘alternative’ sources.

www.leaderlive.co.uk/news/19148097.fears-pet-can-sheldon-mistaken-pontybodkin-puma/

Yes.

I've seen something in Northumberland just across the border from this.

There are lots of sightings and some video footage.

Its very rural here with view people and large forests. Perfectly possible.

I watched the documentary
It is interesting, nothing we haven't discussed and a particular film I think looks edited to have a puma shaped shadow running through.

But, the possibility of some animal kills being done by humans is depressingly likely. I do eat meat though so not sure about how my feeling stands up to judgement!

The reports in South Wales are interesting. This is an area with a high level of dangerous wild animals registered. Maybe a few have got out. And illegal import of big cat cubs is still a very lucrative thing. Not helped by the Hangover movie or that Tiger man programme.

A quick search using the Tor browser and a search engine designed for this reveals it is a thing advertised in bitcoin to buy a cub. Not saying the ones I saw aren't a scam, but it's in these markets so is still definitely being looked for by people. If people are buying illegally then some are going to escape or be abandoned. So the odd sighting is plausible. You are going to abandone them in a rural area so that is where people see them. If they escape they are probably not too equipped for survival but they could be witnessed around the place before they die.

Yes, I don't understand why some people are so quick to dismiss sightings. I will always ask "how big" because some people clearly have a different definition than I do (see the London incident referenced upthread) but there are certainly a whole set of reasons to keep quiet if you see one.

Sadly, I think it's become one of those terms that just gets some people assuming you are a nutter.

makes notes about how to purchase a cub from some dodgy internet site ...😂

Well the born free foundation are estimating 500 to 1000 held illegally so it is less rationally to think none of these have ever been abandoned or escaped than to think there is a few out there. I don't see any reason at all why there wouldn't be some about. Nobody is saying they are successfully breeding or increasing populations but people seeing one is completely crediable.

I mean we know fairies exist because we have photos of them in Cottingly, so why not wild big cats😂

I live in the south of England and without being too outing we have ranger type people who are in charge of the wild animals, deer, ponies etc.
A few years ago I was ttold by a very credible source that there are big cats locally and the rangers track them to ensure they are never a nuisance / threat to the public.
The rangers also remove sheep / deer carcasses found in trees etc to stop the public finding them.

@MummytoA now that answers a lot of questions on this thread. Thanks!!

As the thread progresses, I think it is possible not only for these big cats to be out there, but I think it’s also possible for them to reproduce, maybe across cat species. I am not so sure that populations could be self sustaining though - maybe the offspring would be barren?

I think potentially they could breed when you think of the vast areas they can cover?
I find it fascinating.

Here's some local sightings going back quite a while - www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/19467145.big-cats-still-loose-hampshire/

Here's some other local stuff, albeit pretty old - www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/16881780.big-cats-really-prowl-dorset-wildlife-expert-certainly-thinks/

Wallabies were all over the Roaches when I was a kid, stemming from five who escaped a zoo after the war.
the 2014 video is pretty conclusive that they are still up there.

www.roaches.org.uk/wallabies.html

I would love for this to be true, that there really are big cats wandering around the countryside. Some of the stories do sound convincing. And who knows? They could have been here for centuries maybe. Brought over by the Romans to use in gladiator arenas and then left behind when the empire collapsed maybe.

But, what makes me sceptical is that we never seem to hear them. Cats attract mates by calling. The more solitary a cat is and the bigger it's territory, the louder they need to call.
Surely the wails of horny big cats would be heard and recorded from miles away?

I’ve held a theory for years that woolly mammoth still exist in pockets in Siberia. My theory is based on local folklore and the fact that Siberia is so bloody huge a lot of it is unexplored.
DH finds my theory quite hilarious and has asked if they hide behind trees when they see people. He’s a dick and I shall be proven right one day! Probably not