Wednesday, 29 November 2017

BRITAIN'S CASUAL BIG CATS


This week I received a report from an incredulous witness who observed a Big Cat at around 9:30pm, on Monday 27th November. The witness and her friend, who wish to remain anonymous, had just collected a hay order for their horses, from a supplier in Rusper, West Sussex;  and were leaving the property, when she briefly jumped out of her car to close the farm. As she made her way back to her vehicle, both she and her friend clearly saw, illuminated by their headlights, an enormous jet black cat walking towards them and looking at them. When the animal was about a 'bus length away'(45 feet) it stopped and licked its nose, before casually disappearing into a hedgerow.  Our witness, amazed by the sight of this creature, says that there can be no mistaking what she saw and said of the animal:

 "It was huge and it's big eyes were shining back at us. It was unnerving, to say the least. It didn't seem bothered by us at all. I had no idea at all that we had big cats in this country!!" She further described the creature saying: "It was about the size of a Great Dane, but much, much heavier built and definitely male. When it turned I could see its body was around 4ft long, and its tail was around 3ft long, the tail wasn't straight and almost touched the ground even though it curved at the end. The thickness of its tail was approximately as thick around as my wrist and its legs were, well, stocky, thick or 'good boned' as we would say in horse terms; sturdy looking legs with a slinky walk for its size, moving effortlessly. Its ears were also strange, they were not pointed but round?! "

An interesting aspect of this case is that the witness said that she and her friend were late to collect their hay and would usually have arrived at the location earlier, which could indicate that the animal often frequents the area after hours and may not have expected a human presence to be there at that particular moment. The witness also said that the animal was staring right at her and seemed bold and unperturbed by her presence. As it sauntered towards her, its eyes, which were large and far apart, reflected yellow in the headlights of her Landrover Defender. As one might expect, she beat a hasty retreat back to her vehicle, before observing the animal disappear into a hedgerow; after which, herself and her friend sat motionlessly and stunned for 5 minutes, trying to figure out what it was they had seen.

It would appear that our witness did, in fact, have quite a close encounter with one of Britain's mysterious Big Cats, an experience that seems to be quite common these days. Our witness like many other people in the UK, who experience a sighting of one of these creatures, wanted to know how these out of place animals came to be roaming our countryside and was surprised to learn of the sheer scale and frequency of Big Cat sightings in Britain. For those readers unaware of this phenomenon, it is important to give a brief background of the possible cause of this unofficial population of predatory cats roaming our countryside. Probably the most popular theory and I think the most plausible, is that they were released by private owners after the introduction of the 'Dangerous Wild Animals Act' in 1976 when people no longer felt they could afford to financially maintain them or were perhaps just unhappy with the restrictions placed upon them as owners. Since then it would seem that these creatures, or more properly their descendants, have thrived in relative isolation due to their nocturnal habits.

Black Panther,
Photo by Magnus Manske (Wikimedia Commons)
The reality of the Big Cat phenomenon is incrementally becoming one of unconscious acceptance amongst the British public. Sightings are so common and reports reach us so regularly through the press and social media, that your average Brit, in possession of even a modicum of mindful intelligence, can see quite clearly that we are looking at a widespread population of an indeterminate number of large, non indigenous predatory cats, that have managed to propagate successfully in the British countryside. The number of reports is seemingly growing, not declining, and interactions with people and proximity to human habitation are becoming more and more commonplace.

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