Alien Big Cats such as panthers and pumas have been seen prowling all over the British countryside, not only on isolated moors but also on golf courses and in urban parks
by RICHARD HOLLAND
The mysterious creatures most commonly reported from the British countryside are the Alien Big Cats (ABCs). So many alleged panthers, pumas and the like have been seen and occasionally photographed by reliable witnesses that there seems little doubt now that some tropical big cats are on the loose in parts of Britain. Once upon a time the wilder corners of the UK, such as Dartmoor and Bodmin Moor, were the preserve of panther sightings but now they take place almost anywhere, even in Middle England towns like Leamington Spa.
According to a report in the ‘Leamington Courier’ in November 2006, a panther-like animal was seen prowling around Whitnash golf course. A landscape more unlike the windswept moors of Bodmin can hardly be imagined. Secretary of the Warwickshire golf club David Beck told the ‘Courier’: ‘We have had a very large cat roaming the golf course for some little time and there have been sheep remains on the fairway.’ The paper quipped that the cat might also be feeding off ‘birdies’ and ‘eagles’. In previous years, an animal described as a ‘black panther’ was witnessed on many occasions at Kenilworth in the same county.
From the 1960s, and possibly before that, the Surrey Puma was a beast that would rear its feline head every summer, like some sort of migrant bird. Surrey is a well populated county with few uncultivated areas; even less likely a candidate for a big cat habitat than Warks. Nevertheless, not only was a puma-like animal witnessed and photographed by policemen, among others, but good quality big cat paw prints were collected over several years.
Almost every county in the UK can now claim its own ABCs. I have heard of two ‘panther’ sightings within five or six miles of where I live in cosy Flintshire. And in the 1990s, when I still worked in newspapers, we ran stories about ‘The Beast of Rivacre’, described either as a ‘panther’ or a ‘lynx’ (perhaps there are both!) in a small, urban park at Ellesmere Port, Cheshire. According to a website, it was still being reported in 2005.
Although a few tropical cat carcasses have occasionally been found in the UK, they tend to be of smaller species such as jungle cats, seldom much bigger than a domestic moggie. No panther or puma has been caught dead or alive that couldn’t be accounted for as a genuine escape from a collection. Although some of these Alien Big Cats may be genuine breeding pairs released from private menageries in the 1970s (a commonly put forward theory), can it really account for all of them and for the fact that none have ever been caught? The various Beasts of Dartmoor, for example, seem as insubstantial and otherworldly as the moor’s ghostly black dogs of folklore. Perhaps they started off as ghostly black dogs and have morphed into ghostly black cats to fulfil modern expectations.
Whatever their origin, if you’ve seen an Alien Big Cat or other out-of-place or weird creature in Britain, please let us know by sending an email to editor@uncannyuk.co.uk
[Source: Various, but see ‘Mystery Cats of the World' by Karl Shuker (1989). For more on the Warwickshire cat visit: www.leamingtoncourier.co.uk/news/Black-panther-39spotted39-in-Whitnash.1907301.jp For more on the Beast of Rivacre visit: www.scottishbigcats.co.uk/englishnews720.htm]
© Richard Holland 2008
