Not in Dartmoor, in fact Suffolk.
Maybe two or three years ago I was out on the farm which backs onto our garden (or is it the other way round?)shooting rabbits down by the railway line.
I was lying under cover in a hedge waiting for the bunnies to come out when I got the impression I was being watched. A few minutes later this cat walked out of some cover nearby and stood there giving me the evil eye. It had been waiting for the rabbits too – or at least I assume so. The thing is, this ‘moggie’ was the size of a medium sized Labrador. We sort of looked at each other for a while until it moved off.
I called Suffolk Wildlife Trust and described what I had seen. To my surprise they were quite relaxed about it. yes they knew they [b]were around and had been reported on many farms nearby as well as at a Sugar Beet factory.
It seems that a breeding pair of ‘big cats’ (their words) escaped somewhere near Ipswich a good many years ago. The population has been spreading along the railway network (lots of food around). Anyway, they said my sighting would be noted and that was it.
The thing I saw was not an identifiable type i.e. not a puma, lynx or whatever but they said there had been enough time for them to start breeding with the domestic cat population.
The chances of something being on Dartmoor then IMO is highly possible.