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  • Wild Cat on Dartmoor
  • Mooly
    Free Member

    So, I swear I saw a wild cat on Dartmoor at the weekend about 5pm so had just got dark .

    Is this possible or was it more likely to be a large domestic cat.

    nickc
    Full Member

    Is this possible or was it more likely to be a large domestic cat.

    I’m not a betting man, but in the endless years of grainy pictures in the Express of the various Beasts of Bodmin, and so on…How many have turned out to be actual large cats?

    IdleJon
    Full Member

    Ben Mee who owns Dartmoor Zoo wrote a book about how he bought and re-opened the zoo. There’s a section of the book where he describes driving back from the Chinese take-away in Plympton, through the lanes with some of the zoo-keepers. He notices a large animal’s eyes reflecting in the car headlights, slows to make sure that a deer doesn’t jump in front of the car, and then realises that it’s actually a young, male puma. They rush back to the zoo dreading finding a big cat missing but find all of them present and correct. The older keepers aren’t surprised, telling Ben that when the zoo cats are in heat they will find spoor in the zoo outside of the the enclosures.

    (When I lived on the moor, near Haytor, at the end of the 80s I had a weird experience of glimpsing what I thought was a big cat. Two nights later one was shot, according to local radio, up near Widecombe.)

    yunki
    Free Member

    I was riding from Jays Grave to Natsworthy at sunset one evening and as I went past the small patch of woodland on the right of the path I noticed a very large cat running parallel to me just on the other side of the boundary..

    I have never felt my pulse race quite like it (except for one time when I didn’t actually quite get chased by a bull riding the farm track behind Liverton)..

    After I regained my composure I realised that the huge cat was in fact a lamb

    nickc
    Full Member

    On a night ride, a couple of us rode through a farm, as we rounded a corner, we appeared to be surrounded by the Devil’s Fiery Hordes, red eyes reflected back at us from all sides…as they moved we realised they were calves…

    Peak heart rate…

    IdleJon
    Full Member

    After I regained my composure I realised that the huge cat was in fact a lamb

    That is just ridiculous, as is this:

    we realised they were calves…

    I have never been scared by a bunch of farm animals, in the dark. Or by riding a local trail at night on a weekly basis and mistaking a small tree stump for some sort of satanic dwarf. Every week.
    Oh no, not me! 😳

    jekkyl
    Full Member

    ‘Boys, keep off the moors. Stick to the roads, and the best of luck.’

    ‘Santaaaaa Luciaaaaaa, Santa Lucia, It’s-a cold and-a wet out here!’

    Scapegoat
    Full Member

    We do a fair amount of lamping. My son has what can best be described as an “active imagination”. We spend a lot of time out in some pretty wild parts of West and North Yorks, and there are a number of occasions when we have seen unexplained eyes under the lamp. It doesn’t take much experience to recognise different eye colours, they reflect different colours, from the amber of fox eyes to the green blues of sheep, yellow green cat eyes to badgers, but it always pays to double check, as they can vary considerably. We were however recently stumped. Not the best visibility, but we picked up what we dismissed as “not fox” about 600 metres away. It was near to a dry stone wall and from its height relative to the wall we decided it was probably badger. It looked at us but didn’t react to the call and stayed pretty still. Even with the scope on full mag I couldn’t see enough to determine what it was, colours were too muddy, and we were at the end of the lamp’s range. The eyes were blue green, and as far as I could determine were at the front of the head, whereas I would have expected a Roe to be more at the side. We therefore decided to get closer and as we drove into the field whatever it was hopped up onto the wall and ran a few paces along in a fluid motion. Badgers tend not to be that graceful, but frustratingly we never did find out what it was. My theory is that it might have been a roe, which was initially head down, then stood tall, hopped the wall and ran the other side, giving the impression of a smaller animal running along it. My lad is convinced it was a big cat of some sort. 😀

    slowjo
    Free Member

    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.

    Mooly
    Free Member

    It wasn’t a Black cat more like the cat with ringed tail.

    perchypanther
    Free Member
    BillOddie
    Full Member

    I have seen Wildcats in France and they are quite distinctive, they are visibly bigger and more muscular than your bog standard moggy.

    Never seen a big cat but when I was in Germany I did have a run in with a Wild Boar, she and her adolescent piglets ran parallel to me, those beasts can shift!

    thomthumb
    Free Member

    i saw a hippo in plympton once….

    24:12.

    hammyuk
    Free Member

    Theres been quite a few Savannah Cats “lost” – bread from Servals – they are bloody huge!
    One breeder we spoke to (while looking to get an F2) told us a breeder had been prosecuted for losing a Serval and a couple of F1’s!
    To clarify that – to own a Serval requires a license as does to own an F1.
    A few others in the business have lost F2’s as well.

    IdleJon
    Full Member

    thomthumb – Member
    i saw a hippo in plympton once….

    24:12.

    Just to give you something to think about during those night-time laps – those cats that Ben Mee thinks are loose in the hills are in the same area that you are riding though. Dartmoor Zoo is only a couple of miles from Newnham. 😉

    IdleJon
    Full Member

    Theres been quite a few Savannah Cats “lost” – bread from Servals – they are bloody huge!

    I always think that these just look like big domestic cats, whereas lynx – there have been a few sightings of lynx in the forests near here – look like a small big cat. If you see what I mean. They are roughly the same size as each other, though.

    Northwind
    Full Member

    I had a big cat moment at glentress the other night. All I really saw was a pair of eyes, and a shadow, then a load of movement but my entire hindbrain or whatever it is that deals with surviving on the serengeti went ZOMFG PANTHER 😆 Then “let’s find out if we can ride a fatbike up the switchbacks on the dougie bank faster than a hungry panther can run directly up the hill”

    It definitely felt cattish, after careful consideration I reckon it was probably a cat.

    Did see an actual wildcat up north one time, that was cool.

    hammyuk
    Free Member

    IdleJon…

    The OH has spent months and months researching them – we actually visited the only breeder in the UK with a full Serval and F1’s – they are *&&^%%^£%^&@%^& HUGE!
    Its like coming face to face with a cat shaped greyhound 😯

    Savannah’s





    Serval’s

    Serval and a Caracal

    IdleJon
    Full Member

    Ha, you’ve convinced me. Second pic down looks like a lion cub!

    geologist
    Free Member

    A few years back there was genuinely a black panther in the woods around Ludlow . Eventually it was hit by a car , no one knows where it came from .

    gozarch
    Free Member

    There’s some ridiculous earage on show in Hammy’s post! 🙂

    Sui
    Free Member

    That Serval looks evil – like all cats – eviiiillll

    hammyuk
    Free Member

    They are genuinely bonkers animals!
    She’s in love with them.
    Just working out if we can get away with an F2 or not 😈
    F3/4 are the ones you usually see but the F1 and F2 we saw were incredible!
    F1 needs a Dangerous Animals license and specific caging, etc.
    F2 though can go out….
    Can just see it now – “knock knock… Yes?” “can we are our small child back please….”
    Imagine the looks walking to the Co-op with it 8)

    Northwind
    Full Member

    Ever since the day ma dug ate Auntie Bella
    I’ve been wondering just what kind of dug I’ve got,
    For it grew up awfy big and tawny yella,
    Wi a great big hairy collar round its throat.
    It was just a little pup the night I picked it up;
    It was wandering in the dark near a place called Calder Park –
    And when people see me coming they shout “Lion!”
    But I’ve never told a lie in all ma life.

    perchypanther
    Free Member

    Ever since the day ma dug ate Auntie Bella
    I’ve been wondering just what kind of dug I’ve got,
    For it grew up awfy big and tawny yella,
    Wi a great big hairy collar round its throat.
    It was just a little pup the night I picked it up;
    It was wandering in the dark near a place called Calder Park –
    And when people see me coming they shout “Lion!”
    But I’ve never told a lie in all ma life.

    You are Richard O’Grady and I claim my five pounds. 😉

    yunki
    Free Member

    Saw a Savannah being walked on a lead in Budleigh Salterton the other morning

    Rusty-Shackleford
    Free Member

    IdleJon
    Full Member

    Saw a Savannah being walked on a lead in Budleigh Salterton the other morning

    There’s a little girl called Savannah in my kids’ school. (Also Sahara.)

    Does the woman in the fourth pic down know that the cat is about to rip her throat out? It doesn’t look like it wants cuddles.

    yunki
    Free Member

    There’s a little girl called Savannah in my kids’ school

    Yes.. That could be the one that I saw 🙂

    thegreatape
    Free Member

    [video]http://youtu.be/DuHO2KcX6bI[/video]

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