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I actually like the idea and hope there are a few out there
Borllix to that 😯
Solo night rides are bad enough ,without worrying about big cats stalking ya 😀
There was a large cat killed/ run over near Ludlow a few years ago, can't recallwhat type exactly.
It is googleable.
So it is, it shows up on forums people talking about it, can't see any official reports thought unless my google skills failed.
There is some about a big cat in Gloucster though. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-16760593
fasthaggis - Member
...Solo night rides are bad enough ,without worrying about big cats stalking ya
Don't worry, if they're stalking you, you won't see, hear, or feel a thing.... 🙂
Drac - I saw a picture and report of it online somewhere, cant recall when 🙂 It happenend before I moved here.
I was out in the woods once (on the bike!)and got spooked by a big black dog, it sparked my imagination and I did some internet searching for sightings around here.
The Surrey panther?
My wife is 6 years older than me - the Surrey Cougar?
Nothing like being mauled by a Couger in the woods 🙂
Indeed 😀
Apparently seen on edges of Hankley, Frensham in the last few years. Friend in Rushmoor has had shredded deer in his garden and massive scratches on his trees! Makes me feel nervous riding/running alone at dusk.
Ben Mee, the owner of Dartmoor Zoo, tells a story in his book of how he was driving through the Devon lanes back to the zoo and got a clear view of a young male puma (iirc!). This is a man who knows what a big cat looks like and was able to identify the type and sex of the cat. Apparently he rushed back to the zoo expecting to find one of their cats missing and they were all there. The older zoo workers told him that they often found big cat poo outside the cat enclosures when the females were on heat.
I'd also point out that if you go on a game drive in Africa you aren't guaranteed to see big cats even when the reserve has large amounts of them. Big cats are very difficult to find and almost as difficult to see if they don't want to be seen. I don't think it's unreasonable that there might be numbers of larger cats in the UK that don't get photographed. After all most people have never seen a wild otter/seal/badger...
Fwiw, two of my fellow MTBers claim to have had definite sightings of lynx in the forests around Neath, not far from Afan.
1997 I was riding up a route to Ben Venue from the East side...a 'new' path had been created through the forest...we got about 300 yards from the edge of the treeline and we saw a fresh bone, looked like a big hip bone but it was still moist but didn't have much more than just the bopne to it.
Anyway, got the treeline and the fog started to come down...decided as we hadn't done this before we'd play it safe and turn round and head back...turned the bikes round and about to head off and we heard a gutteral sounding 'growl'...we set off down the trail at a reasonable pace and the sound followed us for about a minute...we weren't fast so given the trail at that time we must have gone about 600 yards or so...then it stopped...we saw nothing but the noise was rather disturbing.
Anyway, no idea what it was but the bone did make us think it was a big cat!
Then about 12 years later, I was riding up a trail from Kinlochard and came across 2 carcasses stripped clean...didn't look fresh that day but looked maybe a day or so old (going by untrained eye!)...freaked me right out so I turned round and went another route.
Personally, I think there are things out there, but no idea where or how many. Suspect unless they are truly starving, they will leave us humans well alone...I mean, how hard is it going to be to get a human hand prised off an Easton EC90 handlebar to eat???
You can see the puma caught at Cannich in 1980 in Inverness museum
http://www.ambaile.org.uk/en/item/item_audio.jsp?item_id=38933
Just been for a quick solo night ride, and thanks to this thread my imagination has conjured up a continuous stream of big cats hunting me down!
been told tales that back a few years ago that the para's (that are stationed in Colchester),that in one of the woods that form part of the training grounds round here that they used to see a large tan coloured cat both in late evening and they used to see a large cat in there night vision scopes at night couldn't shoot the thing as the training ground around here don't allow live rounds hasn't been seen for a few years mainly because the para's are in afgan alot at the mo 😯 😐
(2004) A mountain lion was shot and killed after it attacked two bicyclists in an Orange County park, critically injuring one woman in what authorities said was the 13th such incident in California since 1890.The 2-year-old male cat may also have mauled to death a man whose body was found nearby, said Steve Martarano, a spokesman for the California Fish and Game Department.
That happened in a little strip of wildlife park between 2 housing developments. The guy killed was a biker and reportedly was either fixing his bike or taking a crap when attacked 😯
I've ridden there alone for years when my holidays - too hot to ride midday so I go early am or lateish afternoon. Couple of times has got a bit closer to the darkish end of dusk than I'd like, and I once had to fix a puncture in there while it was getting pretty dark.
User-removed - what a great job. Would love a job where I get to be out all day with my dog. Was looking for something similar but engineering related (renewables or something else)
andyl - yes it's a bit of a dream job, but it's also [i]very[/i] sporadic. Some jobs involve living in a tent for a few weeks - you need 50 miles clear visibility and after a 12 mile walk in before you get to the bottom of a summit, you don't want to head back, knowing you've got to do the same thing the next day if the weather clears up - you also only get paid for the viewpoints you photograph, so whole days go by with no pay.
The last few jobs have been a bit more civilised; self catering cottages (dog friendly) and hotels. All expenses are paid for too, but it does get wearing being away from home for so long with often just the dog for company for days on end!
Going to try getting into it properly this year - love shooting weddings but would always rather be mooching about in the mountains 🙂
Been a few big cat sighting near liff ( outskirts of dundee )
And the sidlaw hills
Liff cat was spotted by a taxi driver ... So not sure how reliable that is lol
I'd also point out that if you go on a game drive in Africa you aren't guaranteed to see big cats even when the reserve has large amounts of them. Big cats are very difficult to find and almost as difficult to see if they don't want to be seen. I don't think it's unreasonable that there might be numbers of larger cats in the UK that don't get photographed. After all most people have never seen a wild otter/seal/badger...
Yes as the UK is very similar to Africa with it's sparse population and everyone goes out of their way to spot badgers, seals and Otter.
I bet I can get take anyone out to see a seal within an hours, Badgers probably take a weekend and I'll have to check my old otter spotting areas so maybe a week or less once I know where they are now. The old area I was guaranteed to see them was destroyed in some floods about 3 years ago.
My buddy Malcolm dines saw one near Neath, other side of whites level. Was unsure of the scale so climbed to the rock it was stood on and found that it was a big rock and therefore a big cat.
And I heard the boneyard / grave yard section of the wall at afan is named because they found loads of sheep skeletons in one single spot.... Any one else heard of this?
I used to live near Brechfa 10 yrs back.
I remember there was a spate of big cat sightings, all from pretty level headed farmers with a uncanny understanding of what is going on on their land, there were sheep going missing.
a foal got killed and taken at a friend of my mothers farm. the mare had claw marks down her flank and there were cat tracks everywhere. i saw these personally.
police came out and got in a guy from bristol zoo who was some kind of cat expert. he said took casts of the prints and said it was leopard/panther and that generally consensus was that there were solitary cats breeding in the uk.
he mentioned it being purposefully dumbed down in the media to discourage trophy hunter types.
still hear of the odd sighting but much less then it used to be
iv spent time in zimbabwe and can attest to the comments that you can walk right by a big cat that doesn't want to be seen.
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he mentioned it being purposefully dumbed down in the media to discourage trophy hunter types.
still hear of the odd sighting but much less then it used to be
Was this the guy?
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I once had a night out in Shipley and saw a massive pussy. I was scared that night!
I can corroborate the Hertfordshire Big Cat. a couple of years ago I was riding around the Broxbourne woods area of south herts. We popped out of the wood moving at pace & sprinted along a short piece of tarmac between singletrack sections. So anyway, we get to a junction in the road & I stop & look for Dean, but Dean has stopped 30yards back and is pointing at the bush up & off to his right. I ride back & Dean quietly says "fuuuuuck duuuuuude, lion." so i say
"stop being a dick" and look along the line of his point. and as god is my witness, above the 12 foot fence, is a mother ****ing male african white lion, looking at us & considering his options.
Turns out we were on the eastern edge of Paradise Animal Park & Thabo the white lion's enclosure is just by the road. Thabo likes to watch the deer in the wood & can get an uninterrupted view from the highest point of his climbing frame.
It shit me up - i kid you not!
Round the corner then!!!!!!
My mate was telling me the other day that he bumped into an old friend who now works for the forestry and told him he saw a big black cat in the hills above port talbot not very long ago.Forestry people are well aware of them apparently.I,m no expert but dont they travel miles,sure they could travel up and down wales and rarely get spotted if they so wished.
How feasible is the whole of Scotland being it's patch? Or whole of Wales, etc.
The FC have confirmed 2 big cat sightings on thermal imaging cameras being used for a deer population census in the Forest of Dean.
Apparently a freedom of information request made them admit it.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/reliable-big-cat-sightings-revealed-1229204.html
A police inspector up here in Co Durham is convinced we have big cats up here. He's gathered over 450 sightings over the last 22 years in Co Durham!
I really shouldn't gone on this thread just before going out for a solo night ride 😕
There are occasional reports of a Beast of Belper, but that one seems to have gone quiet for the last couple of years.
although the probability of a breeding population of 'big cats' is utter bolleaux as proved by scientific fact.. could there be a breeding population of medium sized cats.. maybe feral.. or perhaps descendants of a Lynx type cat..
maybe sometimes the human imagination adds a bit more flesh to sightings of an undiscovered native 'medium sized cat' species
[b]"I couldn't tell you how big they were [/b]or what they were. They were just large, full cats.
Proof right there then, I seen a big cat but I don't what size it was.
Pretty much it Yunki, peoples imagination adds a lot to something they see. Ghost sighting for example.
TooTall - MemberLeighton Buzzard - a very strange place indeed. I was more afraid of the locals than anything they imagined!
We're not too bad. Most of us have stopped throwing rocks at the moon now.
(Technically I don't actually live in LB but close enough to be called a local) 😉
[url= http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=leighton+buzzard ]This makes made me laugh[/url]
Having seen the Leighton Buzzard link, what made me think looking for the Urban Dictionary's definition of Ilkeston would be a good idea? 🙄
Cats are expert trackers and hunters, however if you reverse these traits, they are also experts at evasion/camouflaging and will see us as a serious threat.
Any that are out there will avoid humans like the plague, let's face it the ones that have survived this long will be the ones that are genetically inclined to avoid us, the others will have been killed by now because they will not naturally or instinctually avoid humans!
jonah tonto - Membergenerally consensus was that there were solitary cats breeding in the uk.
Hmm.
Valentino Catarossi, one of my cats an F2 Bengal, was mistaken by a neighbour was a wild cat cub on the prowl. He got himself in the local paper for his prowling efforts. I'd love big cats to be in the wild.
Sometime back I was in the Kruger Park and spent about ten minutes sat within 30 yards of two lionesses without a clue they were there. They were in my direct line of sight under, but on my side of a bush with no other vegetation to speak of in the way. I was watching zebra and wildebeest at a watering hole just beyond them. It was only when one antelope got a bit too close to their position that the two lions exploded out of the dust under the bush in a charge that any of us had any idea they were there. Bloody frightening...and we were in a car!
I have a cousin in Oregon who has a habit of walking out to meet her rancher hubby at 7am in the mornings as he finishes tending the cattle, but she won't do it in winter out of genuine fear of a potential mountain lion attack.
And I have seen outlines of a creature with an unfamiliar gate and high hind quarters making off through trees away from me on two occassions, once in Kent fairly recently, and the other time in the Cotswolds about ten years ago. Both sightings caused me to wonder...but neither was a clear enough to get beyond questioning what it had been.
Last year round Tunbridge Wells thare was rumour of a Raccoon Dog!!!
And as a final comment....the biggest foxes I've ever seen were on the Gaik Pass in the Cairngorms. Labrador, getting on for Alsatian type size.
I hit a fox in the car on the A3 nr Oxshott a number of years ago - it was a big bugger, must have been 4' long.
there where 6 lynx's caught when i was a kid in the marshland near me in lowestoft they got taken to the local zoo at kessingland and i think they still have 1 of the originals and few of there offspring turned out some guy had them as pets till the law changed then decided they would be better in the wild 🙄 nice move that by him
Reasonably sure I've seen one on a solo night ride in Gloucestershire. Crossed the track right in front of me. No mistaking the way the paws moved as it trotted, nor the curve in the tail.
I convinced myself it was a badger/dog/fox, bricked it and raced home quicker than I've ever been before.
No evidence, but [url= http://www.wiltsglosstandard.co.uk/archive/2005/09/02/Cirencester+Archive/5351761.Big_cat_seen_on_CCTV/ ]this article[/url] was published in the local paper about a week later with a picture that matched what I'd seen (picture isn't in the article unfortunately)
Copy & paste from a search:
Just going by the info on this page alone, it seems strange that every documentry you see on British big cats always say there has yet to be proof of their existance in the wild. Also the government denies that they exist even after the following proven cases:
Captures, road kills, shootings and skeletal remains
"Felicity the Puma" was captured by farmer Ted Noble at Cannich, Inverness-shire, Scotland in 1980. Her capture followed a string of sightings from the area, and they continued after her capture. She lived out her days as a tourist attraction at the Highland Wildlife Park, Kinguisse. There remains some controversy over whether she had ever been "wild" for any period of time. After her death she was stuffed and mounted and is now on display in the Inverness Museum, Inverness, Highland.
In July 2005 a farmer in North Devon discovered a skull belonging to a large cat, and has since been identified as that of a Puma. It is currently being examined. It follows many reports of cats in the area (Beast of Exmoor), and even a report of a farmer shooting and later burying a Puma.
A Eurasian Lynx was shot in summer 1991 near Norwich, Norfolk. It had killed around 15 sheep within two weeks. The story was only reported in 2003, and the Lynx is apparently owned by taxidermy collector in Suffolk. For many years the cat was considered to have been a hoax, particularly by the hunting community. But in March 2006 a police report confired that the case was true. It was a probably escapee from a facility in the area that bred animals including Eurasian Lynxes.
A Clouded Leopard, a rare cat species from the tropics, escaped in Kent in 1975. She was shot nine months after and had fed on rabbits and lambs in the meantime.
A Jungle Cat (presumably killed by a vehicle collision) was found at the side of the road near Ludlow, Shropshire, in 1989. It was rumored that the cat mated with farm cats in the area and produced offspring. One cat, called "Jasper" had all the characteristics of a hybrid.
A Leopard Cat was shot by Stuart Skinner on the Isle of Wight after mistaking it for a fox taking his poultry. However it was not reported immediately due to their fact that he thought he had shot a protected species.
A Eurasian Lynx was captured in Golders Green, Greater London in 2001 after a witness reported "a leopard sat on her garden wall". The Lynx was captured and later taken to London Zoo.
Another Caracal was shot by a RUC marksman in Fintona, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland in 1996.
A Puma was shot in 1987 by police officers near to the Greenwich Observatory, Greater London.
Another Jungle Cat was killed as it crossed the road at Hayling Island, Hampshire in 1988.
Also in 1988 a Leopard Cat was shot and killed by a farmer at Widecombe-in-the-Moor, Dartmoor, Devon.
In May 1980, a dead Lioness was found in a lake near a disused railway quarry in St Helens, Lancashire.
In the late 1970s, a Puma was caught near the Civic Centre in Barnstaple, Devon.
I think thats proof enough, although the case in 1980 of the dead Lioness in the lake did turn out to have had something tied to it and it had been drowned.
I hope that's ok?
Ludlow, Shropshire, in 1989. It was rumored that the cat mated with farm cats in the area and produced offspring. One cat, called "Jasper" had all the characteristics of a hybrid.
Not vague at all then and could a 'jungle cat' really impregnate a domestic?
Plus many other seem to be escapees killed quickly and then the Lion found over 30 years ago was clearly someone's own.
In May 1980, a dead Lioness was found in a lake near a disused railway quarry in St Helens, Lancashire.
Wasn't that dumped in the quarry by a travelling circus?
Drac yes, not as far fetched as it sounds. Some pedigree breeds are the results of wild/jungle/mountain cats and domestics. My example above, Valentino, he is one generation moved away from an Asian Mountain cat.