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The bastards have killed it
[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-mid-wales-41953073 ]Borth zoo 'outraged' over lynx killing[/url]
well that f***ing sucks 🙁
It does, but the zoo lost the moral high ground when they let it escape.
The killing of the lynx is just total unjustifiable regardless.
Surely if they could shoot it with a bullet they could have darted it. Shame
"humanely destroyed" - yeah, bullet in the head.
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Do the owners of those huge domestic cats allow them to roam free at night? (Or ever?)
Surely if they could shoot it with a bullet they could have darted it. Shame
"Dean Tweedy, co-owner of the zoo, told BBC Wales he wanted to see Lilleth darted but was told there were "issues" with the terrain and licensing of the guns".
I’d bet on a Local farmer having shot it or snared it
PJay - Member
A Savannah perhaps? The look beauts too!
Now that's a cat.
Just the job as a companion for my wolfhound who loves cats, but they don't love her. 🙂
I don’t think there is any doubt that big cats live wild in the Uk . Is there a self sustaining population? That’s another question!
I class myself as a scientist rather than a believer of fantasy, but I have seen a ghost ! There’s a lot more going on in our planet than most people are aware of.
I very much doubt a self sustaining population but Its plausible some are around
Given that they have no indigenous predators and that people rarely attack them, why are the UK deer population so wary and skittish?
Makes you think......
I once was interviewed by the beeb due to my having over the period of 4 hours one Sunday afternoon in a rural village where resided filmed and photographed a much larger than domestic cat in broad sunny day. It were my family member who spotted it moving in my neighbour’s field.
Donkey went batshit crazy as cat looked to be stalking it upto the Donkey’s enclosure. Bearing in mind this was coming into the spring, it’s highly feasable due to needing to find a greater source of food.
All I will say is that there’s a bit of cursing in disbelief on footage and complete awe of a black mountain type walking cat.
Numerous reports in the area around same time of similar experiences though I was the only one with footage.
I had these so called big cat experts (the ones who’ve never actually seen one) wanting to know location and to keep my footage.
I kindly declined as it’s important we savour these viewing delights so if any of you lot see one, think yourselves privileged.
On a slightly nasty sidenote, some blokes even offered me a few grand if I showed them where it was as they were going to shoot it.
They got a swift sod off remark.
My brother’s remember bitd travelling back over Dartmoor coming back from a gig seeing a blackcat too.
It got me rather excited atthe time a couple of years back but still believe that it was a big cat.
Whoever said about these have been around since Victorian times...
The guy who told you that is giving you a crock of shit! The numbers just dont stack up. Lets say a feline of that size reaches sexual maturity by age 5. Thats over 20 generations..
They would have no natural predators, so over the course of a lifetime each female could have probably 5 or more litters of kittens that would all reach maturity.
That means if you started with just 2 cats and assumed a litter is 4 kittens (2 of which female) you would get
2 x 10^20 then double that to include the males.
Thats 400000000000000000000 of these cats running around feeding on helpless farm animals.
Even if you reduce the amount of viable litters and numbers reaching maturity etc then the numbers would still be huge.
Total bollocks. People see a Main Coone or a big stray dog in the distance and think its a panther.
The UK is tiny and heavily populated, everyone has a mobile phone with a video camera these days if they existed they would be proved not speculated about.
The first hand account about dragging a dear, I bet a big male man coone could drag a baby or even adolesant muntjac, they grow up to 18kg. A 10kg cat could drag a 10kg deer.
Big foot however definitely lives on Cannock chase.
Ahhh Chilled, but Defra don’t gaf due to it being their responsibilty plus they don’t want to create scare mongering.
Tdog can we see you’re footage ?
Sure!
I might have to email it mind as it was saved iirc in emails sent to other family members and the beeb.
I also have a dvd that I copied the content to.
I just hope it does somekind of justice to view as shot on an iphone 5 and a Lumix compact.
Post it up please when you get it...This is the thing with all of these types of boogyman videos, no one EVER has a good camera and a still hand to catch the moment... because that is what would show it isn't as it first appears.
Great 🙂 I’ll drop you my email address. I’m genuinely really interested, this subject has sparked my imagination over my whole life .
Edit - email removed .
Right guys, 4 of mobile camera pics, also bear in mind context of scale, I believe iirc as this was dated early Feb 2015 that I were standing a good 100 odd metres away when we initially spotted it and took the first photo from top of my driveway.
Video footage is hidden somewhere in my email but do have a dvd copy.
Also the fact that I was already zoomed upto maximum as it were too far away to make out details.
Ok geologist, sure thing. 🙂
Thanks tdog.
To me the first three look like a domestic cat, but the cat in the fourth pic really does have the profile of something different to a domestic . Interesting.
Quite, which by that time my interest were increasing hour upon hour that it were hanging and lurking up and down the hillside.
When I say 100 odd metres, I should say that more like 140-160 or so but again difficult to judge.
It is hard for us to judge scale here , but the forth pic shows a cat with quite a muscular profile , a type you don’t see in domestic cats!
Yes quite and I’ve owned numerous domestic cats over tge years including one Canadian Maine coon and this black beaut most definitely held itself proud at some points and moved like a mountain lion when climbing up the hill.
It had both us standing and believing there and then that this was totally different to what we know as cat owners.
So yeah there you have the pick of the bunch of stills I reckon.
Why didnt you walk closer for a better shot?
I did indeed get slightly closer but without breaching my neighbour’s property as in the Cotswolds they are arssy individuals at the best of times. 🙄 😆
Plus there is a spring that opens into a swamp type bog garden just in front of the closer taken shots over the neighbour’s wall.
Tricky as I’m sure you’d imagine plus other obstacles.
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LOL, that is a cat. Relative focal clarity shows it's size.
One reason there are so many false sightings is that domestic cats behave in broadly the same way as wild cats (lions,tigers,pumas... ).
There are no breeding populations of big cats in the UK.
The reintroduction of the lynx in Scotland would be great though.
I suppose you know that “there are no breeding populations of big cats in the UK” for a fact?
All that I am showing and telling is that of my experience.
Introduction of Lynx would be ace, I seem to remember the want to introduce them to Norfolk and Dartmoor.
One reason there are so many false sightings is that domestic cats behave in broadly the same way as wild cats (lions,tigers,pumas... ).
Really?
Tdog - that is either a small black cat, or a particularly large blackbird:
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All these cats in a relatively small land area yet no-one has ever found a dead one
I suppose you know that “there are no breeding populations of big cats in the UK” for a fact
I reckon my Maths posted earlier proves that.
Even if the first ones were introduced 15 years ago that's still 1000's of them running around by now with people having cameras on them at all times these days there would be un-doubtable proof, and as also as pointed out above, no dead ones found.
why are the UK deer population so wary and skittish?
Because its bred in instinct to some degree.
The level of skittiness will depend on the location as well. Somewhere with no hunting and lots of human activity will result in less concerned deer.
Did a wildlife tracking course a while back. The instructor didnt consider the idea likely and bearing in mind he does do large cat tracking elsewhere in the world I would give him the benefit of the doubt.
I reckon my Maths posted earlier proves that.
Your maths proves nothing and here's why....
The guy who told you that is giving you a crock of shit! The numbers just dont stack up. Lets say a feline of that size reaches sexual maturity by age 5. Thats over 20 generations..They would have no natural predators, so over the course of a lifetime each female could have probably 5 or more litters of kittens that would all reach maturity.
That means if you started with just 2 cats and assumed a litter is 4 kittens (2 of which female) you would get
2 x 10^20 then double that to include the males.
Thats 400000000000000000000 of these cats running around feeding on helpless farm animals.
Let's assume that you take the same logic as above but apply it to another escaped species which we already know to have currently established breeding populations in the UK.
Let's say Wild Boar which reach sexual maturity at one year old and can have 10-12 offspring in each litter.
There have been breeding population in the UK since the 1990's, well over 20 generations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_boar#Status_in_Britain
By your logic, there should be trillions of wild boar overrunning the country but instead there're probably about 2000.
Maybe something's been eating the extra ones?
no dead ones found.
Bodies eaten by wild boar innit.
I think the reason we're not seeing breeding is that there would need to be a reasonable population density because they have huge territories. Also many of those that have gone into the wild have probably been neutered to reduce aggression.
There's plenty feral cats out there, but you rarely see their bodies either.
I am convinced I saw a big cat in the Highlands once. It was in the 80s, we stopped in a layby beside a wee loch, the moon was out, and a cat the size of a small leopard walked across the road about 40 feet away. It looked tawny, but had a darker ring near the end of its tail. Many years later when we returned from Oz, I discovered that there was a puma loose around that time (its stuffed remains are in Inverness museum). It looks very like what we saw, but the tail didn't have the ring.
I'm no expert in big cats but I saw plenty of them in my childhood in Africa. Our school was in the bush, and our holidays were spent wandering around places like the Serengeti. Most of our family friends were regularly on safari and we'd go with them as tea boys. Best was with a hunter turned game expert (Basil Reel) who was quite well known back then, and he took us right up to all sorts of game including the big cats.
What I learned from that is you can be right beside a big cat and they are invisible.
Like stated before, I am merely posting up my experience and that it felt very real along with the photographs for you to look at.
I am not looking for a debate on whether or not they are here in the UK as I believe as do my family members believe.
I questioned myself multiple times as can be heard on my expletive commentary on my film footage that I have.
It was just so surreal at the time that it opened up a few questions which can be explained just the actual animal at the time cannot be proven to be that of a big cat by myself or professional big cat experts who the beeb stated.
As a photographer and wildlife nut
Those fence posts behind the cat offer some scale. This seems to suggest that the cat is about 3/4 the length of one of the posts.
Let's assume that you take the same logic as above but apply it to another escaped species which we already know to have currently established breeding populations in the UK.Let's say Wild Boar which reach sexual maturity at one year old and can have 10-12 offspring in each litter.
There have been breeding population in the UK since the 1990's, well over 20 generations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_boar#Status_in_Britain
By your logic, there should be trillions of wild boar overrunning the country but instead there're probably about 2000.
Maybe something's been eating the extra ones?
I've seen a wild boar in the new forest. So have other people, in fact if you youtube it there are lots of videos that are very clearly wild boar roaming the UK.
People also hunt them and eat them.
Although its hard to tell from the videos, could be micro pigs... except they are clearly wild boar!
Think you just proved my point.
Think you just proved my point.
The only point that I'm trying to prove is that extrapolating a wild population of 400 Gazillion from a single breeding pair of escaped Victorian leopards is a bit silly.
Which it clearly is.
See also U.K. Wallabies.
Totally agree... but my point being there would probably be a lot. At which point their existence stops being mythical.
Although I am skeptical, this is an interestimg article
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