Big cat in Argyll

[Guest numpty01]

in scotland its well known their are still cats out there as you have the scottish wild cat but to think there are puma couger or anyother has never and will never be proved??? not one photo has been proved to be big cat indeed the only one danny nineham produced it was from telivision programe he took pic off the screen  ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;Dwhen i replyed to his storey in the paper re this pic he claimed i had done irreperable damage to the big cat sociaty and invited me to his next conferance im still waiting ?? you see when bbc made the program they went to bristol zoo and had keeper annoy cat so they had the pic they neeeded of it snarling danny claim his mate took it in the woods  ;D ;D ;Dthis week in local rag he lays claims again but he is just in beleaf he is right dispite being proved wrong but donations and talks pay well????

[b.massey]

In todays daily star. Big page and picture from a video that was just shot

[Guest numpty01]

yes well i can shoot bvideo too same as anyone else can plenty zoo.s about or animal parks

[Guest paulrstokes]

 

I have that book, it is fascinating. I grew up 4 miles from Kellas and my mother told me they were quite common when she was young. Her grand-father was a forrester and they were all aware of them and saw them regularly.

 

Paul.

 

Whats the book called??

[Blue Chequer Pied]

 

Whats the book called??

 

It is called 'My Highland Kellas Cats' by Di Francis. I have another two by the same author namely 'Cat Country - the quest for the British big cat' and ' The Beast of Exmoor'.

 

Paul.

[BLACK W F]

PAUL BETTER SEND FOR MULDER   AND PARTNER ITS MAY BE AN  X FILE ha ha ha

[Blue Chequer Pied]

PAUL BETTER SEND FOR MULDER   AND PARTNER ITS MAY BE AN  X FILE ha ha ha

 

The name you are after is 'Scully' anyway it is books we are discussing things you dont need to worry about  

 

Paul.

[PATTY BHOY]

if i see one with my own eyes,then i`ll believe it.

[BLACK W F]

i read plenty books as you well know but not on cats  did you know my name is BOB  ha ha ha  

[Guest bakes]

tell the truth its one of these things some believe some dont when my mate rang me up i thought he was taking the micky didnt think nothink off it until a few days later there was another 2 sighting if there is puma'a leopards around there its prime conditions for them loads of woodland thousands of acres of land a big quarry full of deers and sheep on farm land

[Blue Chequer Pied]

i read plenty books as you well know but not on cats  did you know my name is BOB  ha ha ha  

 

Mayfair is a magazine not a book  ;D ;D ;D

[BLACK W F]

but its good  just call me BOB

[ch pied]

but its good  just call me BOB

hi' ya,,,BOB

 

 

[BLACK W F]

hi Davy  how  you doing today  can you think of any good poles to start today  i can but some get really upset  lol

[ch pied]

hi Davy  how  you doing today  can you think of any good poles to start today  i can but some get really upset  lol

yeah , i know a pole dancer , but can be real catty . lol

 

 

[BLACK W F]

YES I MET A COUPLE LIKE THAT DAVY  LOL

[james1888]

im telling yous just now that is defo big cat it is too large to b anything else now that people see it they must believe it.?

[white logan]

First there was the beast of Exmoor and the Surrey panther.

A swamp cat was run over by a car at Hayling Island, Hampshire.

A Devon farmer shot a South American leopard.

The history of the big cats in Scotland can be traced back to the 1920's when three lynxes were killed in traps set at individual points in the Highlands. Alford vet, May Crossling says she first saw a big cat 20 years ago while driving in the Montrose area. She believes that the most likely explanation for continued sightings is that a number of "panther-like cats" were released from private collections and have successfully bred in the wild. It is a view shared by others. Malcom Moy, former owner of the Argyll Wildlife Park in Inveraray, has long espoused the existence of a number of puma-like cats at large throughout Scotland. "It started when the Dangerous Wild Animals Act was introduced in 1976," he said.... "Before that you could even buy these things in Exchange and Mart and many people had them as exotic pets." Secure. "But after the act local councils told owners to either get a local authority licence and provide secure caging or have their pets put down.....Many could not afford the expensive cages and couldn't bear to have their cats destroyed, so dumped them in remote places in Wales, south-west England and Scotland." Other beasts escaped from insecure small zoo's and careless owners....Mr Moy's conclusions were confirmed by another expert.

Police big-cat tracker Steve Ashcroft claimed there were an "alarming number of big cats now living wild in Britain". He said there could be as many as 50. Mr Moy added: "By now some of these cats would have got together and produced litters." A puma's usual prey is rabbit, roe deer or young red deer. But it will also attack stock. "We had a panther in Argyll and one farmer lost 18 sheep to it after the local rabbit population got myxomatosis," he added. New sightings in mid Argyll have added weight to claims that a family of panthers may be roaming the area. A recent sighting at Ford near Loch Awe was the 36th catalogued by police in Lochgilphead since 1984. The animal was caught on video tape and the film corroborated by a local SSPCA officer. Terry Moore of the cat survival trust believes the estimate of 50 big cats at large may be a little high. But he is confident there are as many as 24, from seven different species, living on the mainland of Britain.

Fears over an increase in big cat numbers have been made by zoologist Quentin Rose, who has investigated sightings for seven years. Mr. Rose claims to have identified 27 reliable reports of leopards, 32 of pumas and 18 smaller members of the cat family - jungle cats, leopard cats and ocelots - in Scotland, Wales, the West of England and east Anglia. He believes the known reports are just the tip of the iceberg. And he warns if nothing is done, the big cat population could explode, posing a threat to indigenous wildlife, livestock and humans. Bob Fotheringham, chief game warden at Blair Drummond Safari Park, near Stirling, is less alarmist but still believes there are big cats at large. "Every three or four weeks we get phone calls of sightings of big cats," he told the Press and Journal. "There are currently a lot in the Fife area and close to Balfron. We know that there are native Scottish wildcats, but they are only seen rarely because there is such a vast area in Scotland in which they can loose themselves. For similar reasons I personally believe there are big cats out there."

Aberdeen Press & Journal: 7th July 1999.

[white logan]

The argument that big cats do exist in the British countryside is not helped by the fact that many of the sightings have been shown to be false or worse, were revealed as pure fabrications. Let's take the story of the Beast of Bodmin. Numerous sightings were reported from Cornwall with farmers claiming that they had lost livestock to some form of large predatory cat. Because the number of sightings became very frequent and captured the nation's imagination, in 1995 the then Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (now Defra) decided to conduct an official investigation. They came up with nothing, and in their report they stated that there was "no verifiable evidence" of exotic felines on the loose in Britain. They concluded and that the mauled farm animals could have been attacked by common indigenous species. However, they also pointed out that: "the investigation could not prove that a 'big cat' is not present."

 

About a week after the report was published, a local boy came across a a large cat skull in the area. From the description, the skull could have been of a dead leopard. The story hit the news and the skull was sent to the Natural History Museum in London for verification. The museum duly confirmed that the skull was that of a young leopard. Sadly they also concluded that this leopard probably had come to the country as part of a leopard-skin rug. (The head was cleanly cut off in a way that is commonly used to mount it on such rugs). The most damning evidence however, came from the discovery of an egg case inside the skull belonging to a tropical cockroach which is not found in Britain.

 

Despite the fact that over the years much of the evidence for big cats in British countryside has been dismissed as false, the sightings keep coming. And some of the evidence has definitely been credible. Consider the case in 1980 of "Felicity the puma", captured by farmer Ted Noble at Cannich in Scotland. Her capture was followed by a string of sightings in the area, which continued for some time after Felicity herself was behind bars. Felicity was sent to the Highland Wildlife Park in Kinguisse where she remained for the rest of her life. Felicity was an undisputed big cat, but there was some controversy whether she ever been "wild". Another item of almost indisputable evidence is an Eurasian Lynx, shot in 1991 in Norfolk. The lynx had killed around 15 sheep in the space of two weeks. Another Eurasian lynx was killed in 1996 in Northern Irland. There are credible reports that in 1987 a police officer killed a puma near Greenwich Observatory in London. A year later a farmer shot a leopard in Devon.

 

Following the fiasco of the Bodmin Beast skull, another skull was found in 2005 which belonged to a large cat. The discovery was made by a farmer in North Devon and it has now been confirmed to be that of a puma. The discovery was made following many sightings of large cats (the Beast of Exmoor) in the area. Other evidence for the existance of large cats in Britain comes from videoes and photographs, the most convincing of which is a video of a large black cat known as "Fen Tiger". The video, which lasts for two minutes, shows what is probably a black puma stalking across the countryside. The video was made by by Mr. William Rooker in Cambridgeshire in 1994 and it remains the best film evidence to date. Among other evidence is some CCTV footage including what is quite possibly a black panther caught on CCTV in a working brickyard near Telford, Shropshire in the summer of 1999, and a probable puma which caught by a CCTV camera at a car park in Hertfordshire in August 2005.

 

In 2000 The British Big cats Society (BBCS) was founded by Danny Bamping of Plymouth (current President of the Society). The BBCS is based at Dartmoor Wildlife Park and is in the process of becoming a charity. The main aim of the society is to scientifically identify, quantify, catalogue and protect the Big Cats that they believe to freely roam the British countryside. In their latest study they have compiled all the evidence for the period between April 04 and July 05. This was published in the April 2006 issue of the BBC wildlife magazine. It reported on 2123 sightings of big cats mostly from South-West England with hot-spots in Devon, Cornwall and Somerset. There was also a decrease of sightings reported in Scotland. More significantly, there was an increase of sightings of big cats with cubs (17 cases), which, if true, suggests that the animals are now breeding

 

[Fair Play]

Hope it stays over there, bad enough with hawks Now giant cats, what next?  :-/ :-/

[ally mac]

Still lots of doubters I see. This will always be the case but I know what we saw was a BIG BLACK CAT! not a dog or a big pussy cat! One day someone will get the proof, just a matter of time.

[Guest stb]

Still lots of doubters I see. This will always be the case but I know what we saw was a BIG BLACK CAT! not a dog or a big pussy cat! One day someone will get the proof, just a matter of time.

one day some won will get bit in the ass with one

 

 

[superstar]

Well lets hope they dont wander too far a field as the earth is flat and they might fall off the edge lol

[ch pied]

Still lots of doubters I see. This will always be the case but I know what we saw was a BIG BLACK CAT! not a dog or a big pussy cat! One day someone will get the proof, just a matter of time.

i don't doubt you in the least , they must have a good food supply and are on the timid side . hope it stay's that way .

 

 

[BLACK W F]

probally the cat from puss and boots escaped from a panto  lol