British Big Cat Spotted In St Andrews, Scotland

He said the black animal was the size of an Alsatian or Labrador but had a feline gait and long tail.

. . .

“I could tell it was a cat by its head and the length of its tail. It was walking along, as casual as anything.

“I stopped to take a photograph but it was too dark and pictures came out grey.”

The pair stopped and watched the creature for more than five minutes



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There are thousands of similar sightings. Most never reach the news. I expect this witness will already have suffered the inevitable teasing. One thing I find odd is the extreme willingness on the part of some to believe the witnesses must be mistaken. Sometimes someone with this attitude will then have a clear sighting and instantly become one of those who knows through their own observation.



This story is very well timed for me. This morning I was considering starting a thread called something like, 'The Least Convincing British Big Cat Sighting Ever'. At ten to five this morning I saw one yellow eye reflected in the headlights as I turned a vehicle around in a gateway. The eye was large and fairly close to the ground. I stepped out of the vehicle and shone my torch over to where I had seen it. There was nothing to see. Whatever it was had moved very fast to be out of sight so quickly. Later I was told a local woman had said, "Of course there's one living around here. I've found several kills."


Many of you will have had your own sightings. You know they're around. Others will find logical reasons for deciding we're all imagining it.

The timing is right. Cats went full insane when mating season starts.
Nice to hear they are still among us.
Love the cats myself, be it lions or domestic kittens.

a reply to: Kester

I want to see it!

We get reports of big cats here in north Georgia every few years or so, and every time they were dismissed as false sightings, until just a couple years ago when it was finally confirmed after a farmer lost a calf, and the tracks we're confirmed by the DNR to be that of the highly endangered Florida Panther, which probably made it's way up following the Savanna River.

a reply to: Kester

As always you need to rule out escaped circus or zoo animals-that is a tired old explantion.

The claims could be exaggerated but I can understand how such a feline can exist-i'm an owner of a particularly large house cat and people are constantly amazed at it's size So I wouldn't rule out the idea that a feral feline could reach a certain size in the wild.

a reply to: Kester

The eye was large and fairly close to the ground. I stepped out of the vehicle and shone my torch over to where I had seen it. There was nothing to see. Whatever it was had moved very fast to be out of sight so quickly. Later I was told a local woman had said, "Of course there's one living around here. I've found several kills."

Please forgive my ignorance, but let me ask you a few questions: I assume this is a black panther? And these cats are thought to be extinct in the UK?

Did you look to see if there were any tracks that could be identified?

It is always exciting to me when the "establishment" is proven wrong. I hope you can find the evidence you need to convince people to start searching for these animals.

-dex

a reply to: Kester

First, they have a meteor, now a big cat sighting, what is happening to Scotland??

a reply to: Thecakeisalie

Some of the Australian big cats are said to be plain domestic cats that have somehow become giants.

The odd appearance of some could be seen as evidence of incomplete shape-shifting. ATS member AnuTyr has information on this.

Just ask a najavo what they think about skinwalkers and how real they are and you might not be told very much but enough to know that there arn't skeptics out there.

bushcraftoz.com...

For the shooters out there, this is not an unusual story.

I have seen the big feral cats and shot them . The last one was only this year about the size of Kelpie but slimmer and longer. At 25m I shot it with 22lr ( only using thie calibre as culling rabbits at time)it droped got up and turned after 4 more shots at 15 - 30 m it fell 2 more times and kept moving It was moving slow by then and unable to jump up a cattle ramp we did find its body day later some 2km away on property. 2 of the shots should have dropped it in its place but didn't one head and one heart.

bushcraftoz.com...
2 of the shots should have dropped it in its place but didn't one head and one heart. Worth bearing that in mind when you're looking down the sights.

a reply to: Staroth

I wrote you a huge answer then we had a power cut and lost it. The essence of the answer was the way everything conspires against seeing it when you want to.

a reply to: DexterRiley

I'll go to the second part of your comment first, because it's a lot easier.

The last thing I want to do is record evidence or convince anybody. The subject is complex. If you produced convincing evidence of a black leopard type cat frequenting a particular spot, trespassing hunters and other undesirables would descend on the area. Worst of all, people like me, whose idea of nature study is dancing around a fire barefoot at three in the morning calling out to the nature spirits.

It is relatively easy to get hair samples. I saw a massive black leopard flushed out of his sleeping place by a torrential shower, and walking stiffly out of the woods across a field. Other people saw him on other occasions in those woods. A couple of years later on the other side of the woods I found the biggest cat poop I've ever encountered. I was stunned as I mentally imaged the size of the cat responsible for it. I left it where it was. If I'd sent a sample to any government department I would have, at best, got a polite reply stating, 'we do not have the time or resources to analyse your cat poo'.

I could have soaked it in water and collected the hairs. Cat's clean themselves by licking and so ingest their own hairs. I could have had the hairs analysed privately and the response would be, 'a member of the leopard family' or 'an unknown species of cat'. This guy would get exactly the same treatment.

www.telegraph.co.uk...

Aristocrat warns visitors after 'big cat' photographed on his estate

An aristocrat has put up warning signs for visitors to his estate after a member of his staff photographed a “big cat” prowling through the grounds.

“There is a possibility that this thing is bigger than a puma – it is probably quite frightening.
“We have put signs up telling people to keep their dogs in the car because there is a big cat about.
“We need this thing out of the way before it eats somebody. I’ve got a wedding business here and we are very worried about our guests – they might wander off piste and get gobbled up.”
Sir Benjamin said hunters up and down the country had contacted him asking if they could come to his estate to look for the cat.
“I might be able to sell the shooting rights if it goes on like this,” he jokes.
The next time a dead chicken or fox is found, he plans to take samples of hair and droppings from the scene and send them off for DNA analysis.

I'll get back to you later on Black Panther and Extinct.

a reply to: Kester

Pretty cool. I live within spitting distance of 1 of the locations mentioned in the article linked (Lumbo Den).

Fife has a lot of sightings over the years, and it does make sense, as theres a lot of rural farmland and woodland. We used to call the big cat "the beast of Blebo" after a nearby village/woods called Blebo Craigs we believed it was based around. It's where they mined all the stone for the original St.Andrews Cathedral, so there's lots of abandoned tunnels and caves etc.

I had my own partial sighting around 10 years ago. Travelling in a car with 2 friends on a backroad in Fife, near the Secret Bunker. I was rolling a cigarette, so my head was down when both my friends gasped at the same time. As I looked up, I saw the back end of what Id describe as a Black Panther type cat quickly slink into the ditch/hedgerow at the side of the road. This was broad daylight, and very clearly not a dog. We stopped the car and approached the ditch, and the whole time we could hear something moving quickly away through the hedgerow/ditch, but didn't catch any further sight of it.

Very interesting to hear recent reports still in the area.