We Share Our Territory With British Big Cats

Britain had a sparse population of indigenous black leopards that bred with other black leopards imported by the Romans. Gradually this population built up. New prey populations of rabbits, smaller deer and domestic cats along with a reduction in shooting helped the recent big cat population explosion. Improved lighting and more road traffic led to more sightings.

An increasing human population looking for re-connection with nature is walking about the countryside at all times of day. The pressure is on for the cats.

Are we going to follow the script and cast ourselves as outsiders intruding on their territory?

June 30, 4am: “At the Bracelands Campsite, a man walked about a mile out of the site and into the Forest of Dean to smoke a cigarette and see some deer. Suddenly a big black cat the size of a Rottweiler growled at him. It started chasing him, but only about 10 yards. The man ran all the way back to the tent. He had encroached on the cat’s territory.”

www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk...

Definition of encroach in English:

Intrude on a person's territory, rights, personal life, etc.

Advance gradually beyond usual or acceptable limits.

Obtain unlawfully, seize.

en.oxforddictionaries.com...



This is exactly the area I camp in. I know I share it with cats. I've seen a lynx and heard a larger cat here. I've seen black leopards and heard puma elsewhere from Devon to Scotland, I know how common they are. I know there are black leopards sharing this territory with me. I do not 'encroach' upon their territory. We share territory.

I see this as dangerous brainwashing, suggesting we don't belong here.


One time I chased after a big cat in Woodchester. I ducked down and looked through a hole in a wall it had just passed through. It was three in the morning and all I could see was the silhouette of the vegetation against the sky.

I turned and started walking back to the van I'd just jumped out of. Halfway back the terror struck me. My brain was sparking and it was all I could do to carry on walking normally when everything was telling me to run.

When my hand touched the door handle I lost control. I opened the door, jumped in, and shut the door like it was an Olympic sport. I know what it's like to be scared by a big cat in Gloucestershire and I'm not surprised he ran back to his tent.

Sharing territory can be scary, but it is sharing.


There is no doubt that the subject of British Big Cats is heavily monitored and manipulated. The language is not a mistake. We do not encroach on this island. This is ours.

Cool for the cats. They are beautiful creatures.

It might not be a good idea to get out of your vehicle and chase after one.

a reply to: BlueAjah

I feel it was probably the stupidest thing I've ever done.

a reply to: Kester

We learn from experience

Sometimes those experiences become adventures to look back on. If we survive them.

Hello ATS...ers ... i have a mate that drives a truck for a living and showed me some pictures he took (i need to get them on my pc) anyway it looked like a black leopard ? it was by a hedged wall on a country lane. He could not believe what he was seeing.. but there you have it... we definitely have large black cats of some description roaming about.

I will ask my mate if he has the pics and upload here at some point.

All the best folks

a reply to: Kester
I wonder if the foxes outside of urban areas watch their backs a bit more than their rural cousins.
Fox would make an easy snak for sure

When they changed the law on wild animals a lot of people basically dumped their animals as the paperwork became a pain unless you ran a zoo and given they was seen as a sign of money by the London set its not really a surprise that theres more running around at that area.

The original cats would of to a point been 'house trained' and been used to like the average kitty being around humans but a couple of generations at least they just see us as something to be afraid of or prey.

a reply to: Kester

I know there are black leopards sharing this territory with me. I do not 'encroach' upon their territory. We share territory.

I see this as dangerous brainwashing, suggesting we don't belong here

The cats might not feel like sharing territory though, it's kind of up to them...

I'm glad Canada is so big. We have thousands of puma, the US west coast as well. I'm really happy they're out there, but I never want to meet one

www.simplywildcanada.com...

Why is big cat information withheld, manipulated, heavily monitors-for what purpose and by who
Why would anyone orchestrate a cover up?

a reply to: Raggedyman

Fear of the unknown.

Escapes and releases account for some of the unusual cats in the British countryside. The big problem with that explanation is the number of black leopard sightings. There were never enough black leopards in captivity to account for the number of recent sightings. There must be other factors.

Acknowledging an indigenous population makes a mockery of the classification of the natural world. Book-learning would be exposed as ignorance. Zoologists would be laughed at in the street. Science would collapse. The cult of great men would be dealt a mortal blow.

The cult of great men, a continuation of the medieval veneration of kings and saints . . . .

www.coursehero.com...

The scientific establishment would have to admit it made a very major mistake. When's that going to happen?

Interesting thread!

Just doing my part to fix ats

If you care abouATS you'll star this post

Saw one up Rivington once, nobody believes me but hey ho, I know what I saw.

a reply to: aquiel

Would that be Rivington in Chorley?

I have a trail cam in my back yard. We have seen bobcat and coyotes. In South Carolina state capital area. The bobcat looked like 40-52 lbs. All the domestic cats outdoors have been eaten and are missing in the area. People keep their pets inside here. Someone's grandmother in the USA had a bobcat jump on her last year while she was as at the trunk of her car. I forget whether she suffocated the cat, or poked its eyes out. The bobcat jumped on her head and shoulders. They can do this to a deer to kill it. I discovered a rabbit gut pile in my front yard. That was weird. So take your pets out on leasches and attach a loud whistle and pepper spray to the leasches.

a reply to: aquiel

Rivington Pike? (near Blackburn) - work in forestry there and you're not the first to claim sighting and a lot more experienced experts/rangers have seen the same. Plenty of food, shelter and secluded areas for them to hide without detection. It's perfect territory for them to appear in.

I've only had one experience with a a wildcat in Scotland - was climbing a style, the cat was climbing up the other side - we were less than 2ft away when we met - luckily we were both as shocked/scared as each other and sprinted in opposite directions at a serious rate of knots.

I've never seen it as encroaching, more being a guest in their area (goes for wild horses, boars and bulls) - be confident but not aggressive, friendly but in control, insanely cheesy but make eye contact, smile/blink slowly and think happy thoughts - but played in fields with wild horses and farm animals for years so have a knack for reading their body language and knowing when it is or isn't safe to go anywhere near them.

EDIT: About potential cover up, be wary if one exists it's likely because of anti-terrorism laws - the locations of animal testing and identities of institutions and individuals involved are all top secret for a couple of decades due to the bombing campaign by Animal Liberation Front.

I know for a fact American Mink have been released from a local facility into the wild by animal rights types and have established themselves (had one sneak up on me and nick my burger when having a bbq, had to captre one that had got in next door and wa trying to eat the cat plus another that ate my chickens a few years back. They're viscous bastards that are primed to tear apart any potential meal (regardless of if hungry or not) and hae no natural predators so are causing big problems in areas.

A large panther-like cat has supposedly been seen in a village in Cornwall, both the Police and the RSPCA have warned people to be careful.

Five cats went missing and a dog was attacked by a ‘panther or puma’ in a single week, raising concerns about safety in the village of Harrowbarrow near Callington, Cornwall.

Link to news article.

originally posted by: Kester
a reply to: Raggedyman

Science would collapse.

Well, that has really made my day. There is no cover-up, because there is nothing to cover up. Where is the evidence for this supposed "recent big cat population explosion"? The road-kill, the carcasses of naturally-deceased animals, the big cats shot by farmers, the mobile phone footage, the dash cam footage? A good example of any one of these would be headline news in the MSM, and would go viral on social media. No cover-up, and no possibility of a cover-up.

No-one doubts the existence of a very small (Scottish) wild cat population. There's a fair chance the odd larger animal has escaped or has been released from captivity over the years. But a big cat population explosion? If someone can show me the evidence, I'll believe it. And by evidence, I don't mean "one of my mates saw one".

a reply to: Kester

Never seen a big cat while camping but I stay near the fire when darkness falls.

Cool OP

i live in weehawken nj. i love seeing raccoons (my totem) possums, skunks, deer, etc. i have seen one bear once, a porcupine once. ive seen coyote and foxes rarely, but was lucky to see those critters too.

BUT i never saw a big cat.

my friend james, was bringing out his garbage one night, and saw a mountain lion on top of a car! the lion looked at him, james looked at the lion, and the lion leaped over a fence. james thought it was awesome, so he wrote a poem about it.
i told him how lucky he was he was not attacked, in california, hikers are killed by mountain lions.

in california i saw a mini wild cat, he was desert light brown colored. and i saw a giant yellow snake, which i took a pic of. but that was west coast.

the big cats in the uk look so cool cause they appear black!

i love hearing about animals like this. awesome post.

a reply to: Kester

If you have a sparse population, it will become a large population within a very few years. Unless hunted they are apex predators and reproduce quickly.

Leopards, one in ten (approx.) being melanistic, have two to three offspring per liter. Puma's / Mountain Lions have one to six in a litter but over two or three is rare, so they are comparable.

In areas in the US where they have been overprotected and under hunted, they start coming into cities and are often seen and photographed. After a couple of decades their population gets out of control and there is not enough food for them around populated areas.

Assuming similar behavior, there should be quite a few photo's and video's clear enough to identify them.

If you do have a problem, there will be people killed and unless you hunt them to control them livestock, pets and people will become their main prey.

Are there clear photo's or video's of them available, as there should be. I've had two close encounters with Mountain Lions in my life. They are actually easy to spot and track if you know how. Their prints are easy to identify.

Big cats move slowly and purposefully. If you suspect a big cat is around, you should be able to find track in sandy soil or wet soil. You will find sets of two tracks almost side by side, followed by another set the length of the cats body behind and ............

If they are not being photographed and no clear tracks are being seen anywhere you might actually have a feral dog issue. Don't confuse large dog tracks with big cat tracks.