Research from the Royal Agricultural University suggests potential huge cat presence within the UK, however others say proof is flimsy
Thu 22 Feb 2024 09.00 CET
When you consider four-legged British wildlife, the primary animal that involves thoughts might not be a black leopard.
Yet that’s precisely what Sharon Larkin-Snowden insists she has seen roaming the Cumbrian countryside over the previous few months. The 52-year-old part-time development employee was first advised about alleged sightings of the so-called Beast of Cumbria in November, when native farmers seen “unusual activity” on their land. But it wasn’t till later within the month that she claims to have had her personal sighting.
She stumbled upon the carcass of a sheep, which regarded “different to how sheep are killed by fox or other predators”.
“It looked freshly killed,” she stated. “I videoed myself walking around the local area to look for the cat in case it was still around. I wanted to cover myself in case something happened, God forbid. I took photos and went back to the car and then when I turned around the corner I saw something out of the corner of my eye.
“I thought it was a dog, and it took a few seconds for my brain to realise it wasn’t a dog, it was a big cat. It was a leopard. It must have heard me coming toward the sheep and then ran away.”
Since then Larkin-Snowden has been monitoring the cat’s actions day by day, responding to calls from native farmers who report comparable sightings. She frequently updates a Facebook group referred to as Big Cats in Cumbria, which has posts from others who declare to have made sightings.
Claims of massive cats within the UK are usually not a brand new phenomenon. The so-called Beast of Bodmin has been rumoured to be stalking the moors in Cornwall because the Nineteen Seventies and a DNA take a look at on animal hair present in barbed wire in Gloucestershire in 2022 pointed to the presence of an enormous cat. In August 2023 there was a broadly circulated photograph of an alleged huge cat in Staffordshire.
The huge cat podcaster Rick Minter commends Larkin-Snowden’s efforts in looking for non-native species roaming British countryside. He additionally claims to have had huge cat sightings and spreads phrase about them by his podcast Big Cat Conversations.
“My main sighting was over 20 years back on a visit to Cumbria,” he stated. “Across a shaggy field I noticed what I thought was a labrador, casually strolling and seeming out of place. After 10 seconds no owners appeared, and the low and long form seemed more cat-like.
“It had no collar and didn’t sniff around. It purposefully strolled on and had the form and the long tubular tail of a cat. As it moved behind a fold of the field I focused on the last few seconds, realising it was a huge black panther, but desperately challenging myself for simpler explanations.”
Minter’s idea is that the cats are discarded army mascots or illegally traded wildlife launched into the wild. One frequent clarification is that within the wake of the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976, individuals who had been conserving huge cats as unique pets illegally discarded them – thus beginning a wild inhabitants within the UK.
Dr Egil Dröge of Oxford University dismisses the speculation out of hand. “Maybe a few were set free with the 1976 legislation, but there sure aren’t any roaming around right now and breeding,” he stated.
He is important of Larkin-Snowden’s declare {that a} beast is killing sheep in Cumbria, and of the concept huge cats are roaming round freely within the UK.
Shown her image of a mauled sheep, he stated: “The carcass shown in the pictures isn’t touched by a big cat, let alone one with a large cub. All ribs are intact, and the carcass is picked clean, even by insects. You’d never see that with the kills of big cats.”
He argues that it might be simple to inform if huge cats had been within the UK countryside, because the impression could be bigger than a handful of sheep carcasses. “If a big cat would roam in England, you’d expect to see clusters of sheep kills. A big cat in a confined space, like a field, with sheep, very quickly would lead to many of those sheep being dead. That wouldn’t go unnoticed.”
A Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs spokesperson stated: “There has been no credible evidence of wild living big cats presented to Natural England, dating back to the 1990s. For example, the Beast of Bodmin case in the 1990s involved a detailed investigation of sightings and found no evidence.”
Prof Andrew Hemmings of the Royal Agricultural University isn’t so fast to dismiss the reported sightings from the likes of Larkin-Snowden and Minter. “In my own opinion I do think they’re out there,” he stated.
For the final 9 years, he’s been finishing up analysis within the area. He stated: “Here at the RAU, we analyse bone fragments and skeletal remnants from prey species, primarily deer, that have been taken from areas where there’s been reported sightings of big cats in the past. We look at the spacing parameters of tooth marks … to measure the spacing between the tooth pits, and the size of the tooth pits themselves.
“I’ve done around 250 samples in the lab, and have a further 80 or so left to analyse, and some of the [evidence is] stacking up in favour of a medium to large size feline. This analysis alone will never tell us for certain, but it is an extra piece in the jigsaw.”
His analysis is ongoing, so it has not but been peer reviewed or printed.
However, Dr Dröge stays important of the claims made by Larkin-Snowden and Minter. He stated: “Another flag, for me, is that she’s been actively investigating them in the area for 25 years, but only finds some now. Where were they before? Where were the killed sheep before? Where were the tracks?”
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