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Do large cats roam the British countryside?


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Our old neighbour swore blind she saw a tiger in the woods behind our houses. She was absolutely insane though, she used to weed her garden at night with a lantern ("They don't grow back if you pull them up at night, you know", she used to say) and she was also convinced that one of her house plants was possessed by a demon and would sometimes whisper to her. :blink:

 

I do think it is possible there are big cats out there, though.

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Our old neighbour swore blind she saw a tiger in the woods behind our houses. She was absolutely insane though, she used to weed her garden at night with a lantern ("They don't grow back if you pull them up at night, you know", she used to say) and she was also convinced that one of her house plants was possessed by a demon and would sometimes whisper to her. :blink:

 

I do think it is possible there are big cats out there, though.

She's not that bonkers on the weeding front, night time cultivations result in less photoreactive weed seed breaking dormancy. As for the talking plants well, my cheese plant keeps telling me to have another beer and the yucca just talks utter utter filth. I can see why mum didn't want it now. It always seems to give it the big one when i've got guests round also, like when it dropped the c-bomb when the vicar was round. He had the good grace to pretend he didn't hear it thankfully.

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I ran quite a thread on here a few years ago now - can't get back that far on the forum, here's pics of a paw print I went back to photograph the next morning.

 

T'was a big black one seen legging it across the road coming away from Nosely Hall.

 

 

 

bigcatprints2.jpg

 

bigcatprints1.jpg

 

bigcatprints0.jpg

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I can't claim to have seen one but I saw something lol, I know plenty of people who have claimed to have seen them, they've even produced plaster casts of prints, droppings and in one case hair from a fox snare that had been snapped like it wasn't there...

 

There's supposedly a few of them on the north downs in Kent and whilst I haven't seen one well enough to say " yes it's a large black cat " I did see something one night whilst out lamping that wasn't native, the same week a local farmer had several sheep mutilated on a hillside.

 

I too find it odd that no one has shot one or produced any conclusive evidence but in overt 25 years of shooting , lamping and falconry I've not come across anything to 100% convince me.

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They have been seen too many times in my area by myself and reliable witnesses to be discredited. The question I asked a well known fox hunting man, why haven't the hounds ever risen one. He said that one day they were hunting dense forestry and the hounds were in the thick cover hunting, the riders and followers were waiting on the edge of the wood, when one pointed to the top of a forty foot Spruce. And there at the top and partly hidden was a big black cat. I think he said this was in Devon, but the same would apply in the dense forested area of South Wales or anywhere else.

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Why is it that people who don't know the answers to the questions revert to asking Mr Google. The answers are usually given by armchair journalists who spend a couple of weeks looking for the big cats, then decide they are afraid of the dark, so their conclusion is they don't exist. For the non believers, if you are told by some of my local farmers that they have seen them, then you had better believe them, and don't make them out to be liars, unless you already have false teeth. Remember you can find conflicting answers on Google, and if asking for an answer on there is your only experience with the countryside, you want to get out more.

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what we are saying crosshair is to do with facts and optical illusions. Remember the lion spotted not long ago in Essex, or countless other black cats never to be seen again. we had one seen from our local but I know for a fact that was a normal moggie but in low light and with an iffy perception of distance a few people swore it was a big cat.

 

The facts its going on 35 years or so since licences got brought in with regard to keeping big cats privately, big cats live 10-12 years so we are going on for 3 generations on from there thats before you work out how many species of big cats have been seen so we have numerous breeding populations of large cat and no bodies turn up. No hunts or shoots credibly catch one and no one shoots one out lamping........ its getting more and more unlikely they exist. Thats before you suggest that they don't just have one young each year when they breed so we should be over run with them and erm we aren't

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