Attacks
In Dyfed in June of 2002, a horse sustained scratches to its neck and back. The attack was attributed to a cat. That same year on August 2, a pony in Bedfordshire was found with bite and claw marks on her belly, legs, and head.
The carcass of a sheep was discovered 18 feet up a tree in Leicestershire. Investigation of the September 2001 incident also revealed claw marks in the bark of the tree. Could this be evidence of leopard in the area, since they are known to drag a kill up into a tree to be consumed over several meals?
While clearing undergrowth in East Sussex in October of 2001, a farm worker was attacked by a large cat, which he described as being three times larger than a house cat. He grabbed the animal by its neck and held it away from his body, so as to avoid being scratched by its back claws. The worker threw the beast away from himself, and it ran off into the woods (after letting off what he described as a “petrifying scream”). A little over 10 days after the attack, a lynx was observed in the area.
Species Discovered
On occasion, specimens of the leopard cat, a golden-brown coloured Asian wild cat, have been discovered and shot dead.
Jungle cats, native to the Middle East, Egypt, and India, have also been found in Britain. These wild felines are about three times the size of a house cat, with tufted ears, striped limbs, and a short tail with a tuft at the tip.
Other species either caught or captured include the black panther, clouded leopard, lion, puma, and Northern lynx.
Theories
Now that we know big cats have been discovered in Britain, how do we explain their presence?
Some have suggested that the cats are animals who have escaped from a zoo or a circus, but this can't account for the vast majority of cases. There have been several sightings in areas where local zoos had not reported an escaped animal of any kind.
One of the more fanciful theories put forward is that these cats are somehow being teleported from their native habitat to Britain, but by whom and for what purpose is not known. One wonders, though, why we have seen cases where a search for the feline in question leads to nothing, even where dogs or heat-sensitive equipment is used.
Still another explanation is that the cats are some sort of a living fossil and that wild felines in the British Isles are not extinct after all. This would seem unlikely, given that Britain is a relatively small island, though.
