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Alien Big Cats ('ABCs')

In your opinion what are alien big cats most likely to be?

  • Escapees from collections, breeding in the UK countryside

    Votes: 57 48.3%

  • A species of endemic British big cat somehow overlooked by science

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Zooform Phenomena - animal-shaped manifestations of paranormal activity

    Votes: 6 5.1%

  • Misidentifications of big dogs, normal cats etc

    Votes: 28 23.7%

  • A big hoax

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Summat else

    Votes: 4 3.4%

  • All of the above

    Votes: 23 19.5%
  • Total voters
    118
I didn't think there were many people keeping wild animals in the south (sorry Republic of Ireland) but judging by the range of 'experts' appearing on various radio and TV shows its very popular in the North. It seems like a person couldn't move in northern ireland without bumping into some sort of dangerous animal judging by the reports. I do know that despite the fact that you have to have a licence for a dog no matter how big or small you don't need one for say Lions and Tigers and ....Leopards oh my!!!. (I don't know what the story is about bears)

Just as a side issue on one radio show (Gerry Ryan if anyone knows about it or is interested) there was a story about an alligator being released into a lough (lake) in Ireland (i think it was lough Ree). The story goes that the alligator actually suvived for some unspecified time worrying the local anglers and boats men. Now Gerry, as people who know of him, has a tendancy to exagerate and report only the wilder side of stories with little regard for the facts in most cases but if there is some grain of truth in the story i would love to know more, so if anyone out there has more information could you post it on this thread.
 
Yeah Feen, Gerry 'Lambo' Ryan! Have not heard anything about an alligator in Lough Rea, was any date given for this release?

The story with big cats in the North is much as Feen explains. I remember an article in a Sunday paper in Ireland about 5 years ago showing a man with a fully grown tiger on a lead. It said the picture was taken on the Border and that the man sold wild cats. It looked like a rural Irish by-road all right, but beyond that I cannot say if there was truth in the story. About 10 years ago the police did a raid on a notorious drug dealer in Clondalkin, a suburb of Dublin. They found a cheetah and a caracal living in the garage. Apparently the guy involved used to bring the cheetah on walks around the estate after dark. Was probably just to add to the 'hard man' image rather than a genuine interest in cats. They were moved to the Zoo.

Homo Aves - In Ireland when someone wants to hear their own voice they call for 'new laws'. Quite often these are actually passed too. Not implemented or anything mad like that, just passed to get a bit of good publicity for the politician involved. Of course such legislation would have no impact on the points you mention.

The Irish Times today contradicts the news from yesterday that the hunt had been called of. The Times reports that the search was extended into Rossmore Forest Park. A police plane and helicopter had been withdrawn (but may go back if new sightings are reported). Police and army marksmen are still searching. Inspector Pat McMorrow said the reported sightings were still being taken seriously and the search had not been called off. He said the white markings in the filmed cat indicated that it was probably a domestic cat but because of distance it was difficult to get any detail when they zoomed in on the film.
 
Sorry Scarlett in the great traditions of the Ryan show the facts were a little bit sketchy so no date was given but i do also remember an old episode of Aurther C Clarke's mysterious world, (not sure if thats the exact title of the show but it was the show that Gordon Honeycomb did the voice over on and had the famous crystal skull in the credits), which had an interview with two men (one a priest) who claimed to have seen a monster on Lough Rea. Now i saw this programme in the mid to early eighties and the interiew looked like it was of the same era but i cannot be 100% sure.
 
Interesting letter from today's Irish Independent (1st July 2004)

No evidence of a big cat attack

Sir - As a wildlife cameraman and having studied and filmed big cats in Southern Africa and North America on a number of occasions, I have yet to see evidence to convince me to pack my cameras, tripods, hides and high-game seats into my car and head for Co Monaghan.

The tracking, locating and stalking of a leopard (Panthera pardus) or cougar (Felis Concolor), besides being exciting and interesting, is comparatively easy when they are in the area. These cats have tender pads and will keep to footpaths and game trails as much as possible and they are not hard to locate in an area, especially where deer and birds are present as these will assist the hunter to locate the cat.

Even though these magnificent cats are blessed with keen eyesight and hearing, they have very poor sense of smell. One can therefore select a line of approach, irrespective of the direction of the wind. I studied the footage of a dead calf on RTE News the other evening and could see no evidence of a typical big cat attack. The calf was lying dead out in the open ground. If any of the big cat species was responsible for this attack it would try to conceal the kill, even if it pulled the kill into the large tufts of grass that were only two metres away. The cat would also mark his territory by spraying the vegetation around the kill with urine and this can be a very distinct odour that you won't ignore.

The two or three pounds of meat missing off the rear end of the animal was not a sufficient feed for a big cat. Also, as far as I could observe on the footage, the soft belly part of the animal was not touched. This is not typical of a big cat kill as they usually enter the kill just behind the ribs in the belly and feast on the nutritious organs first. If the neck of the kill was skinned out, the distinct puncture marks on the throat are very obvious and will give you a good idea of the size of cat you're dealing with.

Big cats are very reclusive and secret animals and will seldom be seen during broad daylight. The people of Monaghan have nothing to fear.

James Pembroke,
Killarney,
Co Kerry
 
The Sunday Times (Ireland) - July 04, 2004

Destroyed evidence leaves the case of the ‘big cat’ wide open
Scott Millar

A CALF carcass that triggered an expensive search for a supposed puma prowling around Co Monaghan was destroyed before an autopsy by a big cat expert could be carried out. The animal remains were disposed of at a knackery following an inspection in what gardai say was normal procedure.

The manner in which the calf was killed prompted concern that a wild cat was on the loose and led to an extensive hunt. A team of army marksmen, backed up by a garda helicopter and a fixed-wing aircraft were deployed to search for the puma because of a perceived threat to local children and livestock.

Stephen Philpot, director of the Ulster Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (USPCA) and a big cat expert, doubted the need for a search. He branded RTE’s broadcasting of pictures “of what was obviously a domestic cat” as “absolutely stupid”. “You couldn’t make it up,” he said. “That this calf was not given a post-mortem beggars belief, no matter what condition the flesh was in. The important tests are into how the bones have been damaged.” “There are no records of an exotic wild cat attacking members of the public and very little evidence of attacks on livestock. I had a look at the terrain this big black cat was supposedly sighted in in Monaghan and it is just not the environment these animals live in.”

Other so-called evidence of the large cat has already been dismissed. A video of the animal taken by Charlie McGuinness, a local farmer who genuinely believed it was a wild cat, proved to be of a large black-and-white domestic cat.

A goat, originally thought to have been mauled by the creature, was later found to have been savaged by a dog.

Inspector Pat McMorrow, who co-ordinated the garda operation, said the calf’s carcass had to be disposed of for health reasons. “By the time it was inspected, it had already been got at by rats, birds and other animals,” an agriculture department official said.

Gardai have now suspended the search for the puma.

Philpot has voiced concern that the incident may prejudice more urgent alerts, which he believes will increase when British exotic animal laws are extended to Northern Ireland on July 15. Six tigers, a leopard, a lion, three wolves and various monkeys have been taken from homes in Northern Ireland. The USPCA also had to house two baboons from Finglas. :eek!!!!:
 
I have to say that it was only a matter of time before the real identity of the 'puma' came out. It is fairly typical of this country to blow things out of porportion.and sensetionialize anything remotely different.
I heard Gerry Ryan again this morning insisting that it was a real puma.
 
<Homo Aves is now wearing a bulletproof vest in case anyone mistakes her for; a) Mothman, b) A thunderbird, or c) anything else.>

Well, we wasnt fooled, were we?
 
Wait! Wait! Another report. This is getting like the 'moving statues' flap in 1986 when every county had to have one!

RTE news site - 06 July 2004 12:59

Search for big cat near Cavan town

Gardaí in Co Cavan have been conducting patrolled searches outside the town after sightings of a large black cat.

The cat, reported to be larger than a Labrador dog, was spotted running across a field and climbing up a tree in the Kilmore area, west of Cavan town.

Similar sightings have been reported in Co Monaghan in recent weeks, leading to speculation that an animal such as a puma might be at large.

Cavan gardaí said three callers had reported seeing the cat at around 10pm last night. There have been no further reported sightings since then
 
<By now, Homo Aves has put on a bicycle helmet complete with two rear reflectors, for that `red glowing eyes` effect...>
 
Be carefull out there Homo Aves with your new improved helmet, you may frighten any self respecting Big Cat but you don't want get shot in the back by some slack jawed yokel farming type protecting his livestock and who doesn't know a domestic tabby from a panther from a Homo Aves on a bike :)
 
31 lambs killed on farm in Vernon




By: Kurt Wanfried , Managing Editor
07/10/2004



VERNON - Farmer Wendy Gornick believes incidents in May at her Cooper Street sheep farm are the genesis of speculation that there is a cougar prowling the township.

Over the Memorial Day weekend she says some sort of animal killed 28 lambs in a pasture on her farm.

There were about 175 weaned lambs in the group, the offspring of the 200 ewes on her farm.


She took the remaining lambs out of the pasture and put some of them in her barn and some in a paddock near her barn.


A week-and-a-half later three more were killed - two in the barn and one in the paddock.


"I'm not saying it was a cougar," she says. Some of the injuries looked as if they'd been inflicted by a large cat. Others, she says, looked more like dog bites.


She's certain, however, a fox wasn't the culprit because foxes are simply too small to bring down these lambs, which weighed about between 60 and 80 pounds.


Predators haven't been a big problem on her farm. The only major problem she's had before was in 1999, when a pack of dogs killed four of her animals.


She says her insurance company looked into the Memorial Day attacks and couldn't determine what type of predator carried them out.


She says she contacted the Vernon Police and the state DEC, which is why she was surprised to read a small story in Thursday's paper in which a state DEC spokesman said the department hadn't heard about any sheep killings.
Click to expand...

http://www.oneidadispatch.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=12303361&BRD=1709&PAG=461&dept_id=68844&rfi=6
 
Presence of mountain lions is possibility, but proof is needed

By KEVIN WRIGHT/for the Daily Ledger

You can just about go anywhere in the state of Illinois and someone will have a mountain lion story. Fulton County is no stranger to that. Over the years, stories of these big cats roaming our woods have existed. Until recently though many of those stories were just that, -- stories.

A few years ago a wild mountain lion was killed in southern Illinois after being hit by a train. State officials began wondering if indeed lions could exist in the Illinois landscape. Near Quincy a outdoor writer photographed a mountain lion with a night tracker camera.

Nearby states are also getting more sightings of mountain lions. In 2003, Missouri discovered a young mountain lion that had been hit by a car. And last year a Missouri hunter killed a massive creature. With these and other sightings Missouri has put together a Mountain lion emergency response team. They will go out and study possible signs and sightings of this animal.

Illinois has no such team nor do they see that we really need one. But do we?

Here are a few Fulton county stories from protected individuals.

One farmer heard a wonderful squeal or something similar. After investigating the scene he found a dead deer up in a tree. One person had one run out in front of his car between St. David and Lewistown. Another running across a corn field. Others have heard strange noises in the night; others have found large tracks on their property.

While I am not disclaiming the fact that a lion might exist in the wilds of Fulton county, I just wonder about some of the stories. For example, one person who had seen a black panther actually was looking out for a black lab which had been lost in the woods for a few days.

The loud noises at night are probably coming from coyotes or foxes or even a dying rabbit since lions make very little noises in the woods. If a lion can make a blood churning noise then your cat would be able to do the same at home. Have you ever heard a fox, especially during the mating season?

We have to remember that a mountain lion can be over five feet long with a tail as long as half its body. A male lion can weigh up to 160 pounds, a female up to 110. Home ranges can be from 50 to 120 square miles. The males have the larger territories.

With the abundance of Illinois deer it is possible that one could survive in the wilds but we need more proof. We need pictures and video. This and only this will be the best proof of a wild lion in our area.

I must tell you that I photographed a set of prints just outside of Canton. Being over four inches wide, rounded and no claws showing, could it have been a lion? I would like to say yes but seeing the real thing would be the only real proof and a photograph too.

Great adventures to you!
Click to expand...

http://www.cantondailyledger.com/articles/2004/07/17/news/news1.txt
 
AFAIK at least one of the Irish "big" cats has been discredited as merely someone's large black moggie (according to the Sun)
 
There was an ABC sighting in Hampshire (around the New Forest area) a while ago that I read about in some local magazine, it wasn't mentioned in the FT ABC register, which annoyed me cos I was going to send in the clipping but lost it.
 
"Big Cat" sighted in Suffolk

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/suffolk/3529254.stm

There have been two more reported sightings of a big cat in Suffolk.

"I saw something out of the corner of my eye. He was standing in front of us, about 30ft away. He took a few steps towards us, looked at us, then went off towards the bridge,"
 
I was wondering, have there been any extensive reports of there being a "Beast" of Dartmoor? Locally everyone always talked about the "Beast of Bodmin" and to a lesser extent on Exmoor, never Dartmoor though.

However, one year I've been for a drive on the moors with my Grandparents, Iwas maybe 11 or so at the time, possibly a couple of years older, but we're talking roughly 10 years ago here.

Anyway, we were driving home towards Plympton and were about 10minutes drive from Postbridge (of Hairy Hands fame) and I was gazing out the window in a bored manner, looking at the scenery and the road we were on (the one leading, eventually to Princeton which we were driving away from) was sort of higher up than the fields either side, with slopes leading down from the road to the flat grassland.

I was looking down at the field to my left, and notices the ruins of an old wall, it looked like they could have been the foundation of a small house once, but very long ago. It was now only a few feet high, it was hard to tell from the distance away but I'd guess perhaps 4ft. There was a tree within the structure and a few sheep grazing around the area. I took this in at first, and then I remeber my jaw dropped when I saw a dark creature doing what I can best describe as slinking over the wall behind a seemingly unsuspecting sheep. I shouted at my Gran to look, but by that time we'd already driven past it, and she and my Grandfather said it was probably a Dartmoor pony I saw, if I saw something big.

I'm sure it wasn't though because it looked...well, really sleek and the ponies are very scruffy, it was also very lithe, it was moving like a cat and no question. I could see the shoulder blades moving as it climbed the wall, the same way you see them move in a cat as it walks.

There's a chance it could have been a regular cat, possibly gone wild and that because of the distance I was perceiving the size all wrong, it could also have been a dog I suppose, but it didn't really move like one from what I saw.

Just thought I'd share anyway, and see if anyone else had seen a "Beast" (or ABC as we call them now!) on Dartmoor.
 
Big Cat in Mendips

ATTACK SPARKS 'BIG CAT' HUNT
18:00 - 12 August 2004
Dog walker sees mystery animal mauling deer in mendips

The hunt is back on for the so-called "Beast of Mendip" after a deer was attacked near Frome.

The incident occurred last Wednesday afternoon when resident Hilary Comer was walking her dog in a field near the Common Lane area between Holcombe and Coleford.

Her story has reignited fears that a large cat is on the loose around the villages between Frome and Radstock.

Mrs Comer said she was walking along when, to her shock, her dog, who had momentarily been out of her sight, appeared with a severed rear leg of a wild deer in its mouth.

She said: "Anya, my pet Doberman, walked on with the leg in her mouth then stopped, pricked her ears up and seemed to be peering over at something.

"When I went over I saw a large, healthy, shiny cat with big hips turn away from the carcass of a deer and run up a tree.

"It had an elongated body about 5ftlong, not including the tail, was jet black in colour and stalking, like a puma or large wild cat.

"I stood back in shock and, for a moment, thought it was going to pounce, but it just sat there still and silent.

"My dog then wandered off, as she was a bit wary, and I then walked back home."

"I am absolutely positive it was a large cat and I know several other people from the village who have spotted a similar beast in the last few months." On Thursday afternoon people from the area began a search of where the beast had been spotted.

In the last year there have been several alleged sightings of the now infamous Coleford cat, but last Wednesday's sighting was the most compelling and chilling to date.

In May, four men from Frome narrowly avoided hitting a big cat in their car near Leigh-upon-Mendip, and in January a farmer from Stoke St Michael reported a spate of attacks on his herd of cows and lambs from a mysterious cat-like beast.

There have also been reported sightings of big cats in Coleford, Holcombe and Mells.

Robin Dogbeer, who works for the Dartmoor Wildlife Park and specialises in big cat sightings, said: "Mrs Comer was right to leave the area when she spotted the beast, as big cats are at their most threatening when they have made a kill, or are protecting cubs.

"The chances of running into a cat when it is in the middle of a feed are extremely remote to say the least.

They can become very vicious and they will attack humans if approached.

"Residents should not panic but, if they do spot the cat, they should back off slowly, not run and keep the cat in their sights.

"If the animal went up a tree and is the colour of a lioness, it is likely to be a puma. Leopards are dark in colour and would normally run off rather than climb up a tree.

"This much activity in one area is very rare and I will be contacting colleagues in order to suggest beginning a study and perhaps setting up a camera in the area to try to capture evidence of the cat."

[email protected]

Have you seen a big cat in the Mendip area? Contact the Frome & Somerset Standard on 01373 462379


This is Somerset
 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/3621142.stm


Family captures 'big cat' on film

David Bacon is convinced he did not see a normal cat
There has been yet another suspected sighting of a so-called "big cat" in a remote area of Wales.

The latest claim of a wild beast roaming farmland is backed up with home video footage shot by a holidaymaker from the Midlands.

It shows what appears to be a black cat-like creature creeping stealthily through undergrowth.

A Welsh Assembly Government investigation concluded that the animal was just a domestic moggy, but big cat experts are keeping an open mind.

Nevertheless, the holidaymaker who captured the pictures on tape is convinced his recording illustrates something other than a domestic cat.

David Bacon and his family, from Wolverhampton, were holidaying in Foel, near Welshpool, when he made the discovery.


"I take a keen interest in wildlife and I'm always peering through binoculars at things when I'm in Wales," he said.

"But on this occasion I spotted something that looked like a big cat.
"My first instinct was that the creature was a panther because it was so black.
"We were just 600 yards away from it and there's no way it was just a large domestic moggy. The cat was walking through some bracken and undergrowth.
"My son suggested it was a puma but it was too black for a puma.
"My other son ran across to us with higher strength binoculars and he thought it was a big cat too."
Mr Bacon added: "I did manage to get a shot of the cat although it was only 10 seconds long," he said.
"We're convinced it was a big cat and definitely not a large tom cat.


Experts believe it could have been a panther

"Locals in the village said they'd never seen anything suspicious before and a farmer came to see us to get more information.
"I took a copy of the video and handed it to Welshpool police, and I contacted a wildlife expert from the Welsh assembly who seemed very interested."
The film shows a black figure moving through the undergrowth. The footage is shaky, as Mr Bacon was trying to zoom in on the subject and focus the camera.
Welsh assembly wildlife experts have since visited the site with Mr Bacon.
Sergeant Darren Brown of Dyfed-Powys Police in Welshpool said he had made inquiries too.
"We contacted the RSPCA's officer in mid Wales who said he had heard nothing about injuries to stock in the area.
"We contacted a farmer who worked on a scheme called Farm Watch and he hadn't received any reports of sightings of details about mauled stock."

Film comparison

A spokesman for the Welsh Assembly Government said: "Officials from the Assembly Government have visited the site and taken video footage of a colleague standing at the same location where the video was taken.

"The same camera was used and it was taken at the same zoom and from the same position as the original video.
"A comparison of a single frame from the original video and a single frame of the video of a colleague clearly shows that the animal is the same size as a domestic cat."
Fears of wild big cats such as pumas and panthers roaming mid Wales have circulated since the 1970s with sightings of the so-called 'Beast of Bont' in north Ceredigion.

Last year, an expert was called in to investigate a suspected big cat attack on a Welsh lamb at Talsarn, near Lampeter.

The Welsh Assembly Government takes sightings seriously
Chris Moiser of the British Big Cats' Society said it was possible Mr Bacon did spot a panther and he believes some may live wild in remote parts Britain, after changes to laws restricting people keeping wild animals.

"You get three types of people who see these animals - attention seekers, the genuinely mistaken, and those who see what they think is a big cat," he added.

"Most people think that before the introduction of the Dangerous Wild Animals Act of 1976 most people released big cats they'd kept as pets.

"But that doesn't explain the sightings of big cats in the 1960s in part of Somerset and Surrey."

Mr Moiser added: "From Mr Bacon's description, the prime candidate is a black panther.

"They will eat whatever they feel like such as rabbit or deer and they will go for sheep if they take their fancy.

"Large adult males can roam up to 40 miles a night to visit females, but they will normally roam 25 miles at night."

(c) bbc wales 04
 
"What British predator has the power to carry a sheep carcase into a tree and do the damage described above?"

You mean apart from the obvous one, the one that goes on two legs...?
 
big black cats

It is this very subject which brought me to the Fortean site - I am a fairly recent computer user, and although I knew there was a book or magazine back in the 50's, I never realised that it was still goig (very) strong, and in the form we see it today!

However, to get back to the thread, I was travelling to Edinburgh a few weeks back to visit the Fringe Festival and meet up with a friend. I was with my husband and we had made a very early start. The day was beautiful, very clear and crisp with excellent visability.

We tend to travel up to Edinburgh via Moffat (I don't have the road number to hand) and had just left the village of Broughton. It was around 9.15am and on a long straight stretch of this lovely road. As we were bowling along (me driving) I was looking straight ahead and saw something flicker in the extreme right hand side of my vision. It was large and black. I was just starting to say to husband that the rooks (or crows) were being very cheeky, gliding down into the road without waiting for the traffic to pass when I glanced into my rear view mirror. I saw two -I can only describe them as four legged creatures - lope gracefully across the rear of the car and leap into the undergrowth at the opposite side of the read.

One was slightly behind the other so that the one in front's head and forequarters were already out of sight in the undergrowth. The second one was 'overlapping' the first one and this one was fully on view. They were long and low to the ground, around the size (I think) of a large labrador. They had long tails carried low, with a rounded 'bulge' on the end - no tufts. Their rib cages seemed prominent - by that I don't mean they looked emaciated, just that this is a body shap I associate with sleek big cats. They were both jet black.

The only thing is - I couldn't put my hand on my heart and say they were actually feline. The head of the one I saw was small and almost 'smooth' I did not see anything resembling cat-like ears.

What I did think however is that they were utterly captivating and enchanting to see. I know this sounds daft but I feel all the better for seeing them. It was almost like a little gift from something...

I cried out and stamped on the brakes of the car. My husband of course hadn't seen them. I must have been babbling but I steered into a small gravel layby just by the side of us and got out but of course there was nothing to be seen. There was another vehicle - a local farmer's landrover, by the look of it, who was behind us and this car also pulled in. Unfortunately, as we were on a very tight schedule, husband insisted that we drive on as we had people to meet and parking spaces to fight over, and I was SO disappointed.

I decided to look up on the internet to find out if there was any information that would help me identify what I had seen - Amazing!!! I had no idea what was out there on the web!! It seems the world and his wife hav e seen 'ABC's' - and the most interesting aspect of it all was that. on checking one particular website's map of the UK's most frequent reported sightings , I found it to be - guess where? - The eastern Scottish Borders...

On reading other sites I came across information about the Kellas cat, of which I had never heard previously - the pictures and sketches COULD have been what I saw - but I just can't be sure..

Does anyone out there have any theories or similar stories about that particular area??
 
I originally posted this in the main ABCs thread, perhaps this is a better place for it:

Sarah said:
I was wondering, have there been any extensive reports of there being a "Beast" of Dartmoor? Locally everyone always talked about the "Beast of Bodmin" and to a lesser extent on Exmoor, never Dartmoor though.

However, one year I've been for a drive on the moors with my Grandparents, Iwas maybe 11 or so at the time, possibly a couple of years older, but we're talking roughly 10 years ago here.

Anyway, we were driving home towards Plympton and were about 10minutes drive from Postbridge (of Hairy Hands fame) and I was gazing out the window in a bored manner, looking at the scenery and the road we were on (the one leading, eventually to Princeton which we were driving away from) was sort of higher up than the fields either side, with slopes leading down from the road to the flat grassland.

I was looking down at the field to my left, and notices the ruins of an old wall, it looked like they could have been the foundation of a small house once, but very long ago. It was now only a few feet high, it was hard to tell from the distance away but I'd guess perhaps 4ft. There was a tree within the structure and a few sheep grazing around the area. I took this in at first, and then I remeber my jaw dropped when I saw a dark creature doing what I can best describe as slinking over the wall behind a seemingly unsuspecting sheep. I shouted at my Gran to look, but by that time we'd already driven past it, and she and my Grandfather said it was probably a Dartmoor pony I saw, if I saw something big.

I'm sure it wasn't though because it looked...well, really sleek and the ponies are very scruffy, it was also very lithe, it was moving like a cat and no question. I could see the shoulder blades moving as it climbed the wall, the same way you see them move in a cat as it walks.

There's a chance it could have been a regular cat, possibly gone wild and that because of the distance I was perceiving the size all wrong, it could also have been a dog I suppose, but it didn't really move like one from what I saw.

Just thought I'd share anyway, and see if anyone else had seen a "Beast" (or ABC as we call them now!) on Dartmoor.
Click to expand...
 
Three sightings

I've seen 3 ABC's - although I suspect two sightings were of the same animal, since they occured within a mile and a fortnight of each other.
 
Around here (San Diego, CA) it's rather easy to see Alien Big Cats. Pay the entry fee to the zoo, and you're in. They're alien, they're big, and they're cats.

Seeing them running free is another matter. Not that we don't have big cats (cougars) running wild, it's just that they're native.
 
Two men charged in bizarre animal cruelty case

Reported by Annette Hugues
Posted on: Thursday, October 14, 2004

COLLIER COUNTY— Two Collier County men are facing animal cruelty charges for allegedly tying a goat to a tree as bait for a Florida panther. According to the State Attorney's Office, Jack Shealy and Richard Scholle videotaped the panther attacking the goat this past June. Shealy's brother, David Shealy said the panther had been mauling their livestock for more than two weeks and they were just trying to get evidence to force wildlife officials to take action.

David Shealy says he's lost a lot of livestock this summer at the Trail Lakes Campground.

"Fourteen goats, six ducks, three chickens, three emus," said Shealy.

Shealy says they were killed by one panther that roamed the campground for several weeks. He contacted the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission about the panther.

"We told them first that the cat is sick, the cat is dangerous," said Shealy.

Wildlife officials investigated the situation, but according to Shealy didn't take action.

"We were a little upset," said Shealy.

On the night of June 16th, Shealy's brother and two other men took it upon themselves to document the panther's move.

"Without my knowledge, a goat was placed in my front yard, staked down and a camera was placed on it," said Shealy.

He said within minutes the panther attacked.

"The cat was so weak and had a broken jaw that it couldn't even hurt the goat. What it was doing was mauling animals to death," said Shealy.

Even though the goat survived, the incident caught the attention of the Animal Rights Foundation of Florida.

"Don't stake out a defenseless animal who you know is going to be attacked by a panther, who you know is in the area," said Heather Veleanu of the Animal Rights Foundation.

She said it was a gruesome act and a clear violation of Florida's animal cruelty statute.

"We have since then been working with the State Attorney's Office encouraging the state attorney to press charges against the three individuals who are involved," said Veleanu.

Shealy defends his brother's actions.

"The whole idea of my brother and my manager being arrested for this is totally absurd," said Shealy.

If convicted, Shealy and Scholle could face up to a year in prison.

Eventually, the FWCC captured the panther and relocated it to another location.
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http://www.abc-7.com/articles/readnews.asp?articleid=1623&z=2&p=
 
Absurd.

And of course they have got the anti humanitarians onto the case.

I have no doubt they will be advising in court like they always do.
 
ABCs UK

Yes, I have seen an ABC in Herts August 2004. I was in my local woods and it was ahead of me on the path. I thought, at first glance, that it was a greyhound crossed with a black lab (it's head was hidden behind some grass). Then it turned sideways on. I could now see from behind it's front leg to halfway along it's tail, it filled the path, and casually jumped the boundary hedge. I have found a newly killed deer, disembowled and with large puncture wounds to it's neck, and one or two suspect prints.
 
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