Stalking Salisbury: kangaroo-leopard-monkey-cat-thing

[Yithian]

Mysterious creature stalks city

A mysterious creature described as a cross between a kangaroo, a leopard, a monkey and a cat is stalking Salisbury.

At least four sightings have been reported to police, who have alerted Wiltshire Wildlife and Salisbury Wildlife Rescue, in the last month.

Nicki Lomas, 23, first spotted the animal, said to also be racoon-like, on London Road at midnight on 6 May.

She said: "It looked more like a wild big cat, like a leopard. It was very big with a long yellow and black tail."

Two police officers on patrol in Castle Road the previous night had spotted a skinny dark grey animal, about two-foot high, with a long ringed tail and the gait of a monkey.

But retired airline pilot, Raymond Clark, says what he saw was "definitely" from the coatimundi family, a relative of the racoon originating from the forests and Central America which eats insects, fruit, small mammals, and eggs.

Mr Clark, 79, says he saw a large dark grey animal with a long ringed tail and a sloping back, like a feeding kangaroo, disappear into bushes near Laverstock Park on 1 June.

"I know what I saw. It was definitely from the coatimundi family. It fleetingly went past my fence."

Members of the public who have lost an exotic pet are being asked to contact police.

A spokesman for Wiltshire Police said: "If you put the three sightings on a map they are more or less in a straight line about a mile apart."

He added that officers did not believe the animal was dangerous adding that there had not been any reports of dogs or other domestic animals being mauled in the area.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wilt ... 617045.stm

Are any FTMBers Johnny on the spot?

 

[Yithian]

GREY, SKINNY AND NOT FROM AROUNG HERE
09:30 - 07 June 2005

Baffled police and wildlife experts were last night hunting a mysterious animal following a series of bizarre sightings in Wiltshire. The strange-looking creature which has been described as a cross between "a monkey, a cat and a kangaroo".

Sightings of the animal, thought to be a Latin American mammal called a coatimundi, were given extra credibility when two police officers out on patrol in Salisbury, spotted the unlikely visitor.

The officers told bemused colleagues a skinny, dark grey animal, about 2ft high with a longringed tail ran in front of their car across the road from a nearby park.

Shocked Nicki Lomas saw the animal in the London Road area of the city while she was driving home at night.

A few weeks later, Raymond Clark, 79, spotted a "racoon-like animal" running across a nearby park.

The retired airline pilot said: "I looked it up on the internet and the closest thing to what I had seen was a ring-tailed coatimundi."

SOURCE

 

[Yithian]

The Sun and Ananova are dubbing it a Catgarookey

 

[CygnusRex]

Sounds suspiciously like a ring tailed lemur, escaped froma private collection perhaps?

 

[OneWingedBird]

Escaped Bengal living rough perhaps?

They've got the ringed tail, back legs longer than the front and powerful jumpers with it, and the legs are jointed differently to a moggy so they can reach around things to climb - they can seem quite simian at times. The reports could be just a little hyperbolic from the witnesses only getting a glimse, then The Sun spinning things out a bit.

 

[Soong2]

...The Sun spinning things out a bit.

No, they would never!

 

[Anonymous]

Sounds very much like either a Coati, a Ring-tailed Lemur or a North American Ringtail/Cacomistle (Bassariscus sp, a member of the raccoon family). As it's UK, the latter is pretty unlikely (they're common, if elusive, in the US, but not kept much in Europe), but either of the former species are popular in zoos around here, and as most people have described the colour as grey, it's probably the lemur...

What i don't get is how any of those animals could possibly be confused with a leopard... :?:

(unless the person who saw it had once seen a lemur, and thought "you know, one of those things, begins with L"...)