Big cats in BRITAIN

Sightings and DNA tests suggest that large cats such as black leopards are quietly naturalising in Britain. Here’s the whole story.

- RICK MINTER

“I WAS ROLLING ON THE COMPOST heap, when I take my deer droppings,” said a groundsman, describing the giant black cat he confronted in the grounds of a care home in south-west England, back in 2012. “It jumped the fence and went like a rocket across the next field.”

A month later, the remains of a half-eaten roe deer appeared overnight, behind a hedge but closer to the property. It showed the predator’s canine impacts, sunk into the windpipe area, 4cm apart. For the next few weeks, staff on the night shift parked as close as they could to the entrance door. No one gossiped about their secret feline visitor. I was asked informally for advice, and also knew to keep it quiet.

Something lurks in the shadows of our rural idyll. Similar incidents play out in farms, stables, rural estates, golf courses, utility holdings, landfill sites and even nature reserves across the country. Large cats, mainly resembling black leopards (also known as panthers), but also sometimes mountain lions, and, very occasionally, lynx, are reported across such locations.

Of the 40 species of wild cat, these three are consistently described, year on year. But witnesses usually keep their heads down, keen to avoid a commotion or perhaps fearful of social ridicule. After all, if you claim to have seen a big cat in Britain, few people are likely to believe you.

On five occasions now, perfect footage of encounters has been shown or described to me in detail, captured on phone cameras, trail cameras and CCTV. Yet not even offers of cash would persuade these informants to part with their evidence. Privacy, shooting rights and business status are simply too much to lose.