David Brian's Blog - Posts Tagged "british-big-cats"
I taut I taw a puddy cat! or Alien big cats in the English countryside!
Okay, here goes. I have been sitting on this for some time, considering whether I should actually blog about what I witnessed, or better maybe to just keep my lips tightly sealed... at least insofar as the internet is concerned - after all, no one likes being ridiculous.
Actually, the title of this blog post is factually incorrect, because I did indeed see a cat - a bloody big cat!
But how can that be? As everyone knows, there are no big cats in the U.K. - at least not officially.
May 27th, 2013, turned out to be a day and date I will never forget. It was a Monday, and much of the country was enjoying a mini-heatwave as temperatures soared.
Ralph and I (Ralph is a two year old Staffordshire bull terrier - whose personality resonates somewhere between highly intelligent and comically dense), well, we were out walking, the sky was blue with not a cloud in sight, and as we moved in the vicinity of the Boughton Triangle the sun blistered overhead.
The Triangle, in centuries past was the scene of Boughton Fair, and more famously still was an area regularly raided by Captain Slash.
Captain Slash was the last Highwayman to be hung in Northampton, but that is a tale for another time.
But I digress, Ralph and I moved out towards the point of the triangle, and as we made our way through fields of golden rapeseed and on towards the mound, Ralph continued to lead the way.
I noticed his body had tensed, his head now held high, nose sniffing for a scent in the slight breeze.
I assumed he had caught a whiff of rabbit, as I'd already noticed a number of them scrambling away as they spied our approach.
But then a sizable animal broke from cover!
Fifty meters in front of us the cat chose to move free from concealment, moving at pace diagonally away from us. It was probably 4ft long (maybe longer?), a height of well over 2ft, and a coat of grey-reddish-brown was marked with darker (black?)lines.
It produced in Ralph, who, because of the lie of the land, could not actually see the animal, a most odd reaction.
Now, normally, if my dog ever chases a fox to ground, he will produce a howl which he repeats over, each call being in bursts of three at a time.
He does this until he realizes 'I ain't coming to check it out' at which point he gives up.
Ralph couldn't catch a cold!
On this day he howled repeatedly as he set off in pursuit. Thankfully I have him trained for good recall - because the cat was a whole lot bigger than him!
People have asked me why I didn't take a photo, but It all happened so fast.
But it was a cat - to be more precise I believe it to have been a lynx.
Bizarrely, over the last several years there have been plenty of big cat sightings where I live, but these have usually involved a puma or panther type creature.
I based my own assessment on the coloring, and also on the lack of a lengthy tail.
It turns out that over the years there have been numerous sightings, and even cats captured and killed in the U.K. - always being explained away as escapees from private collections.
Having looked into it I believe there are breeding populations here. In the last twelve years there have been at least four lynx captured in the north of London alone, and each time explained as escapees, although the owners are never traced.
Of course, if D.E.F.R.A. were ever to admit these animals were here then action would have to be taken to eradicate the (perceived) problem.
So perhaps best that they continue to deny the obvious.
Check out these links (No Pun)if this topic interests you.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/artic...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknew...
http://www.britishbigcats.org/evidenc...
http://news.sky.com/story/1082804/can...
http://www.gazetteherald.co.uk/indept...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/lincolnshire/con...
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/...
Actually, the title of this blog post is factually incorrect, because I did indeed see a cat - a bloody big cat!
But how can that be? As everyone knows, there are no big cats in the U.K. - at least not officially.
May 27th, 2013, turned out to be a day and date I will never forget. It was a Monday, and much of the country was enjoying a mini-heatwave as temperatures soared.
Ralph and I (Ralph is a two year old Staffordshire bull terrier - whose personality resonates somewhere between highly intelligent and comically dense), well, we were out walking, the sky was blue with not a cloud in sight, and as we moved in the vicinity of the Boughton Triangle the sun blistered overhead.
The Triangle, in centuries past was the scene of Boughton Fair, and more famously still was an area regularly raided by Captain Slash.
Captain Slash was the last Highwayman to be hung in Northampton, but that is a tale for another time.
But I digress, Ralph and I moved out towards the point of the triangle, and as we made our way through fields of golden rapeseed and on towards the mound, Ralph continued to lead the way.
I noticed his body had tensed, his head now held high, nose sniffing for a scent in the slight breeze.
I assumed he had caught a whiff of rabbit, as I'd already noticed a number of them scrambling away as they spied our approach.
But then a sizable animal broke from cover!
Fifty meters in front of us the cat chose to move free from concealment, moving at pace diagonally away from us. It was probably 4ft long (maybe longer?), a height of well over 2ft, and a coat of grey-reddish-brown was marked with darker (black?)lines.
It produced in Ralph, who, because of the lie of the land, could not actually see the animal, a most odd reaction.
Now, normally, if my dog ever chases a fox to ground, he will produce a howl which he repeats over, each call being in bursts of three at a time.
He does this until he realizes 'I ain't coming to check it out' at which point he gives up.
Ralph couldn't catch a cold!
On this day he howled repeatedly as he set off in pursuit. Thankfully I have him trained for good recall - because the cat was a whole lot bigger than him!
People have asked me why I didn't take a photo, but It all happened so fast.
But it was a cat - to be more precise I believe it to have been a lynx.
Bizarrely, over the last several years there have been plenty of big cat sightings where I live, but these have usually involved a puma or panther type creature.
I based my own assessment on the coloring, and also on the lack of a lengthy tail.
It turns out that over the years there have been numerous sightings, and even cats captured and killed in the U.K. - always being explained away as escapees from private collections.
Having looked into it I believe there are breeding populations here. In the last twelve years there have been at least four lynx captured in the north of London alone, and each time explained as escapees, although the owners are never traced.
Of course, if D.E.F.R.A. were ever to admit these animals were here then action would have to be taken to eradicate the (perceived) problem.
So perhaps best that they continue to deny the obvious.
Check out these links (No Pun)if this topic interests you.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/artic...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknew...
http://www.britishbigcats.org/evidenc...
http://news.sky.com/story/1082804/can...
http://www.gazetteherald.co.uk/indept...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/lincolnshire/con...
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/...
