In some parts of the UK, barely a month goes by without at least one report of a wild big cat in a local paper says James Fair.
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- Big cat vs small cat: what's the difference between these furry felines?
But the evidence for any substantive (or indeed breeding) population of non-native leopards or pumas – the species most normally believed to be seen – actually living in the British countryside is far from overwhelming, with no conclusive images, video footage or signs of their presence ever being presented. Here we look at the some of the stories from the past 50 years or so and assess their credibility.
UK's big cats
Highland puma, 1980
Persistent reports of a big cat that had been seen stalking livestock (including some Shetland ponies), along with some unexplained losses, led to locals taking matters into their own hands. Farmer Donald Noble set up a cage trap and baited it with sheep offal, and quickly caught a surprisingly tame and overweight puma or mountain lion.
It was not what they were expecting, and experts believed it had only been on the run for two days at most, reports the Inverness Museum. Keepers at Highland Wildlife Park, where she was taken, found she even turned her nose up at unskinned rabbits and they had to specially prepare food for her.
Cricklewood lynx, 2001
The accepted wisdom is that the Dangerous Wild Animals Act of 1976 – which required species such as big cats to be licensed – led to many private owners simply releasing them into the wild and the ongoing mythology of big cats lurking unobserved, even in quite well populated areas. But while many sightings definitely owe more to the observer’s imagination, the Cricklewood lynx was very definitely real – it was pursued to, and tranquillised in, the stairwell of a block of flats and taken to London Zoo, before eventually ending up in France where it continued to live for many years.
Beast of Woodchester, 2012
The discovery of a dead and mauled young roe deer in National Trust land in the village of Woodchester in Gloucestershire sparked speculation that a big cat – possibly a lynx – was running wild in the area. Spurred on by local villagers, the trust commissioned tests on the carcass to see if there was any evidence of big cat DNA, but it turned out that all that had fed on it was, perhaps unsurprisingly, a fox. Gloucestershire continues to be a hotbed for big cat sightings in Britain, and in 2023, DNA extracted from a black hair retrieved from some barbed wire was identified as belonging to a leopard.
West Midlands puma, 2014
Big cat fever reached the West Midlands in 2014 when sightings of felids described as looking like pumas were reported in two locations – one was a motel on the outskirts of Shrewsbury, but despite the best efforts of police and a helicopter, nothing more transpired. In the same year, residents in a village outside of Tamworth had 16 separate encounters with a big cat. “They were not small pussy cats, they were sightings from just 50 yards,” said one local. Despite the certainty, the puma – or whatever it was – disappeared and did not resurface.
Derbyshire big cats, 2022 & 2023
Numerous reports of mainly black big cats in Derbyshire have been made in recent years. They include a “silky black cat with a long tail” in the Stanton Moor area of the Peak District, while a YouTuber recorded a growling sound that was compared to noises made by cats such as leopards. A walker found unexplained carcasses and saw the footprint of a big cat along the River Dane, also in the Peak District. But nothing conclusive was ever seen or recorded.
Cumbrian panther, 2023
Swabs taken from a sheep carcass in October 2023 turned up some of the best proof yet that big cats are roaming the Brtitish countryside – DNA on the swabs were positively identified as belonging to a cat in the Panthera genus, meaning it could only be one of five species – jaguar, leopard, lion, snow leopard or tiger. Sightings of a black panther-like animal – either a melanistic leopard or jaguar – had been reported, and this seemed to confirm there was something out there. Any big cat activity has gone quiet in the intervening couple of years, however.
Aberdeen hybrid, 2023
A large black animal about the size of a greyhound was spotted and filmed near the hamlet of Blackdog north of Aberdeen in November 2023. The eye-witness described the creature as a cross between a South American “panther” and another cat, though it wasn’t clear what he meant by this, in comments made to the Daily Mirror. (Zoologically, there isn’t really such an animal as a panther – it’s a term used to describe black or melanistic big cats which can only really include jaguars and leopards.) Footage shows a black cat that could be just be a domestic feline.
Cambridgeshire big cat, 2024
Sightings of a beast affectionately called the Fen tiger had been circulating in Cambridgeshire for a number of years. Photos of a sandy-coloured, spotted cat as big as a medium-sized dog emerged in 2020, but then in November 2024, a roadworker videoed what looked like a large panther-like animal outside the village of Baston just north of Peterborough. A big cat expert contacted by BBC Countryfile was more sceptical, saying it was domestic cat and that people frequently overestimate how big distant animals are.
Orpington jaguar, 2024
Of all the big cat sightings in recent years, this is one of the more unusual in that the witness described seeing a patterned big cat – the man, who is originally from Brazil, compared the animal to a jaguar, which are native to South and Central America. (Most people who see big cats describe them as being either black or beige.) The father was walking his seven-year-old to school when he heard activity and a strange yowling noise coming from some nearby woodland. The animal was yellowy with black spots and stood about 80cm at the shoulder.
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Top image credit: Getty
