The Times
August 28, 2002
It's August, and big cats are on the prowl
By Alan Hamilton
ROUND up the sheep. Pull on the gauntlets. Oil the shotgun. The British
countryside is crawling with pumas, black panthers, fen tigers and other big,
vicious cats. No corner of the nation is safe. Evidence released yesterday,
including sightings, photographs, paw prints, livestock kills and hair
samples, claims to prove that every county has big cats lurking in its
undergrowth, poised to pounce on man and beast alike.
Sightings have reached record levels in 2002, according to Daniel Bamping,
founder of the British Big Cats Society, which in the past 12 months has
received more than 800 reports of big cat sightings.
“During the first six months we have seen an incredible amount of big cat
activity. We have now had reports in every single county; the response from
the public has been fantastic,” Mr Bamping said. “Big cats in Britain are
real. They are out there, they are breeding; there’s more of them.”
Scotland and Gloucestershire are said to be hotspots of big cat activity. Mark
Fraser, who heads the society’s Scottish arm, said: “Lynx are now present in
the Scottish countryside; I believe they are established and breeding. I don’t
want to hazard a guess at the numbers; suffice it to say there are several
hotspots, notably Fife, Aberdeenshire, Inverness and the Borders.”
Next month the society plans to unveil its full dossier of evidence, which
includes two dead wild cats, pictures of paw prints and tree scratchings, as
well as stories of a horse strangely lacerated in West Wales and a man in
Gravesham, Kent, who had to beat a hasty retreat to his garage after his hand
was cut by a creature the size of a labrador dog, except that it had black
hairy tufts on the tips of its ears.
The society is taking the sightings seriously. It plans to set up a network of
trigger-cameras throughout the country to capture further evidence of the
beasts, which it will then present to the Government.
It is not, however, clear on what it wants the Government to do about it all.
Throwing its weight behind the pro-hunting lobby might be a start.
Next in August: record abductions by aliens.
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