DNA confirms there IS a big cat roaming the British countryside (opens in new tab)

I was camping and hitchhiking in the Lakes with a friend about 12 years ago. We aimed to get over High Street (a large hill) and to the next bothy within a day but it was harder than we expected, so we ended up setting off down the other side well after nightfall. The moon was out so light wasn't really a problem, but we were both a bit freaked out by not really knowing exactly where we were or what the weather might do (this was in January, and a blizzard did come through the next day - but even in summer you have to be careful there). There was about 6 inches of snow over everything and it was hard going on the way down - with lots of tripping over hidden rocks and worrying about slipping into cracks or over the edges of waterfalls etc - so we were both getting increasingly agitated.

Anyway, about half way down we came upon some large animal footprints and stopped to look at them. They were very clear and we both thought they could have been big cat prints. They looked too big for a dog, and the location and time of year didn't make that much sense for casual dog walking and there were no other human prints around. We still had a few miles to go and camping out in tents or in a sheep shelter for the night was very much on the table, so I think we both decided to just put the idea of a big cat out of our minds, to the extent we took it seriously to begin with. Makes me wonder!

It would appear this is not the first bit of evidence suggesting that Alien Big Cats (ABCs) are a real thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_big_cats#Proven_captur...

I should add, the "Alien" in ABC denotes alien to the country they were found in. Not alien to planet Earth! :)

I confess to some scepticism. The lady concerned seems to be a dedicated big cat believer, with seven sightings already[0]. If other witnesses had been present, I would be more accepting of the claim.

[0] https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/19808796.cumbrias-sharon-...

Sheffield, a city with a lot of terraced housing, is particularly prone to "big cat scares", the usual story being that it moves around in the roof-spaces of the adjoined terraces. I lived next door to a lovely little old lady who was convinced that the noises in her attic were from an errant leopard rather than a pigeon.

It's very unlikely any unreported big cats have escaped into the UK countryside since the late 1970s (when the Dangerous Wild Animals act basically outlawed them as pets and some owners let them loose in the wild).

It would be quite amazing for there to be enough animals to maintain a mating population of atleast 3 or 4 generations since then without them being seen much more frequently.

Unless those big cats were dispersed in >5 numbers in the same area how are they supposed to reproduce? This problem will just solve itself in a couple of (cat) years

(1) Put female leopard in heat in cage. (2) Surround cage with trail cams. (3) Wait.

I can't understand why this documentary hasn't been made yet.

However, if they're out there, I'd like to know why we don't get reports of treed carcasses. You'd think a dead sheep in a tree would attract comment.

> Rick Minter, who has received more than 1,000 reports of people’s encounters with big cats, said the animal was most likely to have been a leopard.

> Of the five species in the Panthera genus – lion, leopard, tiger, jaguar and snow leopard – the only other cat that has a similar melanistic form is the jaguar, and they don’t appear to be in the British countryside, he added.

I'm failing to see why that's an argument that favors leopards over jaguars.

There’s been DNA evidence for years:

2023: https://www.discoverwildlife.com/news/new-dna-evidence-confi...

2022: https://www.nationalworld.com/news/uk/big-cat-sightings-wher...

2003, and 2005: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-167605...

Bit shoddy to make a categorical claim in the headline, when the immediate next line basically says "Or maybe not?"

My sister in law saw a mountain lion a few years ago where she lives in suburban Pittsburgh. They supposedly are not there according to the state. They’ve also been seen in Ohio, Kentucky, etc. where authorities claim they no longer exist.

These animals are incredibly stealthy. Do a web search for “can you spot the mountain lion” or similar things and you’ll find a lot of photos where it will take you minutes to find one. Saw one a few years back of a woman taking a selfie getting photobombed by one that couldn’t have been more than ten feet behind her. Could barely see it.

Luckily they rarely attack humans.

It wouldn't surprise me if there were a large enough population in the UK to be sustainable. I've been hearing stories about black leopard sightings since I was a kid, and geographically they are quite far apart.

These animals are pretty shy and mostly hunt at night. It was only recently that we managed to obtain footage of them hunting at night in an area of the world where they are fairly common.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-68665332

What is "big cat DNA"? Are there not multiple species of big cat? Can a DNA test not be more specific?

Edit: Answering my own question about the methods used: The story links to Robin Allaby's page [1] about his DNA test service. That page says he tests for "the Panthera, Puma and Lynx genera". An older story [2] describes Allaby's methods: 450 PCRs and ~600 sequence reactions. "The team searched for two gene targets each of deer and canid, but over 30 different cat gene targets."

[1]: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/lifesci/research/archaeobotany...

[2]: https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/research_i...

This is a potential problem in any country where people can get away with illegally obtaining wild animals as "pets". They're cute and manageable when they're young but the time will come when they're full-grown and it's easier to just release them than admit to the authorities you've been harboring a dangerous wild animal.

I once saw what appeared to be a mountain lion in northwestern Nevada. I couldn’t believe my eyes — it was moving parallel to the side of the road; I convinced myself I must have been hallucinating.

Years later, I stumbled across 3 dead cows within a 5-10 mile span, all in various states of decay, also in Nevada. Spoke with a ranger and they offered that it might have been a mountain lion (I had assumed they were hit by cars).

I then mentioned my experience from years prior, and the ranger said that mountain lions often hang out near roadways, as it’s an easy spot to find/observe deer and livestock.

Based in the wikipedia link "hantom sightings are common throughout much of the UK, with BBC Wildlife Magazine in 2006 reporting the "top ten" counties or regions of Great Britain where claims of sightings had been between April 2004 and July 2005 were as follows..."

What does this mean? Do we have to assume they have started breeding?

Edit: Sightings since the early 90ies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQYrszfSbUE

I think it is safe to assume the little kitties have started breeding.

A couple more noteworthy examples:

https://metro.co.uk/2024/05/14/big-cat-hunters-have-proof-ru...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/22/it-was-a-big-c...

My apologies for the abysmal UK news websites!

This is a lot like the western mountain lion in the eastern US. People say they see them or hear them but there never seems to be any hard evidence. The theory is that the eastern mountain lion is extinct and any possible mountain lion is escaped from captivity or has traveled from the western states. (FL has a panther population, but that is a different distinct subspecies).

It would be interesting if the DNA is not a hoax and they eventually find the animal and it's origin.

Well if the presence of big cats is advertised in the news, you can be sure that a bunch of morons will comb that part of land to get a chance to shoot the beasts and hang their heads to the walls.

Jaguars and panthers to a lesser extent used to live over the entire globe so really andy habitat where there’s little enough human interaction can support them

The emphasized word should've been A. Where I lived last had more than one puma concolor and ursus americanus.

It's the Cat People! Just ask Nastassia Kinski <cue David Bowie singing>

It's Bagheera

A leopard? In Britain? It probably escaped from the zoo.