"Big Cat" photo from Devon?

So there I was minding my own business when a farmer who wants to remain anonymous but thought I "should know" sent me an image from a camera trap on his property where he has been losing sheep over the last few months.

Firstly, I did the usual checks and no farmer by the name of Jacob Miles lives in the Devon county. No farmer has been reporting mysterious livestock kills to the National Farmers Union or police in the past two months.  Also, the cat in the image is not likely to bring down and "eat half a sheep".

It's a leopard cub.....the mother must be killing the sheep then. Right? No.

The photo is from a camera trap belonging to the Namibian Carnivore Survival group. That is Namibia in Africa and not Namibia in North Devon!

Nice touch stating that wall is the border between his farm and a wood -look you can even see the 'wood' in the background!  :-/

This took me 5 minutes to sort out as a fake.  We live in 2020 you know.

I will look at any serious evidence -and in confidence- but if I identify hoaxers I will name them. Be warned.

So why has this blog been so quiet?

Officially I retired from being a UK police forces exotic fauna and wildlife consultant in 2013.  However, so called non native are still out there and farmers, police and others still need advice or help.

From 1977-2013 I carried out all of the work without receiving a single payment. People who jumped into the subject in the 1990s did ask for fees and to be honest their knowledge of the animals and advice was poor on many occasions -when it was more spot on was when they were quoting the old EAR Bulletins!

The problem is that travelling as well as carrying out other work costs money (I know!) and I long ago passed the point at which I could actually support going out and investigating.  The sad truth of the matter is that there is no funding for the EAR work let alone continuing the study of foxes, etc. Sell out and take money from a newspaper?  Unfortunately, that type of thing comes with a price and I am unwilling to give reporters the names of witnesses.

I added the PayPalMe box a good while back since no one was interested in buying the books -which would have brought money in. 

It is annoying to me that this happens at a time when it appears I am making new breakthroughs in the "exotic cat" field.  I often joke about being called a " noted naturalist" because, as I keep pointing out to anyone who will listen, it means nothing.  I get no funding. People pick my brains for information they can use (no more: there is a consultation fee now -but only for these 'experts'). Items from my posts get used without credit. Obviously these people have not heard that I am a noted naturalist!

So the suggestion that I ought to "pop up" to Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Gloucestershire or even Bath and NE Somerset to look at evidence are basically going no further than that -I DO NOT charge for what might be termed my services.

At the moment there are more hoaxers, conmen and childish cryptozoologiosts out there who do, oddly, get support for what they do. I think I learnt a long time ago that facts and truth are not popular. Not "sexy" enough to sell.

But that is how things stand at the moment.