Here is a little education for those who like to spout various false 'facts' -the 'big cats' were released or escaped during the two world wars and before the 1976 Dangerous Wild Animals Act,
It is very likely that "exotic" escapees, mainly cats for the purpose of this post, were escaping in Roman times or after the Romans withdrew from Britain (388-400 AD). We know that primates were given as gifts to Iron age chieftains before the Romans and these gifts (or even traded for) animals may have included cats -that is an assumption based on what we know. We know the Romans withdrew and this probably did not involve them packing up all of their animals kept for arena 'sports' -some may have just been left to live on, released so that if they became a problem the locals could have some 'sport' of their own. Some Romano-British may have kept exotic animals or even their own little private menageries as a symbol of status.
Basically, we have never (since the Iron age at least) not had some form of exotic animal escape or living wild for however long. Some very old accounts I am trying to access the original sources for.
It is now believed by more than a few scholars that the lynx survived in Britain until at least the Medieval period until hunted into extinction. At that time the felicide was slowly cutting down the number of British wild cats -cats only slightly smaller than the lynx. Looking at many of the old superstitious "black dog" tales there are more than a few similarities between the 'dogs' and large cats. The anecdotal evidence is there but gets ignored by certain factions who want to bring fantasy into historical facts.
In The Red Paper II: Felids I look at some of this and after 40 plus years of studying archives and modern news accounts I know that nearly any fatal "attack" from an exotic cat was the result of human stupidity and in at least one early 19th century case the attack was provoked by a person regularly entering a panther cage to physically abuse it -the actual property owner had ordered the person involved not to enter the cage again and stop what he was doing; he didn't listen and...died. Circuses tended to be the other source of people being injured by all sorts of animals and in many cases the animals reactions were to be expected.
If you are interested in the fact that gorillas were in Britain before "officially" being discovered as well as other early primate research then Some More things Strange & Sinister has that covered https://www.lulu.com/fr/shop/terry-hooper-scharf/some-more-things-strange-sinister/paperback/product-18nrerwq.html?page=1&pageSize=4
The Georgian Period (1714 to c. 1830–37) saw a huge rise in popularity of menageries both static and mobile and escapes were far from unknown -a trend that continued into the early 20th century. Every country house or estate had to have its own menagerie and animals were brought in from all over the world and South America was a main region for animal captures -jaguars, black pumas you name it and it was trapped and shipped back to the Motherland.
Above; Health and Safety would faint! People could put their hands into cages and at the Tower Zoo patrons got in if they brought a dog to watch the cats kill -animal husbandry involved a wooden stick or iron bar to keep animals in check or "fierce for the punters" (c)2022 EAR Archives
My sheer accident while reading old books for research in another subject I can across a report from Somerset dating to the 1840s of what was clearly a panther (but the author and locals believed it to be the spirit of a dead man). Looking at the plotted time line of cats sightings in Britain it is clear that many escapes took places and the problem is that sources are or were scattered far and wide in ancestral diaries and records which I cannot get access to. Certain reports, as noted, are being looked into.
The mythology around The Girt Dog (Great Hound) of Ennerdale 1810 shows how unscrupulous people out to sell books or themselves as experts will not let facts get in the way -The red Paper I: Canids will, I hope, kick a good few of these charlatans hard in their arses.
When we come to the early 20th Century we find a pet puma escaping and an early hunt to recapture it in Surrey. Yes, the original Surrey puma decades before its more famous follower on! Lynx -said to be two but possibly 3 or more- running wild in Scotland in 1927 and the source of these cats (if there was one) was never discovered and it may be not all of the cats were killed.
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