According to the Worcester News headline: 'Black panther' spotted by walker who is so worried he calls 999
HAS Worcestershire's Black Panther long claimed to be in the wilds of our county shown itself again?
That's the question now being asked after a walker became the latest to claim he had spotted the Pershore Panther.
Jason Neville told the BBC how he saw it on Boxing Day while walking on wetlands in Pershore and was so concerned he called the police.
Mr Neville said: "It just came out of the reeds up ahead and started walking towards us.
"That's when the dog went absolutely bananas.
"It stopped as the dog was barking and it then turned around.
"The pathway is maybe 7ft - 8ft wide and as it turned it virtually covered the entire pathway.
"It was very close, there was no mistaking that it was a big cat.
"Originally when I first saw it I thought it was a dog.
"But I was that close, you couldn't be mistaken."
Mr Neville said the sighting, at 8.45am, had not put him off walking in the area again but said he certainly would not take his dog off the lead.
Mr Neville said he had also seen what were the remains of a "huge" carcass which he thought was probably a goose, on the back pitch of Pershore Town football pitch.
"It has no innards, so it had been eaten in its entirety, just the wings left.
"A fox was trying to drag the carcass off, but it couldn't drag it.
"It was too big.
"I didn't put two-and-two together until a week later until I saw the Pershore panther."
Mr Neville said he had worried about the ridicule of going public about the sighting.
"Then I thought I'm just going to throw it out there to see if anyone else had seen it," he said.
"I'm obviously worried for other dogs and dog walkers, so people are aware there is something out there that could go off with a dog."
Mr Neville added he had not had a chance to take a picture of the panther as he had just seconds to snap it.
There have been various sightings of a panther-like animal for decades - but no conclusive proof of a black panther’s existence has ever been made known.
We reported on sightings in 2016.
And in 2017 pensioner David Wherton said he had seen a “muscular” cat-like creature while walking home from the shops.
Sadly journalists rarely educate themselves on any subject in detail as their job is to sensationalise or write "local stuff" to sell newspapers. The leopard does vary greatly in size and markings. The average size is 50 to 90 kg (110 to 200 pounds) in weight, in length 210 cm (7 feet) which is excluding the 90-cm tail and 60 to 70 cm in shoulder height. So the length is possible if one includes the tail. The fox unable to drag off the goose carcass is odd if it was just bones and wings. As there is avian influenza around the goose could have died from that and been scavenged on.
I do know that there were panthers in Worcestershire and Hereford and spoke to numerous farmers up until 2015. The basic rule is do not let your dog off the lead in wooded areas if you know there have been reports. Considering the number of deer and rabbits and other wildlife a panther has to pick from confronting a dog and its owner is too much work.
No comments:
Post a Comment