I have to say that I wonder at times at just how ignorant people are of native wildlife. I just nod my head when "Big cat" people obviously have no idea about British wildlife. habits and habitats let alone those of newer cat species native to the UK.
A very clear photograph or video clip of a black domestic cat with not a single diagnostic feature of a larger cat species can get people excited and even arguing about the new 'evidence'.
On dangerous roads and motorways you will find hundreds of dead animals. Highways England will not remove these unless they pose an accident risk because we must protect the humans who collide with wildlife and drive on leaving the animal for dead or dying. I have seen large domestic -possibly feral- domestic cats used as evidence of big cats killed by cars -one faker who is well known in the "Big cat community" even touted one such animal with tail removed but a TV crew spotted straightaway that it was a domestic.
I once said, and wrote, in the 1980s: "People will see a woodlouse and report an armadillo" -I will happily take credit for that observation!
One person who ridicules large cat sightings stated in local press and online that all large cat sightings -even if withing 10-20 feet of the observer and the observer being a trained zoologist, naturalist or whatever- were nothing more than sightings of black foxes. Yes, stupid statement based on knowing -and refusing to look at the evidence- nothing of the material available including a fox changing its DNA so that results came back as Panthera pardus! There goes wildlife credibility.
But foxes have been misidentified as "Big cats" since the 1980s. Stupidly misidentified but then that is expected. The Beast of Durham photo is incredibly still being used despite being clearly identified but what do police wildlife officers or bearded naturalists know?
Above is another famous "Big cat" photograph taken by Mr Selwyn Jolly of Penzance, Cornwall and featured in Nigel Brierly's 1989 booklet The Stalk By Night (pp 74-76. The photo from 19th May, 1989 (Brierly simply states "after this book was written). The photo was taken by Mr Jolly when he went to the site to take photographs of where the "big cat" was when he saw it. In a phone chat with Brierly he told me that the photo was "convincing". As in his book, he added that some might say "fox" but there was not enough information in the photo to say it was. The only thing I cannot identify in the photo is whether it is a young or full grown rabbit in the fox's mouth.
And what about this photograph of a dead animal that made me get excited for a couple of minutes?
Certain persons stole the photo and used it as evidence of a dead "Big cat" and they did so without actually reading my post. If you see this online it will be missing the copyright info but then, we know most people using it will have no integrity.
The full story is given here: https://terryhoopernaturalist.blogspot.com/2024/05/is-it-dead-puma.html
Domestic cats and dogs, ponies and many other easily recognised animals appear in photos and video clips (oddly edited) and be cited as evidence of "Big cats in the UK" but all that achieves is to make people look stupid and easily dismissible by mainstream zoologists.
Despite asking people involved in this field for ten years for evidence to be looked at and assessed I have never once heard from anyone. If I did not know better after almost 50 years I would say there were no former exotic cats in the UK but I do know better.
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