Someone posted that if you see two "big cats" that will equal at least 1 offspring or more. Therefore for every cat seen that equalled young. That makes no sense.
In fact it brings us back to there being "hundreds of puma/panthers" running about the UK and I have dealt with this before: https://exoticanimalsregister.blogspot.com/2022/04/some-250-pumas-and-250-black-leopards.html
This is a ridiculous idea. People cannot tell an adult from a juvenile cat let alone its sex. You have to base your hypothesis on some facts.
In Wild Menagerie Britain's New Native Species I looked at the case of a panther that was trapped then killed by a MAFF (Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Foods -pre DEFRA) vet when the witness thought that it was only being sedated since he had a wildlife park that would take it if caught. The man, who provided a signed affidavit that neither MAFF or later DEFRA would refute, felt guilty and depressed over the incident as he had not wanted the animal harmed.
So the "big cat" was gone.
A week or so later the man in question was checking his property and was taken aback to see an identical black cat not too far away. He felt that this "must have been the mate" of the one killed. So in this case we know from the history given and the confirmation by police (who were also angry that the cat was killed) that there had been two panthers. No way of knowing whether both were male or female and certainly no way of telling if they had young but do we jump to the conclusion that 1 + 1= cubs? No. We go by the evidence.
In Wales we catalogued attacks on ponies as well as sheep and added to the very obvious evidence the eye witness sightings of what were clearly puma. In fact, the main farm hit was run by new comers who had not been told about the history of puma in the area. From observations it was ascertained that there was a resident female with her small territory and that the big male travelled a very large territory and was in fact "The Beast of" several areas including on the Welsh borders. So we roughly knew his territory.
The evidence showed that the male and female had particular eating habits and each started on a different part of a carcass. At one point the amount of meat taken from carcasses increased which meant one thing -which was later proven: the female had young. Then it went quiet for a while until farmers reported sheep kills but the kills were "messy" and we suspected, before eye witness confirmation, that there were three cubs.
It is very likely that those three cats were the entire puma population of Wales and the borders based on known travel routes. However, from the Welsh border area we had a very close sighting in good light of an all black cat. The natural response was "panther" and the person I spoke to stated "Absolutely not. If it had been a leopard I would never have left the car to walk out and measure distances and estimate the size of the cat!" (again in the book) and this is not a standard response in these cases. The man went on to mention face markings and "all the diagnostic features of a puma" but a black puma. As it turned out the man was a senior lecturer in zoology and had also worked on pumas in Canada. So with the area involved we are talking 6 puma.
The problem is that we can only go by what we know. Back in the 1990s along with the head of a zoo a team was put together and a vet was included. A known puma was going to be trapped and the team would respond to sedate, radio collar and take what samples we needed and that would allow us to record the cat's territory and which kills were its. One of those on the team had done freelance work for MAFF and he contacted them to tell them what was going on. Both myself and the zoo were threatened with legal action (in my case the threat included arrest which was a nonsense) because if we trapped the cat we had two options:
1. kill it on site and submit body to MAFF or
2. place in a zoo or wildlife park with suitable license.
We could not in any way release the cat even though it would give MAFF and farmers data to based actions on such as moving stock indoors when notified. MAFF did not want any evidence of there being any such cat in the UK getting out which is why we were told we would have to kill and take any such cat to a MAFF facility and surrender any video footage or photographs -another nonsense.
This means that we have no idea as to how long such cats live in the countryside or their death rates due to vehicles or disease. We KNEW where these cats were regularly sighted but a cat seen at A could well be the cat seen at B and C. At the time trail cams were very expensive so that is not an option like it is today.
There is no scientific reason why a puma cannot be black -that is simply ill educated dogma. So that black cat sighted is counted as a panther?
Until the UK decides that it takes wildlife and wildlife surveying seriously, and it does not, then we can never really guess population numbers but a figure over 30 at a time would surprise me. We are not that big a country.
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