Large Cats Killing Sheep Is Far From A Modern Occurrence.

 

For my research work -whether canids or felids- I have read hundreds of newspaper archive reports and I have the eye strain to prove it.  During my work as a consultant to UK police forces (1977-2018) or even working with farmers groups I was always able to tell a sheep that was victim of a dog attack. Canids attack a certain way and are messy and when more than one dog is involved they are noisy. 

I never once heard "it was a pack of dogs killed it and only 100 yards from the house!" and believed it. The sheep never made a distress noise? The excited dogs never yapped or barked and all within 100 yards of a house in which sat four people having coffee with the kitchen door open as it was a warm night?

A point needs to be made that farmers know they are not going to get any insurance money for a dead sheep if they say "It was killed by a panther/puma". They may have seen the cat around and I know at least two insurance agents as well as members of the National Farmers Union who have sighted a large cat on a property. The kill may be very cat-like BUT who are you going to call in to prove it? How much will it cost? And as insurers do not recognise "big cat attack" as being covered by a policy a farmer would lose out.  One farmer told me in the 1990s that his insurance agent knew it was a large cat that attacked and killed and then consumed some of it but he gave the farmer a knowing wink and completed the insurance paperwork: "Yes, definitely a sheep savaged and killed by a dog, right?" Was that true? I eventually learnt that it was and that it happened in other parts of the country -it was 'dog attack' and get compensation or insist it was a big cat and get none.

One farmer in the 1990s (in Wales) had a flock of "common old sheep" but had also invested in a flock of expensive (apologies if I get this wrong as sheep are not my speciality -and a Google search had AI respond that it was an outdated racist practice!) black faced sheep (Surrey?). It was always the expensive black-faced sheep the puma took and he knew that he would get no compensation.

People calling themselves 'experts' (after 50 years I would not even call myself an expert!) will tell everyone that a cat (leopard or puma) will simply select a sheep and kill it. Anything involving more than one dead sheep would be dogs or "some mystery animal".  Large cats can and do kill more than they can eat -possibly due to starvation/lack of wild prey (instinct is to kill and have a cache of food for later). China TV on 16th  February, 2017 showed footage of a snow leopard that entered a sheep pen and killed  38 sheep and days later another killed 13 goats. Leopards and even puma have been known to do likewise.

For these reasons every report is read to ascertain whether how sheep were killed is mentioned. Faces bitten, torn and so on is usually a good indicator of a canid -a fox is a domestic cat sized animal and despite what hunts want you to believe they do not take down sheep.

If you look at this report  out of 900 sheep 15 were killed or injured out and "what looked like a large black 'dog'" was sighted and shot at -there was a similar event of sheep killed by a mystery "black animal" at Edale in Derbyshire in the 1920s. The method of kill etc was typical of a leopard (Red Paper 2022 Vol. II: Felidae) .  This is from Mearns Leader - Friday 02 August 1946

Interesting in that there are parallels with Bodmin in the 1980s in this article from the  Lincolnshire Standard and Boston Guardian - Saturday 17 August 1912. One of the Royal Marines dug in watching a field of sheep told me he and his pal had a boring night but after dawn when they stood up and turned around some hundred yards away was a sheep that had been killed and partly eaten. They had heard nothing.

The "shoulder and the throat have been "pulled out" which almost sounds like a leopard Leicester Evening Mail - Monday 05 February 1934

Sadly, it is far too long ago to look for new details -or any witnesses!  No report of a post mortem examination (it should be noted that few farmers can afford to pay for PMEs and that official PM services will not touch any such animals and when they do "it is always dog" (the veterinary pathologist added: "it may have all the hall marks of a cat kill and a large cat may have been seen but it is still a dog attack!").

The below photo shows the throat wound and how the shoulder of this sheep (in Africa) has been ripped completely away.  I knew two zoologists who wanted to see whether they (combined) could rip off a sheep's leg. They found that even after they "partially butchered" it they could not tear the leg off).

As for where these cats might come from; looking at a map it is quite clear that a lot of historical/modern cat territories are centred in old hunting territory or near to stately homes. We also know that a lot of hunt masters released (it is on the public record) jackals, wolves and coyotes to hunt in England and Wales. In fact, in the mid 1800s one Devon Hunt Master had to stop the release of a wolf to hunt after local protest -whether the wolf was released anyway we have no idea. "Local dignitaries" had a great deal covered up by fawning newspaper editors. 

We also know that anyone who wanted to could keep an exotic pet and this went on for hundreds of years until the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976 (the false "mass release" date for exotics so often quoted by people who have no idea).  There were private menageries in back gardens, private estates and even the odd railway station. In the Red Paper 2022: Felidae and the self contained Red Paper 2025 Wild Menagerie -Britain's New Native Species I include a report from a magazine in the 1920s that I came across quite by accident on a Surrey Puma escape.

Hunts or estate menagerie/exotic pet escapes -a lot of choice and when you consider how common escapes of animals including wolves, gorillas, kangaroos et al were from travelling menageries and even how such animals simply vanished as the travelling shows closed down there is even more choice!