An expert has said big cats are entirely ‘feasible’ as yet another beast with ‘muscular shoulders’ was spotted roaming the British countryside in a sighting hotspot.
Boffins recently said that wild big cats are already prolific in Britain. Paul MacDonald of the Scottish Big Cat Research Team said a database of sightings is kept under wraps to protect the creatures from being disturbed or hunted.
And several people in and around Worcestershire have reported several sightings of a ‘panther-like’ big cat that some believe savaged a lamb and left huge paw prints. Sightings in the county, and along the border with Gloucestershire, have been plentiful in the last 30 years – and one person recently captured in a photograph what they believe could be a big cat between Burcot and Blackwell.
READ MORE: Brits terrorised by ‘panther-like’ big cat that ‘savaged lamb and left huge paw print’
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Reports in Worcs. and over the border in Gloucestershire, have been plentiful in the last 30 years – and one person recently captured a photograph of what they believe could be a big cat.
(Image: CornwallLive/BPM)
Taking to the popular Facebook page Evesham & Villages Big Cat Group on September 18, the anonymous participant shared the snap and wrote: “Anyone any idea what this might be? Spotted this evening north Worcestershire.”
The photo depicts what appears to be a cat with muscular shoulders and a long, slender tan-coloured body with a long, dark-coloured tail in around the edge of a field.
Commenters agreed that the animal appeared to be too ‘long and muscular to be’ a domestic cat.
The original poster said that they originally thought the animal was a fox after spotting it in the field near a village, not close to a motorway.
(Image: Getty Images)
Others thought it may be an otter, but some people agreed it could be a mythical big cat that is said to prowl the area.
Tara Pirie, big cat expert and a Lecturer in Ecology and Conservation at the University of Surrey, told Radio Hereford & Worcester: “I think it is highly feasible, I’ve been a safari guide in South Africa for 10 years so I got up close and personal with leopards, lions, cheetah and as far as I’m aware we’re still allowed to have one of these big cats and it to have escaped or it to have been actually let loose.
“Big cats are highly adaptable, there’s food, there’s water, there’s a lot of cover, so in my mind there’s absolutely no reason that a big cat could[nt] be roaming the country.”
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