This is the moment a big cat which some suspect to be the notorious ‘Beast of Bucks’ of legend was spotted prowling in the dead of night.
There are fears that a large creature may be on the loose after the footage was captured on doorbell camera and showing a huge black moggy on the driveway of a house.
The dark coloured cat appeared much bigger than a domestic feline as it balanced atop a skip.
The sighting has added yet more fuel to the fire of a local myth in Buckinghamshire.
Homeowner David Lawrence lives in a village near High Wycombe, where tales of a puma-sized Beast of Bucks are legendary, and said he saw a large cat which wasn’t ‘normal’.
Mr Lawrence described the latest sighting of a massive feline in the area, which he only spotted after the six-foot-wide skip had been taken away.
‘It looked bigger than a normal cat,’ he said, ‘it was climbing into my skip.’
‘It has larger paws and a long thick tail and slightly smaller ears than a domestic cat.
David Lawrence captured the moment the big cat was captured walking on a huge skip outside his home
The creature’s large paws, long tail and smaller ears have led Mr Lawrence to believe it may not be an ordinary domestic cat
‘There’s something about it that shouts to me it’s not normal.
‘I know a lot of people speculate but I have shown people and everyone says that’s not a domestic cat.
‘I do keep looking at it and wondering just because of the size of it.
‘And the size of its legs and tail really isn’t normal for a domestic cat.
‘The tail is a lot longer than the back legs and the back legs are big, a normal cat doesn’t have those sized legs and structure.
‘It’s not a small skip and the cat is half the width of it. And I honestly haven’t seen a black cat on my drive or down the road before.’
For decades there have been reports about the Beast of Bucks – a puma sized cat on the prowl around the county.
At least five sightings of the elusive creature have been reported in Buckinghamshire since 2020.
Investigators who have long been trying to prove the existence of big cats in the county post updates on a Facebook page called Big Cats of the Chilterns.
In 2022 they shared that a ‘large Labrador sized cat’ had been seen moving towards Chesham.
A dog-walker snapped a photo of what he claimed was a huge black cat in the grounds of Hatfield House, Hertfordshire, in October 2018
In 2023, they reported another ‘large dog sized black cat descending from a tree’ around 8pm
They added it was a ‘typical location for large black leopard like animals’.
In June 2023, they had a report of a ‘very large puma’ in a back garden late in the evening.
Mr Lawrence added: ‘It might be a juvenile big cat.
‘Wild cats are young at one point so the size of its legs and tail is what I was looking at.
‘I’m no expert but it looks bigger than a normal cat.’
Last year Professor Robin Allaby from Warwick University, said up to 100 big cats could be roaming the British countryside
The expert who specialises in Life Sciences, found evidence of ‘Panthera genus’ DNA on a sheep carcass in the Lake District, indicating the presence of a lion, leopard, tiger, jaguar, or snow leopard in the wilds of the UK.
Road worker Jason Dobney filmed what he described as a ‘six-foot’ black cat running around a field in Peterborough
Documentary-makers have discovered what they claimed is the ‘clearest ever’ photo of a big cat prowling the British countryside. This has now proved to be a fake
While big cat hunters claim the wild beasts roam the countryside across the UK, others remain unconvinced with some accusing the evidence of being flimsy or in some cases even photoshopped.
But that hasn’t stopped rumours swirling in some circles, with one seemingly far-fetched and as of today, still unconfirmed, tale suggesting one had taken down and killed a horse.
Danny Bamping, head of the British Big Cats Society, says the evidence that these beasts are wandering rural Britain is overwhelming.
He told MailOnline that even some police forces are beginning to take it seriously.
Mr Bamping said: ‘The police treat it differently. So Devon and Cornwall police treat it seriously because they’ve had so many sightings over the years, and there’s a lot of evidence that has come from the west country.
‘And yet you can go up north, maybe to Lancashire, where I’m from. And even though there have been quite a few sighting at first they didn’t really treat it seriously.
‘Then somebody lost a horse or and then the vet came along and said to the police that this animal was killed by a large cat.
‘Ever since then, Lancashire police treated it more seriously. Scotland police forces treat it seriously, because that’s a hotspot.’ MailOnline has approached Lancashire Police for comment.
Experts have admitted a few big cats are likely to be living wild in rural Britain. They are mostly thought to have been exotic pets which have since escaped or been released.
In the late 1970s the Dangerous Wild Animals Act of 1976 was introduced, which meant licences had to be sought from local authorities to keep anything other than a regular domestic pet.
The new restrictions saw many owners of these big cats decide to turn their animals loose instead of give them to a zoo or wildlife park.