The Mystery of Britain's Alien Big Cats

Beautiful the moors may be but you best get yourself back home before the sun goes down. For, at night, she prowls – a large black beast, with glowing eyes and teeth that would make that sabre tooth in Ice Age call for back-up. She goes by many names – The Beast of Bodmin Moor, the Exmoor Beast, The Wildcat of Woodchester, the Beast of Burford, the Fen Tiger of Cambridgeshire, and Boris. It appears that every village in Britain is being haunted by a beast – a large cat, patrolling the countryside, instilling terror in livestock and pets while conveniently controlling the deer population. Creatures of myth and imagination, ensuring tabloid sales, or a new species of animal in need of serious scientific study and preservation – where do you stand on the big cats of England debate?

Wait, there are big cats in England?

At this point, there are no recognized, indigenous big cats living wild in the UK. That’s the official story. However, there’ve been stories going around for decades of wild big cats living on the British moors. According to The Sun, there are about 2,000 reported sightings every year. Other sources estimate closer to 500 sightings, which sounds more reasonable. Regardless of what you believe though, that’s a lot of big cats!

Alien Big Cats, also called ABCs, have been spotted from Wales to Scotland. Alien in this context refers to the fact that these cats are alien to this environment – much like a giraffe would be alien to Siberia. It doesn’t refer to the cats being from outer space. Heavens preserve us from space cats.

The sightings are very similar, but to those who are completely new to the story of big cats in the UK, it usually goes something like this:

Person A is out on the moors late in the day walking their dog, riding a horse, or whatever else British people do on the moors. Suddenly, the dog and/or horse will become nervous and skittish. This is usually followed by person A spotting a cat-like creature, the size of a dog – usually Labrador, Rottweiler, or Alsatian size – either strolling about or running away. The cat is often described as black or sandy brown in colour.

The word “black panther” is thrown about a lot. Person A will then grab their phone to take photos and/or video that is the same quality of most Big Foot footage and doesn’t show anything really useful.

The cats aren’t always on the moors though. People have reported seeing the animals on the side of the road or chilling out in their gardens. Occasionally, people will also report cat sounds at night. There were even some reports of the roaring of lions though, to my knowledge, no lions have been found wandering the UK countryside. People have also reported being stalked or even attacked by big cats but, so far, it doesn’t seem like anyone has been killed or even seriously injured.

Now, in all fairness, very few people go for an afternoon stroll carrying professional photography equipment and even professionals don’t always get good shots of big cats in the wild. They’re very secretive and elusive – the cats, not the photographers. On top of that, adrenaline kicks in. If I saw a big cat in the wild without a good fence between us or a bushranger armed with a tranquilizer gun next to me, I would not be sticking around for photos, so I tip my hat to those brave enough to try and get some footage.

Big cats ain’t nothing new

The skeptics claim that the big cats roaming the moors today is just a new version of the mythological black dog and the Cat Sidhe (apparently pronounced Ket Shee because Gaelic) that’s been roaming the English countryside since the dawn of the British Isles.

The black dog has been a staple of British Folklore for centuries. They are said to exist all over the British Isles and are usually described as large, black, and shaggy with glowing eyes. They’re mostly considered to be malevolent entities hanging around crossroads and places of execution as well as harbingers of storms and omens of misfortune – not your everyday Lassie. Of course, some of them are benevolent, but they are definitely in the minority.

If dogs are not your thing, there’s also the Cat Sidhe, or fairy cat, a creature from Celtic folklore. It’s a large black cat, about the size of a dog, but I’m guessing Labrador more than Chihuahua, with a white spot on its chest. The cat can mostly be found haunting the Scottish Highlands, handing out curses, stealing souls, and generally being cats.

Back in the realm of the real though, England wasn’t always bereft of big cats. There seems to be some disagreement on the exact date, but according to the Wildlife Trust, the Eurasian lynx disappeared from the UK around 1,500 years ago. Long before that, the Eurasian Cave Lion, the Scimitar-toothed cat, and the Ice Age Leopard called the British Isles their home.

Today, the only wildcat found in Britain is the European Wildcat. It’s considered critically endangered and while it used to roam across Britain, today the cat is found mainly in Scotland and known as the Scottish Wildcat. There are some efforts underway to reintroduce the Eurasian Lynx to the British Isles so perhaps the Scottish Wildcat and the Cat Sidhe will have a new friend to cavort with soon.

And the cat returns

Now, before we start calling people crazy for imagining things that aren’t there, it’s worth noting that there are confirmed instances of big cats – not just sightings, actual cats, being caught in the UK.

In 1903, a Canadian Lynx was shot in Devon and is currently part of the collection of the Bristol Museum. Analysis of the cat’s teeth suggested that it spent some time in captivity, so it had escaped from somewhere. However, modern researchers looking at isotope evidence also suggest that, while the cat might have escaped from somewhere, it was living in the wild for quite some time.

In 1980, a puma was captured in Inverness-shire in Scotland. This happened after several years of sightings of a big cat in the area. The puma, named Felicity, was sent to the Highland Wildlife Park and, upon her death, was stuffed and placed in the Inverness Museum. The zoo director was of the opinion that the puma had definitely been tamed and had not been alone in the wilds for long – which raises the question: if a big cat had been sighted for years, and Felicity wasn’t in the wild that long, what have the locals been seeing?

In 1989, a jungle cat, also known as a swamp lynx, was hit by a car and found on the roadside in Shropshire.

In 1991, a Eurasian Lynx was shot near Norwich in Norfolk. It had a field day amongst the local sheep farms, killing around 15 sheep in two weeks. Once again, it was considered to have escaped from a facility that bred animals but there doesn’t seem to be a “missing cat” report that I can find so, if this is the case, a breeding facility lost a very expensive animal and, for some reason, decided not to report it.

In 1996, a cat was shot by police in Fintona, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. Some report it to have been a caracal, an African wildcat, while the police report described it as a lynx. Caracals are sometimes called the desert lynx, since apparently swamp lynxes and desert lynxes are a thing, so I suppose the confusion is understandable.

In 2001, a female Eurasian Lynx was captured alive by police and vets in Cricklewood, North London, after a jolly chase across school playing fields and into a block of flats. Lara, as she was called, found a new home in the London Zoo and was later transferred to a zoo in France.

Most of these animals were probably escapees but since no-one came forward to claim them, or even report them when they pulled their Houdini acts, we’ll never know where they escaped from and whether they were in the wild long enough to bump into another escapee and maybe have a kitten or two.

The superhero origin story

If there are big cats running around England, the main question is where they came from since the UK isn’t their natural habitat. There are a number of theories doing the rounds ranging from plausible to completely bonkers:

One theory states that the big cats roaming the moors today are the descendants of cats kept by US servicemen as mascots which were set loose when World War II ended. Apparently, the cats arrived as cubs but, once the war was finally over, the cats weren’t that small anymore and shipping them home became a bit more complicated. Since it would’ve been easier to simply release them, this is exactly what happened.

Another, more plausible theory, states that the cats are actually the descendants of animals set loose when the Dangerous Wild Animals Act came into effect. Up until 1976, there were no laws regulating the sale of exotic animals as pets in the UK – pumas, leopards, and other big predatory cats could be found in any suburban home. If you didn’t have one, you could pop into Harrods and pick one up while shopping.

However, when the law changed requiring licenses and enclosures built to specification, a lot of pet owners, either unable or unwilling to fork out that much money, simply set the animals free – setting wild animals free only became illegal in 1981, so they weren’t breaking any laws. Financially, it would’ve made sense to sell the animals – a lion cub sold for £3,000 in 1970, which apparently is around £45,000 today – but we need to consider the human factor. We humans get very attached to our pets so to many, the comfort and happiness of their pet running free on the moor would’ve been worth more than the money they would’ve gotten from selling their beloved pet to animal parks.

Another theory blames the Romans, of course. There were Roman amphitheaters in Britain during the 1st century AD. These amphitheaters were used for gladiatorial fights, chariot races, and, of course, events with large and dangerous predatory cats hunting, fighting, and eating people if the movies are to be believed. There are no records of cats escaping or being set loose in the wild, but the Romans had a lot on their minds with invasions from the Britons and building a really big wall, so we can’t expect them to keep track of every cat that came into the country.

And then there are the slightly more outlandish theories. One of these is that the big cats being spotted today are evolved and/or hybrid versions of Ice Age species of which there were a few. It’s not impossible for a species that was considered to be extinct to suddenly reappear – just go look up the New Guinea Singing Dog or Kashmir Musk Deer.

However, with the exception of the Coelacanth, which had the entire ocean to hide in, most animals rediscovered had only been thought extinct for 100 or so years. It’s a long time, sure, but when you’re an Elephant Shrew, hiding isn’t that difficult. However, if you’re a big cat species hunting bigger things like, say, livestock and the unguarded young of early Neanderthals, odds are, someone is going to notice you before 1960.

Finally, there’s the ever-present theory – aliens. Yes, you heard right, some dedicated X-Files fan took the “alien” in Alien Big Cats to be literal, as in, cats from outer space. As a cat lover, I would not be surprised if all cats came from outer space – it would certainly explain a lot.

Are there big cats running around the English countryside?

A lot of amateur naturalists and YouTubers have tried to answer this question, and it seems that all agree that the three cats most commonly found in England are the black leopard, the puma, and the lynx. Unfortunately, many of the videos and articles – not all of them, there are some good ones out there – start out with some solid science behind it and then wander off into conspiracy theories about government cover-ups. I’ve yet to come across any government department competent enough to purposefully cover up something as big as hundreds of big wild cats in a country the size of Britain for over 50 years.

Normally, I’d say the only way to prove the existence of a cryptid, like Nessie, the Yeti, or Big Foot, would be to catch the cryptid in question. However, in this peculiar instance where cryptozoology and just plain old zoology collide, actual cats have been caught so the answer to “are there big cats wandering around England” is yes, there are on the odd occasion. However, a handful of cats here and there don’t explain the large number of sightings and the evidence the cats leave behind – and yes, there is evidence aplenty.

For the scientifically minded among you, let’s start with some actual DNA evidence. In 2011, the Centre for Fortean Zoology reported that DNA testing on hairs found in North Devon, done by Durham University, proved that there was, in fact, a leopard living in the area. In the name of transparency, this is an organization dedicated to cryptozoology which is considered a pseudo-science rather than an academic field, but the testing was done by an actual university, not the crackpots with tinfoil hats that some of you are imagining, so let’s give credit where credit is due.

Of course, a major concern would be what all the cats roaming around the countryside have been eating. Big cats will hunt any prey from rabbits to deer to livestock, and there have been plenty of livestock kills, especially sheep, that veterinarians weren’t able to explain. A researcher at the Royal Agricultural University, Dr Andrew Hemmings, conducted an analysis of bite marks on animal carcasses spanning several years and concluded that, along with witness reports, the tooth pit data he collected suggests the presence of carnivores bigger than those indigenous to the British Isles.

But there’s more. One of the better YouTube documentaries contacted a big cat specialist, Dr Mark Elbroch, a puma researcher and field biologist, for input on some of the evidence they presented. While Dr Elbroch was skeptical about the notion of big cats in England, and he very politely blew some of their evidence out of the water, he did agree that one of the kills mentioned in the video was most likely a big cat kill.

He based this on two things: the claw marks indicated that the animal had been taken down from behind which is typical of big cats. The wounds to the neck, according to Dr Elbroch, showed that the animal’s throat was clamped which will crush the windpipe and essentially suffocate it – this is how big cats kill. So, unless otters have become a lot more ferocious, something bigger is taking down livestock and deer.

Another argument against big cats in the UK is the fact that no dead cats have been found. Cats, though mysterious, are not immortal – they do not have the blood of kings, so, eventually, they have to die. So, where are the dead cats?

Cats, especially sick and dying cats, hide. Anyone who’s ever had to give a sick cat a pill can tell you this. When cats get sick and vulnerable, they can find the most ingenious hiding places.

In the wild, where there are no paranoid owners hunting them down to shove pills down their throats, the cats curl up in the most secluded spot they can find and die. The possibility of a human stumbling upon the remains of a cat that didn’t want to be found before the scavengers find it is slim. In a YouTube interview with a puma expert, he revealed that he had never, in his 20 years of working with mountain lions, found a cat that died of natural causes.

If a dead cat is found, it died violently, probably due to human interference such as car accidents, poisoning, and poaching.

A lot of amateur big cat hunters have thought to put up trail cameras but none of them have caught anything – at least, nothing they put on YouTube that I could find. But, before your skeptical little hearts get too delighted, this doesn’t actually disprove the theory. Catching cats on trail cams is a little more complicated than simply putting some cameras up in trees.

If you put your cameras in the wrong place, you can have a conga line of cats in grass skirts dancing up and down the forest and you won’t see them. In another interesting story by Dr Elbroch, he mentioned putting up cameras looking for cats in an area they knew were inhabited by cats but weeks went by without getting any footage. Finally, they moved the camera a few meters to one side and, suddenly, there was footage almost every night.

You see, as one tracker also mentioned, cats will take the path of least resistance. If there’s a convenient dirt road or logging road, the cat isn’t going to try and clear a new path in the woods. Also note that I said weeks.

Leaving a camera up for a single night or two is not enough. Cats have a huge territory and even if you know a cat’s there, you’ve seen the tracks, it could take up to six weeks, depending on the size of the territory, before the cat comes back.

In one video, the intrepid cat lover put out salmon steak as a lure. Cats, contrary to popular belief, prefer meat to fish. Like most animals, they will scavenge but cats prefer to hunt – not to mention that a dead salmon in the middle of a forest is a little out of place. The next morning, the salmon wasn’t touched because even scavengers who’ll eat anything decided that Commander Ackbar was right – it’s a trap!

Of course, we also need to consider the footage. As I mentioned before, Big Foot enthusiasts and Big Cats in the UK photographers won’t be winning any wildlife photography awards any time soon. A lot of the photos and videos are simply too blurry or distant to really say with any certainty that it is or isn’t a cat. In some instances, you can also see that it’s a house cat, a dog, or even a deer.

However, some of the photos have me wondering. I live in a country where we have zoos, animal sanctuaries, and wildlife reserves around every corner, so I’ve seen big cats up close many, many times and damn, some of those really look like big cats to me.

The trick, in this case, lies in the tail. The tail-to-body ratio of a leopard is very different to that of a house cat. The snow leopard has the longest tail of the big cats but regular leopards also have pretty long tails – longer than that of a domestic cat. The puma, on the other hand, has a very thick tail – thicker than that of a domestic cat. Finally, the last of the three cat culprits is the lynx which has a short, stubby tail – hence the name bobcat.

Another give-away is how the animals move. A video taken by Derek Highnett, a police constable, shows a big cat casually strolling across a meadow in the Midlands. Ian Maxwell, a professional tracker from Kenya, analysed the video and came to the conclusion that it is, in fact, a big cat based on the bulk of its shoulders and the way it walked.

Cats, especially big cats in the wild, use something called direct register when they walk. In order to minimize noise, like breaking grass and twigs, they put their back paw in the exact same spot as the front paw – this allows the cat a ninja level of stealth. Maxwell also visited the site where the video was taken because judging the size of something is difficult without context.

Using markers he saw in the video, like trees the cat walked past, he was able to get some idea of the actual size of the cat. He came to the conclusion that the animal in the video was, indeed, a big cat – probably a black leopard.

Of course, no video on the big cat in England phenomena would be complete without mentioning Jonathan McGowan, naturalist and taxidermist, who has been studying big cats in England for over 30 years. He even wrote a book on the subject. A lot of his field observations and research are scientifically sound.

He has a collection of plaster casts of big cat prints, photographic evidence of livestock kills that were most likely big cats based on analysis of the wounds, and he observed that more sightings are reported on the west side of the country where the deer population is most dense. Unfortunately, he also made some comments that are less sound. He claims that the deer population in the UK has stabilized showing that the cats are doing their job of weaning out the old, sick, and weak.

However, my research shows that deer are still a problem in the UK and are still being culled seasonally. This statement also doesn’t really consider the true nature of cats. They are opportunistic hunters – they’ll go for the most vulnerable prey.

Sometimes this is the old, sick, and weak but sometimes it’s a perfectly healthy animal who wandered away from the herd because it needed space to think through its existential crisis, which might explain why we don’t see many deer in philosophy – they get eaten. He also made a statement that the cats will rather hunt smaller wild animals and only hunt livestock when they don’t have any options because they are aware of the relationship between livestock and humans and don’t want to interfere. This isn’t the case – an injured cat can’t hunt, so they’ll avoid tangling with big dogs and people with guns, but if neither of those is present, and the sheep is the easiest meal around, the cat will seize the moment.

As I said before, not all sightings are big cats – in some instances, people are seeing other animals in the dark and simply assume what they’re seeing are big cats. Judging the size of something from a distance is really hard, especially if there’s nothing around to compare it to, like a lamp post, which is why people often mistake domestic cats for big cats. The Maine Coon is a major culprit here as it’s an exceptionally big domestic feline.

Some have also suggested that seeing threats where there aren’t any have more to do with human evolution. In order to stay alive and avoid predators, humans are more likely to accept an unknown as a threat and avoid it. Also, some feel that people’s need to see big cats in a country they don’t belong is connected to a yearning for an earlier time when the wild was still wild and mysterious and big cats were watching from the shadows.

The big question

A question I came across quite a lot in my research is whether or not there’s a breeding colony of hybrid cats, unique to England, roaming the moors. We’ve seen that there definitely are cats around England – but have there been enough escapees to not only establish a breeding colony, but give rise to a whole new breed of cat?

The existence of the Kellas Cat in Scotland suggests that big cats in Britain, especially an inbred, adapted version, are not out of the realm of possibility. You see, unlike some wizarding families, cats aren’t all that obsessed with keeping the bloodlines pure. The Kellas Cat is a hybrid between the Scottish Wildcat, occasionally nicknamed the Tiger of the Highlands, and feral house cats.

This hybridization with domestic felines is one of the reasons why this cat is considered critically endangered. The end result of this domestic goddess and “born to be wild cat” is often a black cat, perhaps a little bigger than the average cat, reminiscent of the mythological Cat Sidhe that’s been roaming Scotland for centuries.

If such an intermingling did occur, it might explain all the sightings of black cats. The black panther that everyone keeps seeing is not actually a species, it’s a colour variant of a leopard or jaguar. Where albinism leads to white animals, melanism does the opposite.

This genetic condition causes an overproduction of melanin, which causes the dark pigmentation. However, big black cats are rarer than you might think. One figure suggests that only about 11% of the world population of leopards is black.

Considering that scarcity, odds are that black leopards would’ve been a higher status symbol than a mere leopard and since they were entering the UK as pets, and bred as pets, a higher than usual percentage could’ve been black simply because they were worth more. We humans love selective inbreeding of specific genes after all, that’s how we ended up with a Pug – a dog that can barely breathe. This means that a breeding colony would’ve started out with a higher percentage of black cats than would naturally occur.

There have been some suggestions that there might also be some inbreeding with the local muggles. Honestly, I’m not entirely clear on how a domestic housecat is going to mate with a black leopard or a puma – I can only assume domestic housecats in the UK have access to chloroform. However, I did a brief study of this and if we believe more scientific sources, which I tend to do, that’s not possible.

Big cats can interbreed with other big cats, hence the existence of ligers, a combination of the tiger and a lion, and smaller cat breeds can interbreed with each other, as we’ve seen with the Kellas cat. So if there’s a colony of hybrid big cats on the moors, housecats are, for once, innocent of the mayhem.

Now, before anyone gets too excited and starts brainstorming ideas to name this new species – there’s a problem. Ligers do exist, but the males are usually sterile. Thankfully, there are no tigers running around the UK.

If there was, you’d know. A hybrid between a puma and leopard is possible though; it’s called a pumapard, and, I’ll admit, they’re very cute. The existence of such a creature is remarkable since scientists never considered the puma and leopard to be closely enough related to actually produce offspring.

However, if you think Loch Ness Monsters are rare – to my knowledge only two cubs have ever been born naturally in a zoo without human intervention, well, outside of humans putting the parents in a zoo. The animals that were bred by humans, who were so excited about the fact that they could that they never paused to think if they should, all experienced similar health issues to most hybrids – high infertility rates and genetic abnormalities. In the pumapard’s case, dwarfism was common.

I looked around a bit, searching for a living pumapard today, but it seems that the somewhat Frankenstein-ish hobby of creating weird cats from existing cats has, thankfully, ended and there doesn’t seem to be any pumapards hanging around in 2022.

Nature is amazing and animals do evolve to adapt to the environment and, occasionally, this evolution can happen quite quickly. However, you would need several hundred healthy, fertile animals to maintain a self-sustaining breeding colony. The Kruger National Park in South Africa is one of the biggest wildlife reserves in Africa and is around 19,485 sq.km.

That’s about the size of Wales. This park houses around 1,000 leopards. That’s a very healthy breeding colony.

Keep in mind that male and female territories will overlap, but male territories don’t. The biggest moor in the UK is the North York Moors which is about 1,430 sq.km. That can house around 70 female leopards as a female leopard’s territory is around 20 sq.km.

However, male territories are much bigger – we’re talking 30 sq.km to 70 sq.km, so there would only be about 20–30 males. And this is small. Puma territories are even bigger than that – female territories are around 65 sq.km–500 sq.km while males can range from 150 sq.km up to 1,000 sq.km.

And it’s unlikely that pumas and leopards will share territory.

Now, that’s a lot of numbers. To simplify – 100 animals may sound like a lot but it’s still not enough to sustain a breeding colony. Biologists disagree and research is ongoing but it seems that you’d need around 200–500 animals to sustain a healthy breeding colony. Without this genetic diversity, inbreeding will occur and, eventually, your colony will die out.

If you don’t think inbreeding is all that bad, take a look at the Hapsburg family. That means that the biggest moor in England is not big enough to support a breeding colony of cats.

But, I hear you yell in the back, if we put all the moors and wild, rural areas side to side surely there’ll be an area the size of Wales. This could be true and, if that’s the case, then sure, the UK could support a breeding colony, but if that was the case, there would be more dead cats on the roads since the cats would have to cross from one county to the next to breed and cats are not very good at crossing roads – especially black cats. I had a black cat that would follow me down a dark corridor at night and, when I turned around, the little bastard would close his eyes.

I almost broke an ankle multiple times. You simply won’t see a black cat in the dark in time to stop a moving car.

To illustrate this point, Dr Mark Elbroch told an interesting story about a Wildlife Park in Santa Monica. The park is around 650 sq.km and houses around 12 pumas. Much like you’d find in the UK, the park is surrounded by humans – not necessarily cities – just towns and farms. This park will lose between one and three of their big cats annually to car accidents.

And that’s just one park. Now if you spread out a couple of parks across an island the size of England, you’re going to have to deal with a lot more dead cats than what we’re currently seeing.

So, if you put all that together, the chances for a breeding colony are low. It’s true that animals evolve to adapt to their environment, but in order for a hybrid species to be considered an actual species and not just animals that are cross-bred between two different species, like the liger, it needs to be able to reproduce independently. Most hybrid animals have high infertility rates and the two “natural” pumapards never produced offspring. On top of that, while large parts of the UK is rural farmland, there are still a lot of people, roads, and cars about – if there was a breeding colony of cats travelling from one area to the next to mate, this video would not be on an unsolved mystery channel but on a channel focusing on big cat protection and preservation.

Can cats survive in the UK?

There may not be a breeding colony but that doesn’t mean that escapees can’t survive in England. Cats are incredibly adaptable. They can thrive in deserts, jungles, mountains, and even snow. The UK provides for most of their needs – they have an ample food supply and very little competition from other predators for that tasty morsel.

The UK has lakes and rivers and streams – far more than what a leopard would be used to in Africa, so water is not a problem. There are protected areas like moors and forests where the animals can take shelter. The only things they don’t have in abundance are mates so that might become a bit frustrating.

However, you don’t need a breeding colony to have cubs – I came across this delightful story from Benjamin Mee. That’s the guy the movie “We Bought a Zoo” was very loosely based on. In short, Mee did, in fact, buy a zoo – Dartmoor Zoo in Devon. In 2006, driving home one evening, with two other friends in the car with him, they came across an animal lurking by the side of the road.

Initially, he thought it was a deer so he stopped in case the deer got it in its mind to run across the road. However, upon closer inspection, he realized it wasn’t a deer but a puma. Now this man just bought a literal zoo so he should know the difference between a deer and a puma. His first thought was that his pumas escaped so they rushed back to the zoo to find both the zoo’s pumas accounted for.

Now, for the rest of this tale, we’ll be using the word allegedly. Asking around town about this puma he saw, he found two possible stories. The first was that five pumas were allegedly sent from Plymouth Zoo to Dartmoor Zoo after Plymouth Zoo closed down in 1978. However, only two arrived.

The owner of Plymouth Zoo allegedly released three cats into the wild – a favourite breeding pair and an extra to keep them company and babysit the cubs, I assume. Another story went that the previous owner of Dartmoor Zoo, which was nearly closed down due to its poor reputation, allegedly lost three pumas that escaped into the wild. Now three cats don’t make a breeding colony, but they could certainly produce a few generations of offspring before inbreeding takes its toll. However, Mee believes the exceptionally cold winter of 2010 might’ve beaten inbreeding to it.

Are the cats a danger to humans?

While there have been some reported attacks, none of these attacks have been conclusively proven to have been perpetrated by a big cat, and no serious injury or death have been reported. So, at this point, the answer is probably no. Most solitary predators, like big cats, will avoid hunting humans as long as there is other, easier, prey available.

An abundance of sheep farms means that should easy prey in the wild run out, there would still be plenty to eat on farms. Indirectly, this will definitely affect humans because big cats eating your livestock can affect the turn-over and profitability of a farm and lead to financial problems. However, it’s only when the prey in the wild has dried up and the sheep on the farms are locked up tight that big cats would consider turning on humans.

However, long before that happens, there’ll be enough proof of cats that the government would’ve stepped in, we hope.

And now for some warning labels since the human race can’t function without them. These cats are not pets. Wandering around the moors alone at night with a piece of beef jerky in order to lure the Beast of Bodmin Moor into a trap you made at home with duct tape and happy thoughts is a recipe for disaster.

If an animal is cornered and feels threatened, even a domestic animal, it will fight back. If there are young nearby, it will fight back even more viciously. So, we beg you, don’t try and copy reality shows or get TikTok followers – if there are dangerous animals about, be it big cats or rabid hamsters, leave them be or, if they threaten livestock or humans, call an animal wellness organization or the police to trap and remove the animal safely!

Conclusion

The one thing I’m not sure we’ve explained yet is the huge number of big cat sightings – even if you consider that many of these sightings are false. Based on the sheer volume of sightings, unless the entire UK is using hallucinogenic drugs on a daily basis, at least some people are genuinely seeing something – big cats or otherwise. Now, I grew up in a smallish town and the first people to notice something out of the ordinary, like a big animal that shouldn’t be there or a dodgy newcomer dressed in black, are the locals. I’m not saying we should abandon science and listen to every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a mildly interesting theory, but to simply disregard hundreds of sightings made by local members of a community, simply because they’re not scientists, means that we could be missing out on something amazing.

As for the cats themselves, have we decoded this mystery? I think we have. While there may be cats running around Britain, there most certainly isn’t a breeding colony and, unfortunately, it’s doubtful that there’s a whole new breed of cat – that would’ve been a very exciting discovery and a definite win for cryptozoologists everywhere!

As for where the lost souls on the moors come from – cats are escape artists. They escape from zoos and breeding programs all the time. Reputable zoos and programs will report them missing and make every effort to find them, but the cats are probably sowing some wild oats and living their best cat lives while on their jail break.

Of course, the blame can also be placed on the illegal pet trade, second only to the drug trade in the UK. If you visit your local animal shelter, you’ll see how many house pets are abandoned by people simply because they didn’t realize the time and effort that goes into caring for a cat or dog. Now if you think Mr Fluffybutts is a lot of effort, consider the effort that goes into something 10 times as big and strong enough to drag an antelope up a tree.

You can’t exactly call your local RSPCA. So what’s a pet smuggler who bit off more than he or she can chew to do? Well, there’s a convenient moor just down the road, and so the Beast of “insert name of moor” is born.

So far the cats haven’t hurt anyone and, odds are, as long as they’re left alone, that shouldn’t change. In fact, a couple of big cats keeping the deer population in check might actually be a good thing. So, go out there, take photos, take video, please don’t get eaten, and keep the beast appreciation alive because, let’s be honest, cryptids are cool!

Frequently Asked Questions

What are some of the names given to the alleged big cats in Britain?

Some of the names given to the alleged big cats in Britain include The Beast of Bodmin Moor, the Exmoor Beast, The Wildcat of Woodchester, the Beast of Burford, the Fen Tiger of Cambridgeshire, and Boris.

How many reported sightings of big cats are there in Britain annually?

There are about 2000 reported sightings every year according to The Sun, while other sources estimate closer to 500 sightings.

What does ‘Alien Big Cats’ refer to in the context of Britain?

‘Alien Big Cats’ refers to big cats that are not native to the British environment, similar to how a giraffe would be alien to Siberia.

What are some common descriptions of the big cats spotted in Britain?

The big cats are often described as black or sandy brown in color, the size of a dog (usually Labrador, Rottweiler, or Alsatian size), and sometimes referred to as black panthers.

What are some confirmed instances of big cats being caught in Britain?

Confirmed instances include a Canadian Lynx shot in Devon in 1903, a puma captured in Inverness-shire in 1980, a jungle cat hit by a car in Shropshire in 1989, a Eurasian Lynx shot near Norwich in 1991, and a cat shot by police in Fintona, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland in 1996.

What are some theories about the origin of the big cats in Britain?

Theories include cats kept by US servicemen during World War II being set loose, animals released when the Dangerous Wild Animals Act came into effect, and cats escaping from Roman amphitheaters.

What evidence supports the presence of big cats in Britain?

Evidence includes DNA testing of hairs found in North Devon, analysis of bite marks on animal carcasses, and expert analysis of videos showing big cat behavior.

What is the Kellas Cat and how does it relate to the big cat sightings in Britain?

The Kellas Cat is a hybrid between the Scottish Wildcat and feral house cats. It suggests that big cats in Britain, especially an inbred, adapted version, are not out of the realm of possibility.

Are the big cats in Britain a danger to humans?

While there have been some reported attacks, none have been conclusively proven to have been perpetrated by a big cat, and no serious injury or death have been reported. Most big cats will avoid humans as long as there is other prey available.

What is the conclusion about the big cat sightings in Britain?

While there may be cats running around Britain, there is no evidence of a breeding colony. The sightings are likely due to escaped pets or animals released into the wild.

Sources

• Original Decoding the Unknown video: The Mystery of Britain’s Alien Big Cats
• Hero image source by Brandon Zhang / openverse, cc0.