Big Cat seen at Biggar
From Scottish Mystery Cat Sightings By Ronnie Patterson
A sighting of a more conventionally coloured puma was recalled by Janette Bell of Cormiston Farm, Biggar, Lanarkshire, she said: "About a month after New Year, 1976, myself and two others saw a puma in close proximity to the farm. I saw it running away across an open field towards a strip of scrub wood. I was upstairs at the time and saw it clearly. The animal was dark brown in colour, had a long tail, a square-flat head and large paws. The creature was not as long as some big cats, like tiger's one normally see's in the zoo. It was a bit shorter, it was running, but not at great speed, the way it ran struck me, long pounding definite strides throwing its front legs up and out."
"I naturally told everyone in the house at the time what I had just seen, and they all laughed at me, saying I must have had too much to drink. I was hurt by their remarks, because I knew that I had definitely seen a puma, Two days later the byre-mans wife also saw the puma entering the same wood, and then my sister-in-law saw it crossing the road from the same wood at night. There were never any reports from farm workers that any livestock had been interfered with, but my brother did mention that the wood was usually full of pheasant but at the time of the sightings, there were no pheasants to be seen."
February 1976
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