Report from George Markie
Note by Chris Smith concerning our friends in the south! The BBCS are wrong to state that Scottish sightings have "rocketed" and that there have only been "a handful" of non-native cat sightings prior to 2001. In fact Scottish Big Cats have reports of 105 sightings in 2000 and 115 in the year 2001, figures which are very similar. As the BBCS is a quintessentially English organisation based in far-off Plymouth, we should perhaps excuse their ignorance concerning Scottish Big Cats.
Angus student tells of big cat encounter
From the Courier 4 th June 2002
ON THE same day that figures released by an organisation set up to monitor reports of big cats show Scottish sightings have rocketed, a Monikie student, driving towards Dundee late on Sunday night, has become the latest person to encounter "a big cat."
Several sightings of the mysterious creature have been made by people in Angus in recent years, most commonly in an area between Carnoustie and Monifieth.
Carolann Curran yesterday described a black cat with a "blunt face," larger and with longer legs than the average domestic cat and, most strikingly, with a tail which was longer and thicker than a domestic or wild cat.
"I was coming down past the new houses at Ballumbie and travelling slowly as I came round a bend," she said.
"I'm not good with feet or metres but I would say I was the distance between two lamp posts away when I saw it and slowed right down. It was 11.06 pm, I looked at the clock in the car.
"The first thing I noticed was the size of it and the size of its tail."
Carolann said the other thing which struck her immediately was the animal's apparent lack of concern for the approaching car.
"I am not saying it was an enormous thing like a panther or a tiger. I have a Staffordshire bull terrier and I would say the body was about the same height.
"It looked really fit and the way it got up on the dyke at the side of the road was very athletic.
"It wasn't like it went to jump on the dyke to get out of the way of the car, it was more like it didn't want to walk through the wet grass and it just got down on its haunches and was up on the dyke.
"That was when I noticed the length of its tail, coming down in a curve and stretching out behind its body.
"It seemed completely intent on what it was doing and didn't even look round at the car as I drove very slowly past it."
She said that, as someone who had a cat herself, she recalled thinking that the animal's behaviour was unlike anything she recognised in a domestic cat.
"The next day part of you thinks-did I really see what I saw, and you wonder if anyone is going to come and say 'Oh! I've got a big black cat just like that as a pet.'
"I have thought a lot about what the animal I saw was like today and I do not think it was a domestic cat or the striped wild cats.
"The field it went into had cattle in it until a couple of months ago and now has horses grazing there.
"I have horses myself and I think I want to let the people who have the horses in that field know what I saw."
The British Big Cat Society say that in 2001 there were 85 Scottish sightings or incidents reported, compared with just a handful of reports made over previous years.
The statistics show that a significant proportion of these reports centred on Angus and Fife.
The society revealed that during 2001 there were 438 sightings or incidents in Britain.
They say the figure clearly indicates that there are big cats roaming the countryside of Britain.
The society described Scotland as a "hotspot," with 85 reports during the year, ahead of Wales with 72.
In England, the majority of sightings were in Leicestershire (63), Gloucestershire (58), Norfolk (45) and Cambridgeshire (23).
Around 65% of the sightings were of black cats of some description while others were of fawn, sandy coloured cats and of cats with pointy ears and short tails.
There were also reports of "strange cats", suggesting a possibility of some kind of hybrid creature.
Since it was set up a year and a half ago, the British Big Cat Society has attracted over 250 members. The society estimate that for every sighting about another three to four go unreported as people fear they will not be taken seriously.
The society includes experts on big cat behaviour, British mammal specialists, zookeepers and biologists.
During this year the organisation plans undertaking several projects, including using trigger cameras which can be placed in the wild and left for weeks, in the hope of catching a big cat on film.
4 th June 2002
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