Report from George Markie
Moffat Sighting - From Beasts on the prowl
By Jim Gilchrist jgilchrist@scotsman.com, in the Scotsman, 2 nd February 2002
Last Sunday morning, Edinburgh woman Audrey Coltart was driving out of Moffat along the old Carlisle road when she saw, in the clear light of day, what appeared to be a big cat at the side of the road: "I was just driving and I thought, 'What is that? It skittered away, the way cats do, and I just went 'Oh f***,' out loud. It was absolutely gi-normous."
Coltart, who was quite shaken by the encounter, says the animal was as long as her car was broad: "It had feline features, a feline body and you know the way they walk, like on pads. It was 100 per cent black. It went underneath a gate and I saw that it had a very long tail." Raise the subject in a local pub and you'll get a shrug of the shoulders but also, inevitably, the odd anecdote - of men "lamping" foxes at night and seeing what appeared to be a big black cat perched on top of a dyke; or the two cars that screeched to a halt near Moffat a few years ago, both drivers having seen a dead deer by the road . and what looked like a very big, black cat feeding off it.
Scotsman, 2 nd February 2002
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