Report from Leo Martin
50 Jungle Felines May Be At Large In Great Britain
By Nic Otterside in the Scotsman, 1995
Up to 50 wild jungle cats are roaming free in Great Britain, with many stalking the Scottish countryside, it has been claimed after reported sightings of a large black cat in the hills above Blair Atholl in Perthshire. Sightings of animals thought to be pumas, panthers and leopards are rife in Britain. It began in the 1960's with the first sighting of a black panther in Surrey and there have been more than a hundred reports since 1983 of the Beast of Exmoor.
Last year a leopard was killed by a car at Hayling Island, Hampshire, and a Devon farmer shot a South American Leopard. Two pumas have been caught in Scotland, one above the hills of Aviemore 15 years ago and one in the Inverness area about two years ago.
There have been dozens of big cat sightings in Argyll and Galloway. A Perth and Kinross district council employee, Mike Guild was camping with his friend Andy Young and their three children by Loch Ordie on the Atholl estate earlier this week. Early on Sunday morning they were wakened by the sound of a large animal prowling around their tents. "I shone my torch and it made a low gutteral sound like a big cat, then went off rapidly." Said Mr. Guild. He later took photographs and plaster casts of the creature's 4.5 inch paw prints which have been sent for analysis at the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh.
During the past two weeks there have been other reports of a large black "panther-like" cat in the hills between Loch Rannoch and Glenshee. On the Machars peninsula in Galloway dozens of sightings of a tan-coloured puma have been reported since last October.
David Marshall, of Garlieston, said: "There have been so many sigtings of this puma we almost take them for granted. We have photographs of five or six different sheep killed by three-inch gashes in their windpipes. All we are lacking is a photograph of the cat."
Malcom Moy, owner of the Argyll wildlife park at Inveraray, says there are many more big cats at large across the UK, and they pose a problem for the future. "It started when the Dangerous Wild Animals Act was introduced in 1976," he explained. "Before that you could even buy these things in Exchange and Mart, and many people had them as exotic pets." But after the act was introduced owners had either to get a local authority licence and provide secure caging or have their cats destroyed. Many couldn't afford the strict licence provisions so dumped their pets in isolated parts of Wales, south-west England and Scotland. A police tracker, DC Steve Ashcroft, says that up to 50 big cats could already be stalking the rural area's of Britain.
1995
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