How Far Does Your Local Big Cat Roam

By Bob Engledow

British feral and exotic cats, thought to include puma, panther and lynx, were found in 26 different counties across England, Scotland, and Wales in 1993. By 1998, they had spread to more than 50 counties. In each county where these animals are sighted you will find local researchers plotting their movements, trying to identify their species and territories; trying to trap or shoot them; or trying to photograph or film them.

Operation Big Cat was established in Norfolk on January 1st 1998. Our launch followed several years of study by me and my wife Lyn of the worlds big cat species and cat habit and behaviour in general.

Big cats roaming Norfolk were dubbed The Norfolk Puma by the local press in the 1980's and the name has stuck.

In August 1998 and Alssation dog-sized black Norfolk puma was spotted several times in Norfolk. It was heading northwards and on the spur of the moment we decided to try to chart its movements. I wrote to our local press, giving a description of our quarry, asking the editors to encourage their readers to contact us if they saw the cat.

I had written several letters like this in the preceding months. Most led to minor public interest and response. This time we had a very different outcome. We were inundated with telephone calls and letters from the moment our appeals were published. The phone rang night and day almost continually throughout August. The general public had really taken these tracking experiments to their hearts. We were constantly given sightings by the press, Police, and RSPCA officials.

Having followed the progress of this animal over short distances in previous years - we felt we knew where it was heading at this time. We now sent copies of our local newspaper appeal to the press in Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire. The response to these was as intensive as that in Norfolk. As the month progressed so did the letters and phone calls from people across East Anglia.

Descriptions of the animal our callers were seeing and reporting all perfectly matched that of our quarry.

During August, we charted the progress of our black puma-like animal through Norfolk from Thetford Forest to Watton, Swaffham, and Kings Lynn. Here, where Norfolk, Cambs. and Lincs. touch shoulders with each other the cat appeared to loose its sense of direction. It wandered willy-nilly between the Wisbeech, Holbeach and Kings Lynn area's. Eventually it made its way northwards again with more purpose. It travelled almost as far as Cleethorpes before turning southwesterly towards Gainsborough. Here it caused something of a stir and became the subject of a prolonged hunt by police and RSPCA officials but, as always, it alluded its pursuers. It next headed south-westerly towards Leicestershire. We wrote to the Leic. press asking for support with our project. Once again this was given instantly. Public support for our project remained high and when our cat was seen on Houghton-on-the- Hill members of the public were quick to report having seen it. During the next two months we received near constant reports of sightings of our quarry. During September and October the sightings reported to us were however a little more sporadic.

Occasionally our sightings dried up for 2-3 days at a time during this period. When this happened we wondered wether our tracking experiment had died a sudden death. Yet each time the sightings came back again and the hunt was back on course. We had noticed early on during this project that the animal we were trailing moved at a steady 7 miles per day. When we did not get a sighting for a few days, we measured the distance it had travelled from the previous sightings. This always worked out the same ratio, 7 miles a day. This in turn confirmed that we were still on the trail of the same animal.

(Researchers in Britain should be aware that individual big cats, even from the same species, often behave very different to one another in certain respects. The distances travelled by individuals stresses this point. Robert H. Busch, author of, 'The Cougar Almanac' tells us: "In one nights search for food a cougar may cover over 25 miles." Biologists in Southern Chile's Patagonia region have racked cougars that covered 10 miles of rugged terrain in a few hours. And, in California, researchers following cougars found that they moved as a steady pace of about 0.5 miles per hour).

During September and October, our cat again seemed to wander aimlessly in some areas for several days at a time. This was particularly true of the Cambridge / Holbeach / Kings Lynn regions. However, when it eventually made up its mind to 'head for home' it did so without hesitation. It now travelled in an Easterly direction - almost as straight as an arrow - from Houghton-on-the-Hill (Leics) to Wisbech (Cambs), Kings Lynn (Norfolk) and Sidestrand near Cromer, in North Norfolk, where it arrived on 27th October. Three days later and 23 miles to the south, it was seen by a WPC as it crossed a road at Beighton near Acle. Sightings dried up at this point and the project was all but over.

We heard nothing more of big cats in our region for almost a month. Than a large Alsation dog-sized black panther/puma-like cat ie. a creature identical in size and shape to that we had earlier followed - was seen near Harlow in Essex. Alarm bells sounded in my head and I knew...rather, I had a gut feeling.....that this cat and that we had followed were one and the same creature. We should have called our quarry 'The six-county Big Cat'.

SUMMARY.

Since 1998, a big cat has appeared in the Harlow region annually soon after one has passed through Norfolk. I am convinced that this and the Norfolk Puma we tracked in 1998 is the very same animal, so where does our big cat go from here?

What are the implications of this project to big cat researchers in the UK in general?

The Norfolk Puma; Beast of Gainsborough (Lincs); Fen Tiger (Cambs); Beast of Suffolk; Beast of Leicestershire; and I suspect the Beast of Essex....are, in some instances, of one and the same individual animal. This means that researchers in as many as 6 counties may have been counting the same animal on 6 occasions when assessing big cat numbers in the UK.

As a result, local 'experts' commonly report figures of between 200-250 individual animals when asked by the media to assess big cat numbers in this country. (Operation Big Cat gave these same numbers in press releases prior to its 1998 project). We now believe these figures can be cut by at least a quarter. We consider Britain's big cat numbers today to be somewhere between 50-70.

American researchers today note that some individual puma territories are as large as 500 - 800 square miles with a few as high as 1,000 square miles.

A puma with an 800 square mile territory in the UK could cover an area stretching almost as far as Lincolnshire to Kent and from Norfolk to Wales.

Operation Big Cat may have discovered some evidence of a British big cat doing just this! On 25th August 200 an 11-year old boy was attacked by a large black panther-like cat in South Wales. On September 20th 2000 (27 days following the attack on the boy in Wales), we were informed of a large black panther-like cat sighting in Cambridge. The distance from where the attack on the boy in Wales took place and the border of Cambridgeshire is approximately 100 miles. A big cat in a hurry could have travelled this distance much faster and indeed our own 1998 beast could have made the journey in around 11 days and have reached here on the 4th of September. This cat - if it were the same as that which attacked the boy in Wales - had travelled at only 4 miles a day. Yet this animal is believed to have been a sub-adult panther or puma. Would it have travelled as fast or as steadily as an adult? Could it have been the same creature that was seen in Cambridgeshire? I think it was.

This year, 2001, Operation Big Cat launched a year long project in a bid to discover wether the animal which attacked the boy in South Wales is in fact traversing 13 or more different counties, Norfolk included, as it goes about its daily business.

A sub-adult big cat commonly roams for a number of years over hundreds of square miles before establishing its own territory. It is now known that an adult may also cover many hundreds of square miles a year. So...how far does your county big cat roam......and into which other researchers territory does it travel?

NOTE.

The Operation Big Cat 2001 Project got away to a good start with sightings coming in from several of the 13 counties we have targeted. It has however slowed a little since its launch.

At this time of writing there is no evidence to suggest, or refute, that the Norfolk Puma does travel the distances we believe it to.

Anyone wishing to assist with this project may do so. We need your sightings of an Alsation dog-sized black panther-like cat - from the start of this year - from the Essex; Herts; Beds; Bucks; Berks; Oxen; Wilts; Gloucs and Avon regions.

When this project ends, we will collate all the evidence collected. This will then be examined in detail in a bid to determine the full extent of the animal's territory. The full results of this project will be published in this magazine in January 2002 upon completion.

SEEKING THE TRUTH

(Operation Big Cat)

Hundreds of British people see feral big cats every year and have done so for around 36 years, (or since the early 1960's) Sightings of puma and panther are made by people from all manner of occupations and walks of life, including police officers. Yet the British government consistently deny the existence of these animals. In February 1998, Agricultural Minister Elliot Morley told the House of Commons that most....if not all....big cat reports....had been due to mis-identification. In other words, those hundreds of people who reported seeing British feral big cats had not actually seen them at all.

We at Operation Big Cat do not think that so many people were mistaken in what they claim to have seen. We believe the government are spreading misinformation about the feral big cat and we want to know why.

We seek the Truth about the British big cat. We promise to base our research into big cat matters on fact and honesty. Funding from membership fees will be spent on compiling a national register of British big cat sightings; together with the people of Britain; we will prove the existence of these animals. We also need to chart the territories, numbers, and species of British big cats. Should any of these animals ultimately turn dangerous to humans we intend to trap them and place them in wildlife parks. Failure to do this would only result in the shooting of them by police marksmen.

We also intend to raise public awareness of these animals........Finally, we are campaigning to have Britain's big cats added to the Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981 as a protected species. At this time of writing a bat or a fieldmouse is a protected species in Britain but a native-born big cat is not, and this cannot be right.

Membership funding is the only money available to us. We urge the people of this country to help us fulfil our Aims & Objectives. You can do this by joining the Big Cat Club or sending a donation to help us in our work.

Bob & Lyn Engledow \ Operation Big Cat.

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