Martin Milner, Lock and Load!!! or Wild West Brit-style!

[The Weekenders]

Group calls for probe into pumas and lynxes roaming Britain


Tue Apr 20,10:38 AM ET

AFP to My Yahoo!

LONDON (AFP) - There is "little doubt" that significant numbers of big cats such as pumas and lynxes are roaming the British countryside, with more than four sightings of such beasts reported per day, a campaign group said.

The British Big Cats Society (BBCS), set up to compile evidence that such beasts live wild in the country, called for a government-run scientific study of population numbers.

Unveiling the results of its own 15-month survey which recorded more than 2,000 sightings, the society concluded that there was "little doubt that big cats are roaming Britain".

"The evidence has been growing and is increasingly clear," BBCS founder Danny Bamping said.

"We are now going to approach the proper authorities to ask for their support in undertaking a properly-funded scientific study on the big cats in Britain."

For many years there have been reports that large, feral wild cats such as pumas have been living around Britain, most commonly in the temperate Devon and Cornwall counties of southwest England.

It is thought that most escaped or were released from private zoos.

Efforts to track or even catch animals such as the so-called "Beast of Bodmin", which has reputedly stalked moorland and attacked livestock in Cornwall for years, have proved difficult.

However according to the BBCS a wealth of evidence such as hairs, plaster casts of pawprints, photographs and video footage has been gathered.

While perhaps alarming to ramblers and the like, the BBCS added that the presence of big cats -- some of which, such as the lynx, were native to Britain centuries ago -- might not be an entirely bad thing.

Many scientists now believe that the country's population of grazing animals do not face enough natural predators to keep populations under control, said zoologist Chris Mosier, an adviser to the society.

"The re-introduction of the lynx might, if handled correctly, help to balance this situation," he said.

"With an increased wariness of, and tightening of controls on firearms and the increasingly unacceptability of hunting with dogs, the return of one of our long-lost predators may give hope to farmers and landowners."

[kevin m.]

The existence of 'Alien Big Cats' (ABC's -you can tell I'm interested in this sort of stuff-I know the jargon!) in Britain has been disputed for about thirty years now.
The most widely held theory/belief? is that collectors released there 'pet' big cats into the wild when 'Dangerous animal' legislation was changed in 1976.
Now if this is correct,obviously the original animals would be either be dead or old and toothless now,which either means that further animals have escaped/been released into the wild OR we have a BREEDING population of these animals!
The BBCS have an interesting website,that is worth a look at.Also,the English 'DailyMail' newspaper carried a story(20/04)about the huge rise in ABC sightings in the last year.
Personally,I will not be personally convinced of their existence until one is captured,dead or very much preferably alive.
As an intersting sidetrack,big black animals-usually dogs-have been a feature of British folklore for centuries.These supernatural creatures have usually been harbringers of misfortune (remember 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'?).
Could the current spate of ABC's be the latest incarnation in our collective unconscious of these mystery Beasts?
I'm sure that I read that there were plans to re-introduce WOLVES to Scotland!

[emmline]

Can we be absolutely certain we're not dealing with some evolved feliform relative of Nessie? How, in fact, can we be sure that the Loch Ness beast herself is not a large amphibious cat?

[kevin m.]

Can we be absolutely certain we're not dealing with some evolved feliform relative of Nessie? How, in fact, can we be sure that the Loch Ness beast herself is not a large amphibious cat?

Amphibious cat hmm..a bit like a Turkish Van?
I suppose we could leave tins of 'Kittychunks' around the Lochside and see what happens!


P.S;Imagine the size of the Catflap!....'Nessieflap'?

[The Weekenders]

Yeah, that's the spirit!

What I found curious in the story is a quote that "it wouldn't be such a bad thing" to have predators return to "control grazing animals." Now, I am sure there are some wild deer left in England, but most of what I saw there were farmers' sheep and cattle! I don't think reduction in their assets is something they would support!

[kevin m.]

[quote="The Weekenders"]Yeah, that's the spirit!

What I found curious in the story is a quote that "it wouldn't be such a bad thing" to have predators return to "control grazing animals."

Maybe by 'grazing animals' they meant the morons who consume BigMacs etc. on the street,littering as they go.

[Cathy Wilde]

<< grazing animals, Big Macs, etc. >>> LOL!

I suspect they meant deer and the like. We have big problems with them here in Kentucky, anyway .....

[emmline]

Question: If the Loch Ness Cat eats deer, does it have to answer to the Sheriff of Nottingham? (or other landowner...let's not forget about the Magna Carta, after all.)

oh...and what if it eats Big Macs? Does this fall under Mayor McCheese's jurisdiction?

(sorry...a little silly today...just mowed my grass...pretty sure it was just grass.)

[Wombat]

A similar story has been doing the rounds in Australia for nearly 60 years. Apparently, during WWII, two American servicemen went AWOL, stole a breeding pair of large cats (pumas I think) from Melbourne Zoo and released them in the mountains just north of Melbourne. The authorities caught the servicemen but not the cats. There have been regular reports of sightings ever since.

I've seen many 'roos and wombats in those mountains but never a puma.

No, I'm not kidding. A lot of people believe the story.

[Darwin]

At least they might help keep the small, yappy dog population in check.

[Darwin]

The authorities caught the servicemen but not the cats.

So, are the servicemen still on view at the zoo?

[Wombat]

The authorities caught the servicemen but not the cats.

So, are the servicemen still on view at the zoo?

Their descendants are. They were a mating pair too.

[kevin m.]

Australia has it's own 'mystery animals'.There are still regular sightings of the Thylacine or 'Tasmanian Tiger' (a marsupial jackal type creature)though they are thought to be extinct.Similarly to our British Big Cats,one has never been found dead or alive,only glimpsed*.
I saw a photograph of the last Thylacine in captivity,which died in the 1930's,and it looked the saddest and loneliest animal that I've ever clapped eyes on.

*I typed those words,then remembered seeing reports a few years back of a British couple who claimed to have been attacked by a wild British Big Cat (wild?-it was Furious!!).The guy had quite deep scratch marks.
Maybe his wife just had a bad temper!!

[Chuck_Clark]

Australia has it's own 'mystery animals'.There are still regular sightings of the Thylacine or 'Tasmanian Tiger' (a marsupial jackal type creature)though they are thought to be extinct.Similarly to our British Big Cats,one has never been found dead or alive,only glimpsed*.

The animal "experts" pretty much poo-poohed the story of a return of the mountain lion (puma) to this part of the US where they'd been officially extinct over a century. Like you said - seen but never found. Then last year one ran afoul of a train - now they have a carcass - and they still say it isn't so.

Thirty years ago, when I was in college in Southern Illinois, the Conservation johnnies told us there were no bears or coyotes. Then school kids started seeing bears along a certain road. Safe in their AC offices the experts said it was the kids hyperactive imaginations - which I'm sure was very comforting to the guy that wrecked his little Japanese car running into one of them.

As for the nonexistent coyotes (which they denied even after several folks shot some and brought them in) the imaginary little buggers are now so widespread that they're attacking domestic dogs and cats right on the fringes of the towns. We've seen three road-killed along one rural highway already this year.

Moral: Maybe these BBCS folks aren't really the flat-earther types everyone tries to paint them as.

[MarkB]

"Grazing animals," aren't they a fairly new species that live in food courts in malls all over the world, call Mallee's. You see them all the time just moving to and fro between the store fronts.

MarkB