Sightings updates...

Despite the lack of activity on this blog there have still been a number of reputed 'big cat' sightings over the last month. One of the more recent comes from the outskirts of Tunbridge Wells, as follows: "I thought you may be interested to know of what I believe to be a big cat sighting. I am a regular cross country runner, and yesterday morning at 06.30, I was running to work when having just passed through a farmyard, I glanced to my left up a short track that leads to some stables, and standing facing me at about 40 metres distance was what very much appeared to be a very large ( 3 feet tall ? ) cat - ginger coloured, with white "beard like" facial colouring. By the time I had stopped running and retraced the few yards to go back to the track to look again, a matter of no more than 3 or 4 seconds, it was gone. I jogged up the track to try to see it again, but it was nowhere to be seen."
After a quick search on Google the witness stated that the animal he'd seen was a lynx.

The area in question is an intriguing one as over the years black leopard, puma and lynx have been seen there. Vegetation is dense this time of the year so any large cat could remain in the area undetected. There have also been sightings recently at Sheppey (under investigation), rural Maidstone, Gravesend, and Sevenoaks, a majority of these reports concerning melanistic leopard. The above mentioned sighting also confirms the elusive nature of such animals. A lot of people sceptical to the possibility of such animals roaming the UK often ask "why haven't I seen one?" as if people have a right to loiter in the woods for a few minutes and then stumble across a shy, elusive puma. Even domestic cats when in the mood can prove to be elusive characters, so for an animal with a vast territory - which mainly hunts at night - to be sighted, takes a lot of patience or in most cases luck. The strangest however are the persistent yet sceptical queries regarding "lack of evidence" despite the fact that paw prints, scat, and sheep-/deer kills are regularly found across the UK, but the sad fact is, a lot of people are unsure as to what to look for.