January updates...

After a handful of lynx reports in Sussex and Gravesend, 2012 has begun as expected with plenty of activity, sightings and evidence. More recent scat finds at Tunbridge Wells and a sighting at 7:30 am on Friday January 13th of a black leopard, from close quarters, at Tonbridge, involving a  female witness who watched the cat - which was spraying - as it roamed the edge of school grounds. The Sun newspaper also picked up a recent local story involving piglets which over the festive period had gone missing from a farm in the Sandwich area of East Kent. We are unsure as to how a 'big cat' was connected to the missing piglets - surely it would have been easier to put two and two together and come up with the idea that maybe, as it was December, it was more likely that someone had stolen the piglets for their roast dinner - although during early January a black leopard was seen on the lane close to the farm. This wasn't the first time a big, black cat had been seen crossing the road in the area. With the year only 13 days old the south-east had provided a sighting for each day so far, 7 of these from Kent and 6 from Sussex, including puma from Battle and melanstic leopard from Uckfield.