Black leopard sighting at Dover Castle

A black leopard has been seen within yards of Dover's historic castle. On 27th February 2012 at 9:10 am a Mr Donnelly - who lives in Dover - had visited the Duke of Yorks School and was turning right towards Castle Hill past Boadless farm, when he decided that at a nearby lay-by he would stop his car and admire the view across the fields and channel. Upon doing so he noticed an animal on ground in the vicinity of the Napoleonic Fort (Edingburgh Hill). Realising the animal was more than 300 yards away Mr Donnelly reported, "I watched it for a full minute, it was much too big to be a domestic cat, the body was 3ft in length and stocky and the tail long and thick. It was creeping through long grass down a bank towards the field. I got my binoculars but lost sight of it." The area the cat had been seen is disused, and this isn't the first time such an animal has been seen in the area. Last year a group of six people watched a big black cat slinking near the fort, and there have also been several sightings over the last few months at Western Heights too. Meanwhile a few years ago an architect claimed he'd found some unusual excrement in a tunnel at the fort and sent them off for analysis. The samples returned as leopard scat.