CARL WRITES: 18/1/19 - Porthleven, Cornwall

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I think if this was a genuine big cat attack the encounter would have been far worse for Mr Wild than the near miss he describes. Mathew Wild claims that while visiting his girlfriend in Porthleven, Cornwall, they both witnessed a large panther-like animal trying to get in through an open window, which then surprise attacked Mr Wild when he thought the animal had gone and tried to close the window. 

“It was trying to get through the window. I thought it had gone and went to shut the window and it went to get me... It grabbed my hand through the window. I used to work with animals and this thing was like nothing I’d ever seen. It was worse than anything on telly.” – Mathew Wild. 

Mr Wild’s report clearly states that the animal, whatever it was, actually had hold of him with it’s claws and presumably also with it’s jaws, and that he managed to free his hand from of the creatures grip and safely close the window. If this had been a leopard attack in Africa, does it sound like the kind of encounter that wouldn’t result in severe injuries? I think not! 

“It was very intent on getting in... It was lucky the cat didn’t draw blood.” said Mr. Wild. 

He described the beast as looking like a domestic cat crossed with a panther which is something of a biological impossibility and rather ambiguously concluded that if the animal was standing on the floor, it would have reached about six feet. Mr Wild, a 30 year old martial arts enthusiast from Helston, Cornwall, would possibly be capable of freeing his hand from business end of a leopard; especially if the animal was positioned uncomfortably on a ground floor window sill, but I find it very difficult to believe this could be done without receiving some sort of serious injury. 

I expect this report is either a complete fabrication or it was some other animal misidentified as a big cat – a large aggressive domestic cat (maybe another exotic hybrid) springs to mind.

NEWSLINK: Tiger kills and eats tigress' body at Kanha National Park

Wildlife officials are still attempting to figure out what might have led to brutal infighting between tigers at the Kanha National Park in Madhya Pradesh. The matter came to light when a patrol team discovered the scattered carcass of a tigress at Mundidadar prompting them to probe her death. While some animals attack and eat their own, this sort of behaviour is extremely rare in tigers. In fact, Kanha's field director K Krishnamurthy told Times of India that that animal the got killed seems to be a tigress, adding that the cannibal is a tiger. While asserting that the fight is most likely to be a territorial fight, Krishnamurthy said that the incident falls in the 'rarest of rare' categories.

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NEWSLINK: British zoo's race to save abused circus lions facing homelessness in no deal Brexit

The ongoing uncertainty of Brexit is threatening the final stage of a complex rescue effort of circus lions in Spain. Brothers Vigo and Kumba, five, are currently being held at a rescue centre in Alicante after they were saved from a lorry where they lived with three other cats.

But they can't stay at the rehabilitation centre AAP forever, as the sanctuary must make room to save more abused animals. The lions were due to be rehomed at the Isle of Wight Zoo where they would join the five tigers rescued by Chris Packham and Mirror readers, but time is running out.

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NEWSLINK: Was Kanha tigress really eaten by a tiger?

On Monday, news reports suggested that in a suspected act of cannibalism, a tiger may have killed and eaten a tigress in Kanha Tiger Reserve of Madhya Pradesh. The news agency PTI quoted Kanha field director K Krishnamurthy as saying that “circumstantial evidence suggests that the tiger, during a territorial fight, dragged the tigress for about 700 metres”. How frequently do animals feed on their own? First thing first. The deceased Kanha tigress was unlikely to have been the victim of a tiger. A male tiger has no reason to eliminate a mating option, unless she was defending her cubs.

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SIGHTING, UK: Man swiped at by 'panther-like' big cat in Cornwall

A man from Cornwall has sparked rumours of a big cat on the loose after claims he was attacked by a “panther-like” creature. Matthew Wild said he was visiting his girlfriend’s house in Porthleven when he spotted a large feline pressed against one of the windows. The 30-year-old said he tried to the shut the window but was swiped at by the animal. He described it as looking like a domesticated cat crossed with a panther. "It was very intent on getting in,” he said.

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ARTICLE: Save the Lions with a Quick Annual Payment of $1-2 Billion

The African lion is on the ropes. Lions numbered close to 100,000 in 1960 and have since dropped to around 20,000, according to conservation experts. And this trend likely is accelerating, as people continue to convert wildlife habitat into grazing commons and croplands, poach lions for claws and bones to supply the illicit international animal parts trade, and poison big cats and other predators to protect their livestock. There’s been much discussion about just what it’d take to save lions. Now we have a pretty good idea: around $1 billion to $2 billion a year. That’s the conclusion, at least, of new researchpublished in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences and supported by several conservation organizations.

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NEWSLINK: Turns out, an Indiana 'cougar' seen on video was just a fat cat

A video of a "cougar" sighting in Indiana that went viral this past weekend is not ... fur real.  

Turns out, it was just a "well-fed domestic cat," the Indiana Department of Natural Resources told Indianapolis TV station WTHR 13.  The video, which was posted by Facebook user Cole Ranker, claimed to be a "Cougar sighting in Noblesville, Indiana," on Saturday morning.  

"This video is from about 250 yds with my IPhone," Ranker posted.  It quickly exploded, amassing more than 9,600 shares and 697,000 views.   

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