NEWSLINK-Big cat-like creature spotted in village

A SHAKEN Aberporth dog-walker has described how he felt “menaced” by a huge, black cat-like creature which bounded across his path while he took his Jack Russell terrier out on an early morning stroll along Tresaith Road.
John Watson, 71, and family pet Rags were confronted by the panther-like animal which emerged from near the entrance of The Willows Caravan Park and bolted across the road into scrubland near Helyg Fach Caravan Park opposite.
The incident happened at 6.45am on Thursday, 21 August – just 24 hours before a fellow dog-walker spotted a similar-looking beast in dense woodland near the River Gilwen on the opposite side of the village. “I was scared for both myself and my dog,” Mr Watson told the Cambrian News. “I just felt naked – like I had nowhere to go.
“My immediate thought was it’s only got to look in my direction and then what? I saw it from a range of 80- 90 feet. It was very big and moved very fast and, to me, looked just like a puma or a panther.
It didn’t run like a dog – it loped like a cat.” Mr Watson – who speculated the creature had a regular “run” alongside a nearby stream - said he had initially been “torn” over whether to report the sighting or not. “Part of me doesn’t want to be a scaremongerer,” he said.
“On the other hand I think people should be aware that this animal is running around here.” He added that during the winter he had frequently glimpsed a pair of “big yellow eyes” in the light of his torch while walking Rags along the nearby coast path.
“I’d always assumed those eyes belonged to a feral cat or a fox,” he said. “Now I’m not so sure.”
The following day, pensioner Jane Bowling also had a close encounter of the cat kind near the River Gilwen.
Mrs Bowling, 72, of Parc-y-Plas, says she watched in amazement as an animal twice as large as her black labrador Tyson raced across a field in the direction of the river at around 3pm.

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