CARL WRITES: Paulton, Somerset - 15/2/20

Read the original story here.

Given that this sighting occurred in a residential area we should probably be cautious, however, like Danny Bamping quite rightly pointed out, it’s still possible that this could have been a big cat as previous reports have been filed from this area, and some of them quite good.

Paulton is large village with a population 5,302, located north of the Mendip Hills, North-East Somerset. Mrs Bond’s sighting was made on the outskirts of the village - basically it’s a rural area; the kind a large predator could quickly disappear from back into wilderness.

I can quite understand Mrs Bond falling over backwards as she was completely taken aback by what she believed was a big black cat – an encounter which would, accurate of not, shock anyone!

The statement that Mrs Bond could hear “thumping sounds” on the pavement while the animal was retreating her garden is curious, though maybe she meant she could hear light padding sounds, which would be expected of both leopards and pumas moving short distances on concrete paving slabs. Even though species such as these are reasonably large, they are extremely stealthy animals in their movements and in fact make very little sound. I can imagine it making more noise scrambling over a wooden fence to escape, than running along the ground.  

The fact that the sighting happened during the day is also suspicious, but not impossible, given the rural location, which would in fact be rather choice for a large felid who’s had an unsuccessful nights hunting. Fortunately though, there is a faecal sample available for analysis. So hopefully positive results might come from this (though, I would of expected a strong ammonia smell to have been mentioned in the article), but if not, and the sample is eventually proven to come from a fox or something else, it wouldn’t disprove Mrs Bond’s sighting, it would just show that the sample didn’t come from the kind of animal Mrs Bond believes she observed, and could have nothing to do with her alleged encounter at all.

At the moment, who knows! Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t! More data required..