CARL WRITES: 20/10/18 - Sinclairston, Ayrshire

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A local teenager has created a ‘flap’ in Scotland with the creation of his very own ‘big cat’. Robbie Brown created the big cat shaped sculpture with a laser cutter before posting photographs onto social media, fooling many locals residents into believing a large black cat was on the loose.

Mr. Brown, 18, received hundreds of shares with local residents believing the sculpture to be the real thing. One even contacted police to report the sighting.

“I just did it for a laugh... Everyone was talking about the other sightings so I spent ten minutes crafting one out of metal”. Claims Mr. Brown.

“It’s got a crazy reaction on Facebook, and some people thought it was real... Others realised it was fake because the tail was in the same position in every photograph”.

Police initially feared a ‘black panther’ was stalking the wilds near Drongan, Ayrshire after the photographs emerged.

Ian Mitchel 56, who runs an alpacas business at Hannahston Farm, initially feared for the safety of his South American animals which are worth up to £12,000 each.

Even considering the obviously static nature of the sculpture, many local eyewitnesses believed what they were seeing was a genuine ‘big cat’. This story proves that many observers see whatever they want to see, even if what’s being observed is nothing more than a rigid, laser cut model painted black, and typically seen in a single unchanging position.

CARL WRITES: 22/10/18 - Lochnagar, Aberdeenshire

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Two videos have appeared that seem to show genuine wildcat kittens. Mr. Usher from Edinburgh told BBC Scotland:

“I was going across a boulder field, being quite careful with where I was going because there lots of drops down. Out of the corner of my eye I suddenly saw something move and instinctively thought it was a tail.”

“It was the wee one first that I saw and that gave me time to put down my bag, take out my camera, start filming it and zooming in. It didn’t want to move so it was great”.

“I changed course, going off further to the left to keep well out of their way. I looked round after another ten minutes or so and found that they were still watching me”.

“At the time I thought there were two, but then going back over the footage in slow motion I found a third one just poking out, and there may have been more as well”.

“At the time it didn’t really sink in, and by the time I got home I thought: Wow, that’s actually something special”.

The British race of the European wildcat (Felis silvestris grampia) was at one time found all over the British Isles, but according to popular belief, were exterminated over much of their range during the 17^th, 18^th, and 19^th centuries, and are today totally confined to Scotland.

Wildcats tend to be larger and heavier than domestic cats, although the size range is considerable. The head has distinctly tabby markings, the nose is flesh coloured and the animals have a prominent white throat. The dorsal colouration of the coat is a yellowish-brown/grey, much darker than the ventral side, which is pale.

There is a broad dark-coloured dorsal line made up of longitudinal stripes from which irregular stripes which run onto the stomach.

The tail has several dark coloured, encircling bands, of which only the final two or three count as complete ‘rings’. The tip of the tail is black.

The kittens are usually more distinctively marked than the adults and that for the first few months of their lives their tails are tapered to a point like in domestic cats (Felis catus).

A tabby, striped coat and a bushy tail, with distinctive bands are also found in domestic or feral cats and are therefore not definite wildcat characteristics. Both species often display the traditional ‘M shaped’ markings on the forehead.

Hybridisation with domestic cats has clearly taken place over much of the wildcats geographic range and today it is difficult, if not impossible, to say just which populations have been affected by intragressive cross breeding.

The purity of this species is typically accessed using a 21 point scoring system examining  F. s. grampia physical characteristics.

The most visible kitten on each of the videos looks very promising, with strong nape stripes and a thickened (non tapered) tail.

It has been estimated that there are only between one hundred and three hundred Scottish wildcats alive today, and we are unsure as to whether the English specimens, which undoubtedly existed into historical times, were members of the same (Scottish) sub-species.  

SIGHTING, UK: Security guard spots big cat while out walking with his domesticated feral cat

While patrolling a site at work with his domesticated feral cat, a man who more likely expected to come across a sounder of wild boar in fact came face to face with a big cat instead.

The big cat sighting happened on November 15 at around midnight near Coleford in the Forest of Dean.

Security guard Clarke Dockerty, 32, has been on the site for a couple of weeks. The previous night he heard a huge commotion on the outskirts of the site and was taken aback when he saw around 10 boar making their way through the wood.

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NEWSLINK: 1 mountain lion remains missing following Woolsey fire

All but one of the mountain lions being tracked by the National Park Service in the Santa Monica Mountains have been accounted for in the wake of the Woolsey Fire, as have all four bobcats the agency monitors, officials said.


The only mountain lion still missing as of Friday is dubbed P-74, a young male who was born last year and is the newest lion added to the National Park Service study of big cats in the mountains. Another lion dubbed P-42 was located Friday morning, along with the last of four bobcats in the mountain area.


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SIGHTING, UK: Big cat 'as big as a Labrador' spotted on Gloucestershire canal path

A man from Brimscombe was left shocked after coming across a 'big cat' on a towpath when he was on his way back from collecting a memory foam mattress on his push bike.


He took the towpath route home and could not quite believe what he saw stood right in front of him.

At first the man thought it was a dog sniffing about in the grass to the left of the path but then it dawned on him.

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PHOTO: Lion Sneaks Into Farmer's Home, Relaxes On Heap Of Groundnuts

A farmer in Patla village in Gujarat's Amreli district was greeted with a strange, albeit apprehensive, sight of a lion relaxing on a heap of groundnuts stored in a room in his house.


A video of the lion sprawled on the groundnut heap went viral on social media.
The incident took place in Tulsishyam range of the Gir (east) division Sunday night.
Forest officials said Patla village is located on the edge of the Gir forest, the only abode of the Asiatic lions.

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CARL WRITES: 11/11/18 - Brimscombe, Gloucestershire

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"I don’t think this is a particularly credible sighting simply because of the constant inconsistencies related during Mr Guillaume Lyons’ interview. One minute the animal was as tall as a Doberman with the build of a Labrador and definitely not a dog, the next he could not observe any clearly observable features.

The accompanying article quotes him as saying it was slim like a Dalmatian.

Next he identifies what he has observed as a lynx, I presume because he does not remember seeing the creatures tail. It seems to me we are talking about a vague silhouette of a dark animal observed briefly under inadequate conditions! If so I think its probably unwise to jump to premature conclusions, there is literally nothing in this report that indicates anything other than it being a large dog or a fox – maybe even a small deer such as a muntjac, which of course have short, almost indistinct tails.

I don’t believe Mr Lyons is being dishonest, I simply feel he probably mistook some other animal for a big cat as it was getting dark along the towpath when he briefly observed the creature and it surprised him. Additionally he is quoted in the GloucestershireLive article describing the trees ahead of him as dark, looking like “silhouettes”.

Most likely a large fox Vulpes vulpes, in fact the shape and the behaviour reported by Mr Lyons are very consistent with a fox."