Merged: Alien Big Cats in the UK?

[Soapy Sam]

I heard from Catharine Niven, senior curator at the Inverness Museum & Art Gallery who says,
" Felicity is indeed in Inverness Museum & Art Gallery, on display in our ground floor gallery. I was at the museum when she arrived and I do remember the photograph, which was taken to attract publicity. I thought it was taken in Inverness High Street, but it looks too busy with cars. The taxidermist was based at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh at the time, so maybe it was taken in Chambers Street before Felicity came north."

So the mystery cat remains mysterious...

[Rolfe]

Oh, I've spoken to that taxidermist! I was sent a lemur to post mortem, and the taxidermist had been promised the body post post mortem, as it were. He phoned me to beg me to do the whole thing with a single midline incision, and keep it as intact as possible. He sent an actual body-bag in a chilled container for it when I'd finished.

I keep meaning to go and see if it's on exhibition. Might be worth seeing if that bench is in Chambers Street.

Rolfe.

[Marduk]

information received
from
Forestry Commission
Corporate and Forestry Support

231 Corstorphine Road
Edinburgh
EH12 7AT

Tel: 0131 314 6468
Fax: 0131 316 4344

Quote:

Detailed reports of the sightings are not available but from personal recollection of those present the details of the sightings were:

February 2002

Co-ordinates Grid Reference 626089, time midnight, distance to within 50 metres, observed by 3 people. Size not recorded.

March 2005

Co-ordinates Grid Reference 644093, time 2 am, distance to within 75 metres, observed by 1 person. Size not recorded.

The Verderers of the Forest of Dean were informed of the presence of the animals

ugh kinda disappointed I don't have an OS map of the area

[zooterkin]

Originally Posted by Marduk

ugh kinda disappointed I don't have an OS map of the area

Hardly an insurmountable obstacle, I would have thought. A trip to WHSmiths, or your local library, should fix that.

ETA: Or you can do it online, at the OS site. I think the map sheet is SO, so enter SO626089 here - http://getamap.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/getamap/frames.htm

[mummymonkey]

Originally Posted by Rolfe

Oh, I've spoken to that taxidermist! I was sent a lemur to post mortem, and the taxidermist had been promised the body post post mortem, as it were. He phoned me to beg me to do the whole thing with a single midline incision, and keep it as intact as possible. He sent an actual body-bag in a chilled container for it when I'd finished.

I keep meaning to go and see if it's on exhibition. Might be worth seeing if that bench is in Chambers Street.

Rolfe.

I suspect if you were to stand where the photographer was standing your view would be something like this. (Image from Google Maps).

[Marduk]

if you squint at the sign it looks like Edinburgh Genital hospital

[William Parcher]

At first, I saw The Edinburgh Denial Hospital.

[Marduk]

ok so lets hope theres not a world class psychologist reading our posts

[Big Les]

Originally Posted by mummymonkey

I suspect if you were to stand where the photographer was standing your view would be something like this. (Image from Google Maps).

Looks like a close match to me.

[Rolfe]

Originally Posted by Marduk

information received
from
Forestry Commission
Corporate and Forestry Support

231 Corstorphine Road
Edinburgh
EH12 7AT

Tel: 0131 314 6468
Fax: 0131 316 4344


ugh kinda disappointed I don't have an OS map of the area

Crikey, where do you think I got that map of the Forest of Dean from?

Do what Zooterkin said.

Rolfe.

[Big Les]

Or this site, which is even better (I've already inputted the OS GR into this link).

[Big Les]

Well well, surprise surprise;

Helensburgh beast ‘a well-fed domestic cat’

[mummymonkey]

That link's not working for me Les?

[Rolfe]

Worked for me. Says just what we were saying about it being a big moggy.

I still think the fun bit would be to find the actual cat, and replicate the footage with a high-quality camera and some closeups of Felix for good measure. Probably too much work for a small return though.

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

Sigh. Why am I always on the take when it happens. The Pentland Beast struck again today.

This morning one of the shepherds from our farm showed up with a dead lamb. He said three were found dead last week while he was on holiday, then another yesterday, then this one this morning. Nothing had been seen ill. I remarked that I knew he wasn't vaccinating that group in a calculated risk that pneumonia wouldn't strike, and maybe it had.

The odd thing about this carcass was that it was very much eaten away at the groin and the inner thighs - it had been lying with the hind legs splayed, and a couple of buzzards had been breakfasting on it. There was a fair bit more flesh missing than I usually see with scaverger birds, and even more strangely, the head and the eyes (the bit they usually go for) hadn't been touched. There was still a bite of cud in the mouth.

I was still thinking pneumonia, and maybe the buzzards were on steriods, but my assistant said he thought it had been brought down. Then he found a pair of tooth marks on the left side of the chest, with bruising underneath extending right through to the pleura. Then I couldn't find any sign of pneumonia, or any other disease. We turned the lamb over and skinned her back, and found just one more pair of tooth marks on the flexor aspect of the left elbow. Both pairs of holes were about 3cm apart.

Neither of the bites we identified was close to fatal - they were trivial injuries. My theory is that the fatal bite was between the hind legs, though as the lamb hadn't bled out and the body cavities hadn't been entered I'm having to attribute the death to "stress and shock". Then the buzzards, having been presented with a head start, obliterated the evidence while they were breakfasting. I couldn't guess how much of that flesh might have been removed by the primary predator.

The other thing I don't know is whether the shepherd has had four pneumonia cases and a murder, or five murders. The other cases have been single incidents, and if this animal has killed five times in a week, it's upping the ante quite considerably. I still think it's an owned dog though, rather than a stray or a feral, because there still isn't enough meat missing. We're loking at corpses, not skeletons. Today's casualty was the most eaten of the lot, and it looked as if the buzzards had had most of that.

I really, really hope the next thing we hear about isn't a savaged child.

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

Sigh again. The shepherd came in with another lamb this morning (nothing to do with yesterday's case), so I asked him about the four dead ones from yesterday's group that we hadn't seen. Apparently one of his assistants said she saw puncture wounds on the neck of one lamb, and another had a leg missing.

This does not sound like pneumonia deaths got at by avian scavengers to me. It sounds as if they might all have been predator kills. I still think this is a dog, because we've still little evidence of killing to eat, but it's a lot more the pattern of events you'd expect to see if there really was something large living in the countryside.

Rolfe.

[rjh01]

Is there a difference in teeth between cats and dogs? If so you should be able to tell if a cat or a dog killed those sheep from the teeth marks.

It should be obvious cats only eat meat, dogs eat both meat and some vegetables.

[shandyjan]

Goodness, very worrying Rolfe. (no pun intended, as its is not a worryer but a killer.)
Been very interesting reading about your work!

[TjW]

Originally Posted by rjh01

Is there a difference in teeth between cats and dogs? If so you should be able to tell if a cat or a dog killed those sheep from the teeth marks.

It should be obvious cats only eat meat, dogs eat both meat and some vegetables.

So if it was a dog, look around and see if some potatoes were dug up, and if anything's been into the mint.

[Amapola]

I've had dogs here eat their kill. Some of the people here don't feed the dogs, they expect them to go out and forage for themselves, and they have done this with my livestock.

I knew it was dogs because I know how to differentiate the tracks of dogs and coyotes, and all I found were dog tracks. And then one horrific day I got to watch, as I ran across the field to try and save at least some animals. I saw the dogs pulling the animals down and some of them would begin to eat while the animals were still alive. This group of dogs came back again and again, but I think they were all finally shot. They were all domestic pets, they were wearing collars and one had a rag or bandanna tied around its neck.

I've never seen an animal killed by a large cat. I'm sure it happens around here, but I personally have never seen it.

[supercorgi]

My brother swears he saw a Puma one early morning (he lives in Northern Massachusetts). I think it more likely a Lynx or Bobcat (both indigenous) although the tail proves a problem. Eventually, I think the Mountain Lion will reinhabiat this area since they once did, but it may take awhile. They were common in the Appalachian range until they were hunted out.

As someone else mentioned, we have an over abundance of white tail dear (a common food source for Mountain Lions), and have had a resurgence of wild animals.

The Coyote population has gotten large - these are Eastern coyotes they believe (from DNA samples) migrated up to Canada and interbred with wolves. They're much larger than the Western coyotes. The feral cat, and even out door pet cats have been decimated by coyotes. Black bear population is rising - in my brothers town they're all over the place (nobody can keep bird feeders out any more). They've even seen walking down main roads and strolling along the golf course (talk about a golf hazard!) My brother, when he was cutting wood on the hills, had to especially careful in spring when the mothers and their cubs came out.

Also fisher cats (M. pennanti - a member of the Mustlidae family) have been spotted more frequently and they used to be rather rare (they also seem to go after domesticated cats). A couple of years ago a full grown moose wandered into Boston!

In my office park we have a large group of turkeys that hang out there - almost hit one the other day with my car. (The other day I saw one right by the loading dock with his tail spread in full display - quite an impressive bird!)

I think a lot of wild animals are adapting to our environment and taking advantage of the food sources there. I know at my brother's place you need to have bear proof garbage cans. Once one tried to break into his car because he had Twinkie (junk food for our non-USA friends) wrappers in his car. My brother's father-in-law has a video of a black bear destroying a bird feeder not 5 feed from his house.

[supercorgi]

I believe Mastiff and Mastiff related dogs have the strongest bite force so the Rotwiller would certainly be in that group (not Masstiff dogs but dogs with a powerful bite). However, I believe the German Shepherds (a more common breed than Mastiffs also have a very powerful bite force -- hell even my Cardigan Welsh Corgi has an impressive set of teeth! - and he's sort of puny)

As someone else pointed out, dogs tend to bite and grasp and then shake, which could very well pull out a hunk of flesh (the SuperCorgi displays this very behaviour when he plays tug - by the way he growls you'd think he'd want to rip your throat out (although to him the sound effects make it jsut more fun).

I've known dogs that will run down sheep but they don't eat them - the prey drive is truncated in domestic dogs (very much less controlled then the behaviour you see in sheep herding dogs which none the less is still modified prey drive). My brother's dog (an unusally huge German Shepherd) usually brings deer parts back home during the winter - he doesn't eat them but usually "plays" with them.

Domestic dogs like to chase, and like to bite, but don't consume. I'm fully convinced that the evidence that Rolfe is seeing it due to an individual or pack of domestic or feral dogs. Don't forget, that domestic dogs were bred from wolves and still retain some of their charateristics. Wolf-dog hybrids have become popular in the US and in most states they're illegal because their temperrment is just too unstable.

As someone else pointed out, big cats go for the head or throat. Lions usually suffocate their prey with a throat lock (although I've seen one cool video of a pride of lions attacking an elephant - they were all over him - not a usual prey beast for lions). Leopards go for the throat or head (since my training is in anthropology, there is one great fossil of an Australopithecine skull with two very distinct leopard punctures in the skull - it might have been the Taung child - I can't remeber).

Ceetahs, being more dog-like than other great cats, tend to go for the slashing attack on the back and hind quarters (since they're running down their prey), but will also go for the choke hold although their jaws are not as powerful as the bigger big cats due to their short muzzles. I'm afraid that I don't know much about the hunting habits of Mountain Lions (although they're my favorite big cat). They have a relatively short muzzle compared to lions and leopards so maybe their technique is more similar to the cheetah (although they operate by stealth rather than speed).

(An aside and BTW there is a very fascinating branch of archaeology/paleontology called "Thaponomy" which is the study of how living organisms die and become part of the fossil record).

All this being said, I think Rolfe is correct in her asesstment being the result of domestic dogs or feral dogs that just like to chase sheep. The prey drive is still strong in our beloved pets.

[Rolfe]

Well, I haven't had the shepherd on the doorstep today yet, but it's still early!

Obviously dogs will kill to eat just as wild predators will do (and dammit, I found a small bird head and six feathers in my own hall yesterday, after forgetting to feed my cat the previous evening), but the kill without significant eating points almost inevitably to an owned animal of some sort that isn't relying on the prey for its diet.

Tuesday's lamb had a chunk of flesh missing in the groin, but even that wasn't any more than a big dog might have ripped off with a single bite. Talking to the shepherd, the only other missing meat was the leg that had vanished from one of the other casualties. We'll never know how that got detached, but it could easily have been dragged away by a fox.

This has all happened in a single field, with no casualties anywhere else, so again it suggests a dog or dogs either being exercised in the same place or living very close by. Of course, if we suddenly heard about big cat sightings in the area, or an escaped captive cat (though so far as I know there are none nearby) we might start putting two and two together, but there hasn't been anything like that.

This was one of the things that struck me about Marduk's collection of "evidence". The alleged sightings and the mauled carcasses very seldom matched up. One report would be of a "puma-like" animal sighted that was apparently living on fresh air, while another from a completely different location would be of a single mauled carcass which again often had little or no meat missing, and an invisible "big cat" would be postulated.

Does not compute, as they say.

Rolfe.

[catbasket]

Originally Posted by mummymonkey

That link's not working for me Les?

For me the link leads to a 404 error page in Opera, but works fine in IE for some reason.

[mummymonkey]

Originally Posted by catbasket

For me the link leads to a 404 error page in Opera, but works fine in IE for some reason.

I'm using IE8. It's weird, I got a 404 error but I hit refresh and it loaded.

[Big Les]

Fine with Firefox too - strange indeed.

[Apology]

Perhaps the Scottish Big Cat coughed up a hairball into the server

[William Parcher]

Is this the moggy that sparked the big cat claim in Helensburgh two months ago? With additional video.

Quote:

Three year old Puss-Puss, a jet black cat from the Churchill estate, is believed to be the same one captured in the latest footage in the saga, by Faslane worker Derek MacKenzie.

"Puss-Puss wanders around the neighbourhood a lot and to our knowledge is the only black cat around here."

[supercorgi]

Originally Posted by Rolfe

Sigh. Why am I always on the take when it happens. The Pentland Beast struck again today.

This morning one of the shepherds from our farm showed up with a dead lamb. He said three were found dead last week while he was on holiday, then another yesterday, then this one this morning. Nothing had been seen ill. I remarked that I knew he wasn't vaccinating that group in a calculated risk that pneumonia wouldn't strike, and maybe it had.

The odd thing about this carcass was that it was very much eaten away at the groin and the inner thighs - it had been lying with the hind legs splayed, and a couple of buzzards had been breakfasting on it. There was a fair bit more flesh missing than I usually see with scaverger birds, and even more strangely, the head and the eyes (the bit they usually go for) hadn't been touched. There was still a bite of cud in the mouth.

I was still thinking pneumonia, and maybe the buzzards were on steriods, but my assistant said he thought it had been brought down. Then he found a pair of tooth marks on the left side of the chest, with bruising underneath extending right through to the pleura. Then I couldn't find any sign of pneumonia, or any other disease. We turned the lamb over and skinned her back, and found just one more pair of tooth marks on the flexor aspect of the left elbow. Both pairs of holes were about 3cm apart.

Neither of the bites we identified was close to fatal - they were trivial injuries. My theory is that the fatal bite was between the hind legs, though as the lamb hadn't bled out and the body cavities hadn't been entered I'm having to attribute the death to "stress and shock". Then the buzzards, having been presented with a head start, obliterated the evidence while they were breakfasting. I couldn't guess how much of that flesh might have been removed by the primary predator.

The other thing I don't know is whether the shepherd has had four pneumonia cases and a murder, or five murders. The other cases have been single incidents, and if this animal has killed five times in a week, it's upping the ante quite considerably. I still think it's an owned dog though, rather than a stray or a feral, because there still isn't enough meat missing. We're loking at corpses, not skeletons. Today's casualty was the most eaten of the lot, and it looked as if the buzzards had had most of that.

I really, really hope the next thing we hear about isn't a savaged child.

Rolfe.

Rolfe, I've got to say that your job is quite interesting but sort of gory. I too would vote for a domestic dog - one that likes running down sheep but isn't ill fed that it's forced to feeding.

The prey drive of many dogs is quite strong, I knew someone that had a dog that ran down sheep - they had to have it euthanized. My brother's dog (along with others in the neighborhood) run down deer in the winter and often bring back parts (although some of the parts may be due to illegal hunting off season.)

I have a herding dog where the prey drive is moderated, but when I've done herding trials with him, he definately wants to bite the sheep.
I believe you said most of the bite marks are on the flanks - very indicative of a domestic dog running down sheep.

Interesting job but I can't say that I'd want to do it.

[supercorgi]

Originally Posted by Rolfe

Well, I haven't had the shepherd on the doorstep today yet, but it's still early!

Obviously dogs will kill to eat just as wild predators will do (and dammit, I found a small bird head and six feathers in my own hall yesterday, after forgetting to feed my cat the previous evening), but the kill without significant eating points almost inevitably to an owned animal of some sort that isn't relying on the prey for its diet.

Tuesday's lamb had a chunk of flesh missing in the groin, but even that wasn't any more than a big dog might have ripped off with a single bite. Talking to the shepherd, the only other missing meat was the leg that had vanished from one of the other casualties. We'll never know how that got detached, but it could easily have been dragged away by a fox.

This has all happened in a single field, with no casualties anywhere else, so again it suggests a dog or dogs either being exercised in the same place or living very close by. Of course, if we suddenly heard about big cat sightings in the area, or an escaped captive cat (though so far as I know there are none nearby) we might start putting two and two together, but there hasn't been anything like that.

This was one of the things that struck me about Marduk's collection of "evidence". The alleged sightings and the mauled carcasses very seldom matched up. One report would be of a "puma-like" animal sighted that was apparently living on fresh air, while another from a completely different location would be of a single mauled carcass which again often had little or no meat missing, and an invisible "big cat" would be postulated.

Does not compute, as they say.

Rolfe.

Do you have any large carnivores in Scotland? Around here we have a plague of coyotes. They're bigger than the western Coyote because they're hybrids with wolves. No cat or small dog is safe. Fisher cats also seem to be on the rise and they too prey on domestic cats. Needless to say, the feral cat population in New England has been pretty much eliminated. Coyotes have also attacked medium sized dogs. There's a report of a Coyote attacking a Pembroke Welsh Corgi which isn't a small dog (although they have short legs).

And black bear populations are on the rise. They don't attack animals but my brother's yard is over run with them. You can't keep a bird feeder out without them appearing. My brother's father-in-law's son got married. They had a barbaque and stored all the remains on the screen porch. Needless to say, the next day the screen porch was destroyed by bears during the night.

Black bears have been seen walking down main streets (and the golf course - talk about a hazard) during the day. Wildlife seems to be exploding as they get more and more used to existing with human establishments.

[Rolfe]

Originally Posted by William Parcher

Is this the moggy that sparked the big cat claim in Helensburgh two months ago? With additional video.

Hah, that's perfect! The new video has much better resolution, and it's obvious this time that the cat is actually walking along the rail. That gives its size perfectly, and he's just an ordinary moggy.

It's also clear that he's in the habit of doing that. The stroll along the track is so similar, it seems to be part of a regular perambulation. Cats are creatures of habit. They do that.

Case closed.

I still find it interesting that the cat is black. It seems to me that the jet-black silhouette makes it harder to judge the size of an animal. I had an interesting parallel experience outside my own house a week or two ago. Someone had turned a couple of jet black sheep of a very small, spindly breed, into the field across the road. (I just checked my chart of sheep breeds but I'm not sure what they were.) At first glance, my eye didn't process that these were ruminants, and I had this sudden "what the hell is that??" reaction. It's almost as if the black shape sets off an alarm reaction that leades to a default assumption that it's some sort of predator.

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

Originally Posted by supercorgi

Do you have any large carnivores in Scotland? Around here we have a plague of coyotes.

No, not like that. The last wolf in Scotland was killed in 17-something, and attempts to re-introduce them haven't got beyond the wildlife park stage. No coyotes. The only thing we have round here is foxes, who won't take anything bigger than a newborn lamb. And the shepherd did start going on about badgers, and we do have these too, but I have a seroius credibility gap with that one.

The lack of large predators is why they have to hunt and shoot deer. Without any predators, they multiply beyond what the land can sustain, and the old and weak ones don't get picked off. Wolves would fix that, but of course the sheep farmers are pretty un-keen.

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

Actually, the publicity situation is interesting. I saw the original footage on the TV news. They went on about it quite a bit. Now, weeks later, we have better and clearer footage of what is undoubtedly the same animal, and where do you have to go to see it? The Helensburgh Advertiser.

Did Reporting Scotland (the TV news programme) devote another slot to showing the debunking video and interviewing Puss-Puss's 11-year-old owner? No, they did not. Is this on the BBC news web site? No, not a syllable.

Rolfe.

[Marduk]

http://www.croydonguardian.co.uk/sea...t_expert_says/

Quote:

A big cat researcher claims to have solved the mystery of the “Palace Puma”.

Neil Arnold said a large wild cat spotted by a woman in a woods in Crystal Palace two weeks ago is in fact a black leopard or panther.

The author of Mystery Animals of the British Isles said decades of sightings across southeast London are a result of a number of large exotic cats being released into the wild by their owners in 1976, when it was deemed necessary to buy expensive licences to keep them.

I loved this bit

Quote:

Mr Arnold said the animals “are no threat to humans”.

uhuh

[Rolfe]

Crystal Palace!!!???

What is this guy smoking? Have you seen the place? It's a built-up area. It's wall-to-wall houses. There isn't even a backyard sheep, so far as I know. I'm fairly sure they'll have urban foxes, living out of rubbish bins, maybe taking small rodents, possibly rabbits living on commons. But that's it.

The chances of a single puma living there are absolutely zero - ot not for more than a few days, anyway, until it was caught. The chances of a sustainable breeding population? In that maze of residential streets, small terraced houses and so on?



Rolfe.

[ponderingturtle]

Originally Posted by Rolfe

Crystal Palace!!!???

What is this guy smoking? Have you seen the place? It's a built-up area. It's wall-to-wall houses. There isn't even a backyard sheep, so far as I know. I'm fairly sure they'll have urban foxes, living out of rubbish bins, maybe taking small rodents, possibly rabbits living on commons. But that's it.

The chances of a single puma living there are absolutely zero - ot not for more than a few days, anyway, until it was caught. The chances of a sustainable breeding population? In that maze of residential streets, small terraced houses and so on?



Rolfe.

So you see why they are no threat to be public then.

[Marduk]

http://www.wakefieldexpress.co.uk/ne...-in.5595675.jp

Quote:

MORE big cat sightings have been reported in Wakefield.
Last week the Express reported how a cyclist had seen a big black cat near Wintersett while a woman had seen a similar creature at Outwood.

Now Dr Robert Keighley, 49, has contacted the Express about his sighting while riding his bike along the disused railway between Newmillerdam and Wintersett last Saturday morning.

Dr Keighley, of Lofthouse Gate, saw what he first thought was a medium to large black dog 100 yards ahead of him.

But as he got nearer, the creature ducked off the path towards farmland.

He added: "I can recall thinking it looked odd and moved strangely for a dog, with a long tail and a purposeful way of moving that dogs lack."

perhaps these aren't big cats, but aliens.

[TjW]

There's some written evidence that if they were aliens, they would not be disguised as Jaguars, but Ford Prefects.

[Marduk]

Originally Posted by TjW

There's some written evidence that if they were aliens, they would not be disguised as Jaguars, but Ford Prefects.

Jesus, I saw an Alien in the local high street recently
theyre here already,

[William Parcher]

'Tiger' turns out to be 'tom'

Quote:

(Dr. William) Sheperd was on call to tranquilize the "tiger" and give it a home or release it, with permission of the Game Commission. (Karen) Osler did not spot the cat Tuesday night, although a line of people armed with spotlights, rifles and pitch forks were gathering near the residence as she was leaving.

Osler received a second call from the pair Wednesday evening, saying they had seen the same tiger again.

"I'm looking for this tiger," Osler said. "Dr. Sheperd is ready to come and tranq it. I look and about 100 yards away, it's an orange tabby cat walking in the field -- a short-haired, domestic tabby. I got 10 feet away from the cat, to show them a size comparison. The cat bolted about 20 feet away and stopped. It was 12 to 15 pounds -- an average tom cat."