The Beast Of Dartmoor

[wolf63]

It seems that there is now no doubt that there is a large cat loose on Dartmoor. Here is a picture of the cat and it looks pretty big to me.

http://www.torquayheraldexpress.co.uk/big-cat-loose-South-Devon/story-26826635-detail/story.html

It would be nice if we humans could co-exist with such animals, they would avoid us but we would keep out of their way and not kill them just because we can.

Before you go please read this (un)surprising update http://tinyurl.com/ppp5boe

[pastafreak]

Oh,I'm so disappointed! A big(or bigger )cat just a few miles from here. Maybe I should send big Caspar up to the moor.....

[wolf63]

There would be complaints about the noise - does he ever stop talking?

[DTCwordfan]

I had a sighting two years ago, very similar to this, just down the road from here, 9am......duly reported to Newquay zoo, their comment being that such a cat could easily survive in the woods around here on rabbits and the rest - and that they can travel up to 20 miles in a day......

[woofgang]

If all the stories are true, it must be a breeding group. One or two wouldn't have survived for so long and as only a single adult is ever seen, I remain dubious.
http://www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk/beast_dart.htm

[237SJ]

The trouble with the photos is that you can`t tell if they are real. I have seen one of the large cats near our village in N Devon. That was in the mid 1980s when I was out on my bike. It was big and black with a long tail. My dad came face to face with one in the last decade (he died in 2007 and it was within a few years before that) He said it was the size of a border collie. He spoke to someone who lives near where he saw it and that man said he had seen it many times. The christmas before my Dad died, we were doing a recce for holly trees with berries and I found a place where something had scratched the bark off the trees. That was in the same area.

[wolf63]

There is no doubt that this one is a hoax (hence the second link) but there could be wild cats out there.

My two are about 5kg each and there is no way that they could mistaken for a big cat like a Puma. (Princess Merlin is fiercer than any Puma/Lion/Tiger). Dogs have a completely different gait than a cat. So if the sightings are not of a large cat what are they?

Even allowing for the addition of alcohol into the equation I think that there are big cats lurking. Cats are cautious by nature and they could quite easily survive.

And thinking/hoping that they are out there and surviving is like injecting a little bit of magic into our lives.

I was, initially, keen on the idea of reintroducing the might Wolf back into the highlands. But I no longer think that it is a good idea (at this time) Humans can not be trusted to leave the poor animals alone and there would be some morons going big game hunting.

[237SJ]

There are definitely big cats lurking. Not many big cats are black - there are black leopards and black jaguars. Pumas are golden in colour. The place where my dad saw the cat was where there is pheasant hunting going on. There are grain bins placed in the field which always have lots of grains scattered in the area. That attracts the pheasants and probably other small animals so the cat has a good food source. Lambing time is a good time for cats as well..

[wolf63]

..... and a bad time for the farmers :-)

[237SJ]

Definitely. My dad used to supply to the farmers and used to come home with tales of how a farmer had found a lamb or sheep with it`s throat ripped out. That seemed to go on for a while but I hadn`t heard those tales for a long time. Maybe some of the cats had died. In Africa the cats have a shorter life but they can live for about 20 years if they have no predators. That makes me wonder if they have bred because most of the cats were released into the countryside in the 1970s when the law clamped down on the keeping of dangerous animals

[woofgang]

They would have to have bred and have a large enough gene pool to remain viable. If they have bred why are the cats only ever seen singly and why no evidence of kittens?

[wolf63]

If there are no groups of breeding felines then are we just left with Nessie?

I don't ''know'' if there is big cats prowling but it would be nice to think that there are and that they have managed to avoid us and to thrive.

[237SJ]

I don`t know woofgang. Sorry if this is boring but I can only say what I saw. It was about mid 1986. I was cycling down the hill (unpopulated typical N Devon countryside with high hedgerows, combes and woods) Ahead of me I saw this big black thing come out from where I knew there was a gate into a field. It looked like it was going to try to traverse the hedgerow on the other side of the road but was put of it`s tracks when it saw me so it did a u turn up the hedge and went back from where it came. You know how thoughts go through your head in split seconds? I thought, what`s so-and-so`s great dane doing here? And anyway, he is brown and white. Maybe they have bought a black one. Why is he running loose in the countryside. When I got closer, I parked my bike and climbed up the gate and looked into the field where the thing had gone. There was no sign of anything at all. Apparently big cats tend to keep the hedgerows and not run across the middle of fields which is why I couldn`t see it.

[rsvp]

wonder why no tracker has ever been brought in to find spoor and track the beastie.

[wolf63]

RSVP - the cat has been digging up a garden nearby to use as a toilet.

[rsvp]

Well then surely a piece of scat could be got and analysed - surely there would be spoor which could be positively identified - why have no carcasses ever been found? To my way of thinking these are the things which need to be proved or disproved.

[rsvp]

I meant big cat carcasses not prey carcasses.

[237SJ]

Re the carcasses. About 20 years ago my Dad took me to a little copse at the top of a field that my grandfather used to keep cattle in. My Dad said that he could remember when he was a boy 50 years before, there was a badger sett there and he wanted to see if it still existed. Sure enough it did and we could see it was active. There were no badger carcasses there though - wild animals don`t lay down in the middle of fields to die.

[rsvp]

I know wild animals dont usually lie in the middle of an open space to die but I do think that from all the supposed sightings there would be at least one definite piece of concrete evidence other than some not very clear photographs to support the theory of big cats roaming about.

[237SJ]

There aren`t many big cats roaming about though. The stories started on Exmoor and I think there was some credence in that. Somehow, Dartmoor and Bodmin have got in on the act. Dartmoor and Bodmin are very flat and I would think, that last place a big cat would inhabit as there are no places to hide and not a lot of wildlife to feed off either.

[rsvp]

Maybe some day someone will prove or disprove if they are around. Personally I think it's nice to believe they are as it adds a bit of excitement to visits to that part of the world but am afraid I need something very, very concrete to convince me they are about. I also think people see what they want to see and are easily fooled - not long ago there was supposed to be a lion strolling about and everyone in the area was told to stay indoors etc etc - surprisingly enough leo wasn't found and life returned to normal.