[zzzzteana] It's August, and big cats are on the prowl The Times

 August 28, 2002
 
 It's August, and big cats are on the prowl
 By Alan Hamilton
 
 
 
 ROUND up the sheep. Pull on the gauntlets. Oil the shotgun. The British
 countryside is crawling with pumas, black panthers, fen tigers and other big,
 vicious cats. No corner of the nation is safe. Evidence released yesterday,
 including sightings, photographs, paw prints, livestock kills and hair
 samples, claims to prove that every county has big cats lurking in its
 undergrowth, poised to pounce on man and beast alike. 
 
 Sightings have reached record levels in 2002, according to Daniel Bamping,
 founder of the British Big Cats Society, which in the past 12 months has
 received more than 800 reports of big cat sightings. 
 
 During the first six months we have seen an incredible amount of big cat
 activity. We have now had reports in every single county; the response from
 the public has been fantastic, Mr Bamping said. Big cats in Britain are
 real. They are out there, they are breeding; theres more of them. 
 
 Scotland and Gloucestershire are said to be hotspots of big cat activity. Mark
 Fraser, who heads the societys Scottish arm, said: Lynx are now present in
 the Scottish countryside; I believe they are established and breeding. I dont
 want to hazard a guess at the numbers; suffice it to say there are several
 hotspots, notably Fife, Aberdeenshire, Inverness and the Borders. 
 
 Next month the society plans to unveil its full dossier of evidence, which
 includes two dead wild cats, pictures of paw prints and tree scratchings, as
 well as stories of a horse strangely lacerated in West Wales and a man in
 Gravesham, Kent, who had to beat a hasty retreat to his garage after his hand
 was cut by a creature the size of a labrador dog, except that it had black
 hairy tufts on the tips of its ears. 
 
 The society is taking the sightings seriously. It plans to set up a network of
 trigger-cameras throughout the country to capture further evidence of the
 beasts, which it will then present to the Government. 
 
 It is not, however, clear on what it wants the Government to do about it all.
 Throwing its weight behind the pro-hunting lobby might be a start. 
 
 Next in August: record abductions by aliens.
 
 


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