A cat owner has said she believes her Maine Coon cat, called Teddy Bear, is the animal at the centre of the lion hunt in Essex. Police decided to call off the search on Monday after no trace of a big cat was found, and said the sightings were either of a large domestic cat or wildcat.
– The mystery of the "lion" on the loose in Essex, England, may have been solved: Ginny Murphy says the fearsome creature spotted by locals was probably just her cat, Teddy Bear. She tells the BBC that her Maine Coon cat is a regular in the town's fields where the alleged lion was spotted. You be the judge: The BBC has an image of the "lion" as snapped by quivering locals. The couple who took the photo maintain that they "still don't think it was a domestic cat."