Beast of Exmoor, Mystery Cat
What Stalked the Fields of Devonshire England Killing Livestock?
May 7, 2007
Sightings of big cats in Britain began in the 1970s. The British Big Cat Society, BBCS reported that numbers of the big cats in the country is increasing. There were 2,123 sightings in Great Britain between April 2004 and July 2005. Most of the sightings were in Devon, Cornwall and Somerset. There were sightings in Scotland and Wales. Black panthers were the most often seen, followed by brown or tawny colored ones and lynxes.
Big Cats in Great Britain
The only known surviving native wild cat in the country is felis silvestris which looks like the tabby and is often confused with feral cats, domestic cats turned loose and their descendents. Their habitat is Scotland. The Wildlife and Countryside Act gives these wild cats and their dens protection as an endangered species, catagorized at risk of extinction.
A Devon farmer found a skull that was identified as that of a puma in July 2005. There were three attacks on horses, more than 35 sheep killed and authenticated casts of paw prints.
The BBCS gathered evidence of at least 23 big cats being set free since the Dangerous Animals Act was passed in 1976. The animals were a panther, pumas, lynxes and other exotics. Some owners admitted to setting their pets free.
The Beast of Exmoor
Sightings of the animal go back to the early 1970s when people in Devonshire reported it. In 1983, the feline was killing livestock and frightening people. Over 100 farm animals Eric Ley owned in South Molten were killed.
The London Daily Express offered a reward for the killing or capture of the beast. Marine riflemen were sent to the area to try to kill the animal to stop the slaughter of livestock. The attacks stopped while they there. Some of the soldiers saw the beast, but none was able to shoot it. After the troops left, the attacks started again.
Most of those who saw the beast said it looked like a black panther. Others said it looked like a puma. Some said they saw two cats, a panther and a puma, roaming the fields together.
Trevor Beer, a naturalist claimed to have had an encounter with the beast in 1984. It walked out of the brush and stared at him, then it turned and dashed back into the woods.
In 1988, a farmer saw a huge black feline running at an incredible speed. In December 1991, a farm family watched a large feline that looked like a panther as it stalked the land near their house. A few weeks later, the son saw the animal climb a tree.
The Beast of Exmoor has been photographed. Some of the pictures clearly show a black panther. It is not possible to identify the animal in others.
What was the Beast of Exmoor?
It is possible that some of those who saw the beast misidentified it. Perhaps it was a large dog or a feral cat whose size people misjudged.
The beast could have been a former pet set free or an escapee from a home, zoo or circus. There were no big cats reported as escaped when the Beast of Exmoor roamed.
Di Francis theorized that the big cats have secretly lived in Great Britain since the prehistoric era, but this has been rejected by zoologists.
Another possibility is that big cats who were set free have bred and they and their descendents live in Britain.
Sources:
Jerome Clark, Unexplained! (Visible Ink Press, 1999)
Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark, Cryptozoology* A to Z (A Fireside Book, 1999)
