SOH
Sense of Humour .....
BTW ( By the way ) Graham. I am quite sure that some breed of cats , larger than the biggest domestic animals are at large in the English countryside.
I live on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors,and there are what must be a couple of hundred square miles or more of moorland, farmland, woods,streams, glens and tors to wander over if I choose, there are quite a few old stone quarries near to my home, overgrown, and populated with rabbits, nobody ever wanders there, as there are no public footpaths, no nearby roads or houses, in fact the quarries are just another part of the hundreds of miles of moorland. The quarries belong to a local farmer, who I know , he allows me to wander his land, and rough shoot if I want to.I may see the occasional sheep that has wandered away from its mates , but thats all .One early morning, about 28 years ago, I had finished my night shift at 6.00 am, arrived home at about 6.20, and as usual took the dog, a border collie bitch out for her morning walk, I usually let her run on the fields at the back of the house, this particular day we decided to go a bit further it was a nice morning, dry, clear and warm. I found myself approaching the above quarries, I never really bother with the quarries at all, as there are better and easier places to walk etc, this day , for no other real reason,I decided to go and have a look, maybe there would be a few bunnies worth looking at later..there was a way down into one of the quarries, overgrown, but quite easy to negotiate, Greta was at my side, and left, I saw a few rabbits scrattling around on the grass as I entered the quarry bottom, the place was littered with large rocks, and there were several rock"shelves" probably between 6 to 12 feet from the quarry base, suddenly I realised that Greta was behaving very strangeley, she had obviously gone into "hunting " mode lying close to the ground, head down but looking intently ahead and..... upward toward the rock shelves.
I thought at first she was stalking the rabbits, but rabbits dont climb vertical rocks as far as I know..but suddenly I heard a low feline growl, and looking up I saw that only about 10 feet away from me and just above my eyline there was a large .. very large, cat, it was bigger than my dog, she was of an average size, so I would put the cat at about the size of an Alsation dog. The cat was crouched on the edge of one of the rock shelves, it was a sort of tawny red colour shot through with darker markings,its hair was quite long compared to a normal domestic cat, but not as long as say a Maine Coon cat,this cat was bigger than a Main Coon by at least half again, it had tassells on its ear tips, and it had a long tail that was slowly moving from side to side its tail was striped and quite long for the size of the cat.It seemed at first the cat did not know we were there as it was looking down at the rabbits,I had a clear unobstructed view of this animal from the side,To say I was suprised is an understatement, I stayed very still, and watched for quite a few seconds, the cat was intently watching the rabbits, and very slowly edging forward toward the edge of the rock shelf.
Suddenly Greta started to bark loudly, the cat turned stood up, "snarled" at us, mouth open , turned away and ran off along the rock ledges , I had a clear view of it, it was quite deep in the body, but very agile, it jumped down into the quarry bottom, and disapeared into the jumble of rocks, Greta was off like a shot after it, but the cat was very quick and I only fleetingly saw its tail as it made off amongst the rocks.
I was...... shocked , suprised, flabberghasted, and suddenly it dawned on me that should the cat return it would make mincemeat of Greta,and probably me as well, I chased her across the quarry bottom, managed to catch her , put her on her lead and we quickly left.. on the way home I made a detour to the local farm about two miles away, that owned the quarries, I knew Mally, the farmer quite well, I found him in the milking parlour, and asked him if he had ever lost any lambs or sheep he said that he had lost a couple of lambs earlier in the year, but never found the carcasses, so he put it down to either theft or just that the lambs had wandered off.
I then asked him if he had ever had reason to think there was a predator on his land , he just looked at me, and said .
David , stay away from the quarries ....he refused to be drawn further.
So Neil, call me a liar, call me delusional, say I am confused, say I made it up, say all these things, all I will say is that the above is true. I do not know what kind of cat it was, it had a long tail, and looked similar to a Canadian Lynx.
I have read this thread with interest, but until now have not wanted to be put in the same box as the others who have seen similar incidents, and be called confused etc etc.
But, I know what I saw, and the others who have seen similar things should know there are not alone.
So far as I can tell I am the only person on here to really get up close to what appears to be a non native species, I have scoured the internet many times over the years to identify the type if cat it was, as I say, the nearest I can get to it is a Canadian Lynx, but this cat was stockier.
So.... I know that these creatures can live virtually undetected near to humans, I know that at least one farmer is ( was) aware of the cat . I know that there are enough open wild acres with enough food where I live to be home to one of these creatures.
I am now waiting and wondering what replies I will get to this post.
Dave
