You'll Think I'm Mad - Big Cats on Dartmoor

I think I have big cats living on the land around where I live. What would people say is the best way to go about trying to find one or spot one. The land all around where I live is perfect for them and we have an untouched natural woodland on the property which has a free roaming river on the edge of the Dartmoor national park. I have also come across carcasses in and around the woodland of birds and rabbits, even a half eat rabbit on a tree branch. There are scrapings on trees in the dense areas of the woodland, and there are lots of old mines, and caves which are naturally left alone. There are loads of rock builds and trees which would make perfect resting ground and I would be amazed if big cats haven't used the caves as dens.

Looking for advice, as I want to spend a few days going all over the area and looking for signs of active wildlife and also see if I could spot a cat, so I know dawn and dusk is best. I've often noticed movement in the woods and trees when walking my dog and he isn't keen to run off, off the lead and prefers to be on the lead and I've seen him barking at nothing before. It is my belief there are probably Leopards living in the woodland, and I'm keen to try and spot them.

Any advice on the best way to try and track and spot them, or are you of the belief there is unlikely to be anything there, and there are no wild cats in the Dartmoor woodlands?

 

Infrared camera? Camera traps? Catnip?

 

trail cams and scratching tools to collect hair. collect feces

Course they could be Selkies

 

Don’t think Selkies will be in Devon lol

 

I don't think you're mad but I do think you're probably wrong (I'm a disbeliever myself).

Also, if I did think there were big cats loose in UK I'd struggle to believe they're likely to be Leopards. As far as I know they were never kept in large (enough) numbers as a pet in the UK pre DWLA (I'm assuming you're perhaps following a"descendent of released exotic pets" hypothesis). Pumas and Lynx would be stronger candidates due to their being in kept as in higher numbers.

The best (non-capture, non-visual footage) evidence would probably be from scat samples.

 

I've just looked that up, they're frightening!!!

 

Leopards are the most elusive of big cats. Leopards once lived in the UK.
Leopards are the most likely to carry the black colour, and black cats are the most common to be seen. Unless they are Kelles cats these cats are most likely leopards.
Leopards avoid humans, and once in thrived in this country.
I’m not convinced they were ever truly extinct in the UK and believe that in the 1980s they were released into our moors. They also often have 2/3 cubs at a time making it the most likely to breed a growing population.

Pumas May have roamed our moors once but they are more suited to the plains and open grasslands whilst the UK has a lot of untouched woodland.

I have no doubt there are Leopards in Dartmoor and Exmoor, and I would expect the numbers to be 25/50 if honest.

 

I have a strong interest in cryptozoology. ABCs (alien big cats) have long been rumored to live in the UK. I find the whole thing fascinating. Thousands of people all over the world see things that (at least seemingly) are out of place or unknown where they live. I know more than enough about people to know that people often can't accurately describe simple ordinary and commonplace events (such as fights, accidents, robberies) much less that they see 8 ft humanoids or 30 foot water creatures. OTOH everybody can't be wrong all the time, and often eyewitnesses are very credible observers (biologists, police, etc). I believe mankind is a spiritual creature (being a soul in a physical body) thus by extension I believe there are other planes of existence. Are all these creatures real flesh and blood or are they something else? I can't say, but we still "discover" creatures (usually small but sometimes not so much) every day of every year (on average). For me the bottom line is:
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

 

You realise the size difference between a Kellas Cat & a Leopard?

 

Yes I do. But from grainy images and people’s accounts it’s hard to know what they are.

Having read a few books and watched a talk by Rick Minter, I’m convinced we have Leopards.

 

I don't think you're mad, then again I also think my neighbor is Bigfoot so...

In all seriousness I find big cats roaming the English countryside unlikely but hey anything is possible

 

There are definitely introduced cats living in the UK, I think. I used to think it was ridiculous as well, but I've since met more than one person whom I trust to confidently ID the animals they've seen who have convinced me otherwise. Whether you actually have said animals living in your backyard or not.. I don't know. Are they Leopards? Probably not. Would I go looking for them. Probably not.

I mean, I know there are Cougars living wild in Connecticut, but I've never gone looking for one here or when I've been in their confirmed range. We're talking about animals that can kill you pretty easily (assuming they're there and they are Leopards). If I was on safari in Africa or Asia, I'd definitely want to find one, but I would never go about it by just walking into the forest unattended.

As for Cougars, they are very well adapted to dense woodlands, mountains, marshland, and deserts. Grasslands are probably the habitat in North America that they're least adapted to

~Thylo

 

Just a thought-- sightings may be of species introduced by the many aliens from other planets, which as everyone knows have been around for centuries, especially on the moors.......

 

The idea that leopards are a native species is a new one to me. There is perhaps no country in the world that is so thoroughly combed over by amateur naturalists as Great Britain. Combine the lack of confirmed sightings with a complete absence of scats, tracks and carcasses, and the absence of leopards from British literary and pictorial sources going back to Caesar and beyond and... I think you’re a tad optimistic.

The more conventional explanation - that US military units liked to keep mascots and then turned them loose at the end of the war (or perhaps, in this context, before deployment for D-Day?) is marginally less fanciful. Nevertheless, while there *were* military mascots and some were even big cats, domestic dogs and cats were a lot more common. Where exotics were kept it seems they were usually obtained within the ranges of the given species. I think the Battle of the Atlantic made getting sufficient resources from the US to Great Britain quite difficult enough without taking up cargo holds with leopards.