A commuter has reported spotting a black puma after travelling North on the M6 and leaving at the Lymm Interchange, where the motorway meets the M56 and A50.
The animal was spotted in a field on the opposite side of the M6 to the service station and McDonald’s, at around 4 pm on Saturday 23rd October, with the witness saying he thinks it was stalking the sheep.
Phil told us: “I came off the junction at the M6 Lymm – I was heading North at the time.
“On my left-hand side, in a field, I saw a large black cat lay on its stomach, in the way cats do when they’re waiting to pounce on something.
“I suspect it was interested in the sheep. It had a long black tail. Definitely bigger than a normal cat.”
It’s not the first time a big cat has been spotted along this stretch of motorway, with recent encounters just a few miles away including an animal crossing the M56 behind Costco Chester and another stalking sheep near the M56 Chester Services.
A big cat has also been caught on video near the motorway at Frodsham and there have been sightings in nearby Warrington – including one on the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal in February.
In Chester, back on Friday 16th April, someone spotted what could have been a puma near Blacon, at a location well under a mile from four other recent sightings. Just along the canal to the North, a large, black animal with a very long tail was spotted twice within a week, around the abandoned Old Oaks Golf Course and the Countess of Chester Country Park.
The sightings followed a 4ft-long cat “with a great big tail” being spotted twice in one night in fields bordering Blacon, behind Sealand Road Asda.
Big cats have also been spotted across the Wirral.
As seen with Llandundo’s now-famous goats, who have taken to roaming the town’s deserted streets during the coronavirus lockdowns, it’s likely that the reduced levels of human activity over the last year is encouraging big cats to roam further from the hills into more populated areas.
When big cats were banned as pets in the 1970s, it was legal to release them into the countryside to avoid expensive rehoming costs. Owners from across the UK travelled to areas like Wales to release their cats in the remote environment, where small but significant populations have thrived ever since.
Image: M6 motorway from Statham Lane, Lymm
cc-by-sa/2.0 – © Anthony O’Neil – geograph.org.uk/p/3223758