A member of the public has reported spotting what they believe to be a ‘puma’ while walking their dog on Craig y Forwen, a small cliff and hill above Llandulas.
The encounter happened around dusk this evening, Thursday 18th November, at around 4:45 PM.
Sarah told Puma Watch: “Me and my dog Lauren were out for our afternoon walk at a hill we found a few weeks ago, called Maiden’s Leap on Google Maps.
“Tonight, as we were walking back down the hill, I could see this large, black animal prowling along the hedge line at the bottom of the hill.
“It started to come closer towards us but it kept skirting the edge rather than right at us. I could see it was well over a metre long from head to tail and double the height of my dog easily (she’s a golden retriever)
“I absolutely legged it back to my car, I was terrified it would spot us and start chasing us down. It’s not like anything I’ve ever seen in this country!”
It’s not the first sighting in the area. Over the last 12 months, there have been multiple sightings reported and footprints found a few miles away in woodland around Abergele, though this is the first we’ve heard from Llanddulas.
Across the county back in July, a woman living in Conwy called police for help after she spotted a “black panther” sitting on her garden fence back in July. North Wales Police recently revealed details of the incident to Puma Watch under the Freedom of Information Act.
The incident log stated: “Informant states she saw a black panther on her fence on Saturday. Incident happened on Saturday – can be closed and tagged for the Rural Crime Team.”
Big cats such as pumas are solitary with a hunting range of dozens of miles. They’re mostly spotted in Snowdonia and the Clwydian hills but reports of sightings in urban locations some distance from these areas are becoming more frequent.
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.
Earlier this year, the Welsh Government responded to the recent spate of sightings and confirmed the steps they take to investigate any reported to them, including taking casts of paw prints.
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I grew up in Llysfaen the village that houses maidens leap, in the 80s people swore there where black panthers that lived up there so this doesn’t surprise me!