Two members of the public have reported spotting a black big cat on the hills which encompass Colwyn Bay.
The two sightings happened in the Llysfaen and Bryn Cadno areas of the town on Monday 23rd May and were separately reported to us via our website later that same day.
We visited Colwyn Bay the next day and while we failed to spot a big cat, we did find potential signs of a big cat at Bryn Cadno.
First sighting: Llysfaen 10:15am
Rhys went for a run that morning when he spotted a “huge black” creature he believes was a melanistic leopard.
He told us: “I have just come across a huge black, nearly grey cat in the Llysfaen area. I was just going for a run and I see something in the field to my right and it’s a massive leopard looking thing.
“I whistle at it and it runs the other way, not fast but really silky run, there’s no way this was a domestic cat.”
Melanism is a genetic variation which can cause leopards to appear jet black. Most melanistic leopards retain their spots, but with different degrees of visibility. Their spots are usually only visible when bright light catches them at the right angle, as shown above.
Second Sighting: Bryn Cadno 6:30pm
Later that same day, Cathryn was walking her dog on Bryn Cadno, an area of green open space at the top of the hill sharing the same name. The rest of the hill is covered by housing estates and forms the area known as Colwyn Heights or Upper Colwyn Bay. Locally, the summit area is known as ‘dog mountain’ owing to its popularity with dog owners as the main open space in the Colwyn Heights area.
Cathryn told us: “We were walking our dog on an area known as dog mountain in upper Colwyn Bay when we saw it run really fast across the area about 25 metres away in front of us.
“It ran out of sight and we didn’t react other than to comment about what it was. It didn’t seem to notice us.”
Cathryn told us the animal was black and that she believes it was a puma.
Puma Watch Investigates
On Tuesday 24th May, we visited Bryn Cadno or ‘dog mountain‘ between 6pm and 7pm to match the time of the sighting the previous evening.
While we were unsuccessful in spotting a big cat, we did find evidence of said creatures inhabiting the area.
Multiple pawprints can be seen in the images below, found on the west side of Bryn Cadno, on a slippy slope near the summit. While it’s clear the pawprints are not recent, owing to the solid dry ground and grass which has now grown through them, it’s likely they were made over the winter when the slope would have been softer and muddier.
The below image shows the location of the pawprints on the slope, which faces out towards Conwy. Unfortunately, as the prints are historical, it’s impossible to discern if they were created by a big cat or a large dog.
The sightings follow previous encounters in the Colwyn Bay area, which most recently occurred in early February. First, a “big black cat” believed to be a puma was spotted dashing across the road leading up to Colwyn Heights and the Bryn Cadno area, near Pwllycrochan Woods.
Andrea told Puma Watch: “We were travelling up into Colwyn Bay heights to fetch an item we had just bought and as we were going further up a big black cat which was the same size as a Labrador ran in front of us.
“Both me and my husband saw it.
“It had a big black tail and moved across the road like a cat.”
Over the next few days, we received two historical reports of big cats in Colwyn Bay from April 2016 and December 2018. Both were on the edge of the Colwyn Heights area, with one seen on the Old Highway alongside Pwllycrochan Woods and another seen on Mochdre Road.
Additionally, a footbridge in the Nant-y-Glyn Valley, which runs along the southeast border of Colwyn Heights, is known locally as ‘Puma Bridge’.
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.
Just last month, we shared a report of a big cat in Leamington Spa. While we focus on North Wales and the surrounding areas, we often receive reports from further afield and have shared sightings from as far out as Scotland and Cornwall.
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 during the pandemic are 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.
A visitor to a Snowdonia animal rescue centre back in 1994 recently claimed he was introduced to four puma kittens. He said: “I strongly suspect that these were released into the wild as they had no paperwork and no money to feed or house them.
“They certainly weren’t there six months later.”
Any further sightings can be reported to us via this form.
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LGBT Pride Month: The rainbow version of the Puma Watch logo currently on our social media channels is now available on a limited-edition version of our ever-popular mugs.
Only £11.95 including delivery, plus free stickers and badges.