A motorist spotted a large black cat, thought to be a puma, stalking sheep near the Premier Inn roundabout in Holyhead. The sighting occurred at around 8:15 PM on Friday 18th July.
Jo told Puma Watch: “We were driving past and spotted the cat stalking sheep it went behind a bush. We looped back but couldn’t see it. My husband spotted it first then I saw it. It was large, black with pointy ears”
The fields around Holyhead are teeming with rabbits and sheep and would provide ample hunting opportunities for a big cat. This is not the first reported sighting in the area, with a ‘black panther’ being spotted just down the road in Trearddur Bay last year.
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.
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.
Any further sightings can be reported to us via our online form.
This sighting has been added to our interactive map.
*Due to a technical issue, sightings between January 2023 and June 2026 are not displayed on the map. Going forward, all sightings will be recorded on this map system and we are working to import the missing sightings.