A camper van tourist and his dogs had a close encounter with a large black cat, believed to be a puma, in the mountainous terrain above Wylfa nuclear power station on Anglesey. The sighting took place at around 2:30 PM on Saturday, July 18, 2026, after the witness pulled over on a remote single-track road to walk his dogs.
Chris told Puma Watch: “Touring the island in my campervan, took a wrong turn and got lost on a single track road, pulled over for a cuppa and let my dogs out for a walk, very remote here, didn’t see another car for 20 mins.
“Took the dogs around a bend and spotted a large black object in the middle of the road about 50 meters away, no movement at first then it suddenly jumped up and started walking away from me.
“What struck me the most was its very long tail and it was as big as my German Shepherd dog, then it stopped and turned its head to look at me before leaping over a dry stone wall and into farm land.”
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.
The upland ground overlooking Wylfa power station on Anglesey’s north coast is sparsely populated and criss-crossed by dry stone walls and farmland, offering ideal cover for a large, elusive predator to move undetected.
This is far from an isolated incident for the island; Anglesey has produced many big cat reports in the past five years alone, including a black cat sighting on the coastal path near Rhoscolyn and a report from The Dingle in Llangefni. Locally to the Wylfa sighting shared today, big cats have been seen at Cemlyn in 2021 and last year in Llanfechell. Anglesey even has a centuries-old link to giant black cat folklore, with the medieval legend of Cath Palug describing a monstrous feline said to have roamed the island long before modern sightings began.
Big cats such as pumas are solitary animals with hunting ranges that can stretch for dozens of miles, and while most UK sightings cluster around Snowdonia and the Clwydian hills, reports from more remote or unexpected locations like this one are becoming increasingly common. When exotic pets, including big cats, were banned under the Dangerous Wild Animals Act of 1976, it remained legal for owners to release them into the countryside rather than pay for expensive rehoming. Many owners travelled to remote areas of Wales and Scotland to free their animals, and experts believe small, breeding populations have persisted in the wild ever since.
Have you spotted a big cat in North Wales or elsewhere in the UK? Report your sighting via our online form.