A member of the public has reported spotting a “black, shadowy animal” around the size of her neighbour’s Golden Labrador just two days ago.
Cassy spotted the creature in the Cheshire village of Ashley, situated between Altrincham, Tatton Park and Manchester Airport. She initially dismissed the creature as her neighbour’s dog, but then saw said neighbour with their dog. The neighbour informed her the dog hadn’t left their side and that they’d also seen a “black cat”, adding that her dog is “petrified” of going to the far end of their garden.
Cassy’s sister also claims to have seen the large feline.
Cassy told Puma Watch: “We were walking to the pub and in the bushes adjoining our farm and the neighbouring property we saw a black shadowy animal which was about the size of my neighbour’s golden labrador.
“I dismissed it as the dog though the colour was different. When I got to my neighbour’s gate I saw her and her dog in the garden and said I thought I’d just saw her dog in the bushes so was surprised to see it back in the garden so quick. She said her dog hadn’t left her side.
“My sister who I was walking with then said she saw it too and it was a black cat. I said that’s what I thought but had discounted it.
“My neighbour said she thinks she’d see a black cat too and said her dog is petrified of going to the far end of their garden. We concluded it was a mysterious black cat that we’d be more vigilant to catch by camera.”
While we typically focus on North Wales, we often receive reports from Cheshire and across the UK. Last year, we shared encounters from nearby Warrington and Lymm – and in 2011, The Messenger reported a big cat was spotted “carrying a rabbit” through Hale, just a few fields away from Cassy’s sighting this week.
A little further afield, a black big cat was caught on CCTV dashing across a field in Frodsham, as seen below, while Chester has become a big cat hotspot in its own right.
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 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.
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.
