A member of the public has reported spotting a “massive” and “jet black” animal they believe was a puma in the car park of Chester FC’s Deva Stadium, in the early hours of Tuesday 20th July.
The animal was first seen through the building site fencing before it “slowly” emerged and “skulked” behind the stand, giving Matty a few seconds to identify the creature and take a photo.
In his report, he told us the animal was “undoubtedly a cat” because of its shape, colour and motion, and that it appeared to be watching something behind the stand.
Matty Rodgers said: “On my way back from work very early in the morning, just after daylight.
“Walking past the football ground I saw something big skulking behind the building site, way down the far end by the fields.
“I watched from the road for 20-30 seconds, until it emerged and was clearly a big cat. It was too big to be anything else like a dog or a fox, and the wrong colour, it was jet black like a puma, despite it being a bit dark still this was clear to see.
“It skulked along like it was watching something behind the stand, moving slowly but with movement that was undoubtedly a cat. I got a photo where you can just make it out before it went out of view, either behind the stand or into the field behind the hedge.
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“It was only in the open between the building site and the stand for about 5 or 10 seconds but I am certain of what I saw.
“I was tempted to run across the car park and see if I could spot it again but it’s probably for the best I just walked home as it was massive although I guess it wouldn’t have let me get closer anyway, unless I accidentally cornered it, but f**k that it was massive.”
Just a few days before Matty’s sighting, a “brown and tawny” big cat was spotted on the other side of Chester. The city is a hotspot for big cat sightings, with multiple clusters occurring over the last year. This includes one occasion where an animal was caught on camera on Chester Meadows by a delivery driver.
Also this month, we shared a report of another motorist spotting a suspected panther stalking sheep, just a few miles away near the M56’s Chester Services. And back in April, a lorry driver spotted a big cat crossing the same road behind Costco Chester.
On Friday 16th April, someone spotted what could have been a puma near Blacon, at a location well under a mile from four other recent sightings. Just along the canal to the North, a large, black animal with a very long tail was spotted twice within a week, around the abandoned Old Oaks Golf Course and the Countess of Chester Country Park.
These sightings followed a 4ft-long cat “with a great big tail” being spotted twice in one night in fields bordering Blacon, behind Sealand Road Asda.
Prior to this, on the other side of the city centre, a member of the public reported an encounter with a “growing and snarling” creature in Huntington’s Caldy Valley Nature Park, while in December, a big cat was caught on camera prowling Chester Meadows.
Big cats have also been spotted across the Wirral.
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.