A dog walker has reported finding a “large footprint” they believe could have been made by a “black puma” which they previously spotted at Ince and Frodsham Marshes.
In January 2021, a member of staff at a nearby facility reported spotting a “large but slender” cat at the same location when reporting for work around 7:30 AM. A pawprint was also found on this occasion.
Then, at around 9:30 AM Saturday December 18th 2021, a dog walker spotted a “black puma” while on a footpath from open fields to the reservoir. They said their dogs have “gone mad” every time they’ve returned to the location since, then yesterday, on Monday January 11th, they found the paw print pictured below.
Asking to remain anonymous, the witness told Puma Watch they spotted the animal when they: “crossed from open field across footpath down towards the reservoir.
“I have since kept an eye out, my dogs, spaniels, go mad whenever on that track.
“Today 10/1/2022, I’ve spotted a large footprint.”
After the sighting last January, the witness Andy told Cheshire Live: “It was about 7.30am when I reported for work and it was still dark and quite chilly.”I saw a large animal in front of me and it appeared to have features of a cat.
“It was covered in fur, which wasn’t shaggy, but very close to its body. What struck me was the length of its tail.
“It was a large animal, bigger than a Labrador and it definitely was not a dog. It was moving quite quickly, but I got the impression it wasn’t moving at top speed.”
“It was about 30 metres in front of me, I am not sure if it saw me.
“It made no sound, didn’t challenge me and just ran in front of me. It was in my sight for around three or four seconds.”
Days later, a big cat stared down a dog walker in Ellesmere Port’s Whitby Park, just a couple of miles away.
At the time, Carol said: “I was in an enclosed area by tennis courts with my dog, he was the opposite side of the area. A large cat-like animal, about 6 to 8 foot away from me on the opposite side of the fence, stood staring.”
Further sightings followed around the Frodsham area through 2021, including one animal caught on CCTV sprinting across a paddock. This went on to become a national news story.
Already this month, we shared a report of an encounter with a “black panther” just up the Mersey Estuary at Port Sunlight River Park, which occurred back in September. It followed countless others around the Wirral, including several in the last year. Just a few weeks before, Andy spotted what he called “the biggest black cat I have ever seen” in fields near Neston.
A day prior to Andy’s sighting, an animal matching the same description was spotted dashing across the slip roads from Moreton Road to the Upton Bypass roundabout. Another witness reported the same animal on Heswall High Street the day before.
We also shared reports of a large black cat seen limping down Kestrel Road at 2:30 am on 15th August and of an animal matching the same description being spotted on Whitfield Common on 1st September.
A few miles away, Chester has become a big cat hotspot in its own right. This includes one occasion where an animal was caught on camera on Chester Meadows by a delivery driver.
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 week, 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.
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.
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.
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.
