A member of the public has reported spotting a “very large black cat” from the window of their study in Leamington Spa.
The sighting occurred in the Warwick New Road area at around 9:30 AM on Monday 3rd January. The location is close to the confluence of the River Leam and River Avon, surrounded by parks and fields.
Though we focus on North Wales and the surrounding areas, we often receive reports from further afield and have previously published sightings from as far as Scotland and Cornwall.
Michael told Puma Watch: “As I was sitting in my study, a large black shape came into view across from my building; a feline form was on top of a fence, waited there for a second or two, and then jumped down.
“The size of the cat was very large.
“At first, I had thought it was likely simply a large domestic cat, but having checked the size against a car beside where it was sighted, I have come to the conclusion it must have been a big cat, strange as that might sound.
“I, unfortunately, wasn’t able to capture any pictures due to the sighting happening rather quickly.”
Big cats such as pumas are solitary with a hunting range of dozens of miles. In North Wales, 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. It’s likely similar patterns of movement exist across the rest of the UK, with big cat populations centred on remote locations like national parks.
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.”
Leamington photo © Robin Stott (cc-by-sa/2.0)
Both me and my girlfriend saw this ‘cat’ today on pottertons field, I saw it very early this morning and she saw it separately late afternoon. We had not seen or spoken to each other all day until we both met later on. I said I’d seen a panther and she said the same or a puma.
seen again today, same field.