A motorist has spotted a “very large cat sunbathing” on Bryn Pydew, a hill near Llandudno Junction.
Sara thinks the black and white animal was most likely a house cat but added that it was “definitely huge” and thought it worthy of reporting.
The encounter took place around 5pm on Wednesday 29th June and was shared with us this week.
Sara told Puma Watch: “We parked up on the lane in Pydew, Llandudno Junction and spotted a very large cat sunbathing.
“We walked to the wall to get a closer look and it got up and slowly walked away with its tail curled.
“It looked like a huge house cat to us but it was definitely huge.”
Any further sightings can be reported to us via this form.
A few months ago, a black big cat was spotted twice in one day in nearby Colwyn Bay. One of these sightings was on Bryn Cadno, a hill overlooking Llandudno Junction and only a short distance across the valley from the Bryn Pydew sighting.
Last year, a holidaymaker filmed what they thought could be a young lynx crossing a lane near Bryn Pydew. And just a short distance away, some dog walkers found a carcass they believed had been left on the Little Orme.
Also last year, just a few miles away in Conwy, a woman phoned the police after spotting a black panther on her garden fence. And way back in 2012, a member of the public phoned the police after spotting a black panther in Llandudno.
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.
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 during the pandemic are 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.
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