A “very large black cat” left a dog walker feeling ‘scared’ and ‘shocked’ after a close encounter earlier this week, around 7:15 PM on Wednesday night.
The sighting occurred on a country lane just outside the village of Llansannan, a small village in a particularly isolated area of Conwy County and at the foot of the Denbigh Moors.
Katie, who suspected the animal could have been a puma, said: “I was out for my usual evening run approximately 3/4 of a mile out of the village of Llansannan, Conwy on a rural back lane through a wooded area near a gorge and in the dark my headtorch picked up a pair of green eyes.
“As I got closer, I shone my headtorch (900 lumens) on the animal and realised that it was a very large black cat, around the size of a labrador.
“The animal was lying down underneath some trees and half sat up as I approached as though I had frightened it.
“I felt scared and it shocked me. I have domestic pet cats myself and know that this animal was feline and much larger than my cats.
“I have since returned to the same location and there are no other livestock in the vicinity and the nearest houses are around half a mile away.”
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 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 month, Bellingcat exposed an international exotic pet trafficking operation, in which Instagram celebrities posted videos with animals including monkeys, sloths and a range of big cats, including baby tigers, cheetahs, lions and pumas. The animals were sold to buyers around the world from a base in Dubai.
Also this month, a London man was fined after neighbours spotted he was keeping an African wildcat at his home. He purchased the animal from an unlicensed Russian company. The man had previously been reported to authorities but had told them he didn’t own the animal before eventually being caught red-handed.
It’s likely that many illegal owners in similar situations would release such animals into the British countryside. This prevalent underground trade, now fuelled by Instagram and social media, could be big a big part of explaining why so many big cat sightings are now being reported.
Image credits:
Llansannan Old Road Alwyn Williams (cc-by-sa/2.0)
Black cat image by Steve Wilson under CC-BY-2.0.