A member of the public claims they have been seeing “black panthers” around the village of Pandy Tudur, near Llanrwst, for 25 years.
The most recent encounter was at around 10:30 PM one night towards the end of 2019. Leonard’s wife then saw the same animals herself on another occasion.
Len told Puma Watch: “I have seen black panthers in the area of Pandy Tudur for the last 25 years.
“The last was about November or December 2019. I saw two pups at about 60 ft.
“About 2 weeks later they both walked past my wife at about 10 ft. She was hiding behind a trailer and she saw them coming.”
Yesterday, we shared a report of a large black cat which “terrified” a pair of domestic cats near Glan Conwy, seven miles from Pandy Tudor.
Other sightings have occurred similar distance in the other direction, across the hills towards Denbigh. Big cats were spotted near Llansannan and Cyffylliog earlier this year.
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 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.
Photo © Dot Potter (cc-by-sa/2.0)