A commuter from Flint has reported an encounter with a yellow-eyed ‘black panther’ while travelling on the M56 near Chester Services at Elton.
The location is particularly close to another sighting on the M56 near Chester Costco, along with several others around the Stanlow area and in Ellesmere Port. Chester, just a few miles to the South on the Welsh border, has become a big cat hotspot in its own right.
Reporting the Elton sighting via our website, Howard said: “I was travelling to work from Flint on the M56. I was on the inside lane at approx 60mph.
“I spotted the animal in a farmers field to my left, it jumped out of a drainage ditch in the field and lay down on its belly like it was in hunting mode.
“It was looking at the sheep in the field, as I passed it I got a very good look at it, it was the size of a large dog but was unmistakably a large cat.
“It turned its head as I passed and I could see yellow in its eyes.
“I kept it in sight in my wing mirror as I went by and saw it turn and go back down into the drainage ditch, seemingly spooked by the noise of the traffic.
“I did consider going to try and find the farm that evening that the fields belong to so I could warn the farmer, but was unable to work out where the farm was.”
Howard’s encounter took place back in April 2019 at around 9am one morning. More recently, a big cat was caught on camera in Frodsham, just a few miles from Elton, then another sighting occurred on the outskirts of the town.
In Chester, on Friday 16th April, someone spotted what could have been a puma near Blacon, at a location well under a mile from four other recent sightings. Just along the canal to the North, a large, black animal with a very long tail was spotted twice within a week, around the abandoned Old Oaks Golf Course and the Countess of Chester Country Park.
The sightings followed a 4ft-long cat “with a great big tail” being spotted twice in one night in fields bordering Blacon, behind Sealand Road Asda.
A member of the public reported an encounter with a “growing and snarling” creature in Huntington’s Caldy Valley Nature Park, while in December, a big cat was caught on camera prowling Chester Meadows.
Big cats have also been spotted across the Wirral.
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.
