A member of the public has reported spotting a “black panther” hunting for rabbits and birds on Ffrith Beach, Prestatyn.
The encounter took place while the witness was out walking their dog at around 6 am this morning, Tuesday 5th April. The creature was first spotted in the grassy area inhabited by rabbits and was then seen running “at great speed” across the beach, hunting birds.
Rodney, who provided his surname but asked to be kept anonymous, told Puma Watch: “I saw it on Ffrith beach at the back of Salfords Children’s Camp.
“First it was in the grassy area where rabbits are. I took my dog away quickly to the dunes.
“From there I saw it run at great speed across the beach apparently hunting birds.
“I don’t think it saw us but I was very concerned for my dog who was running free prior to the first sighting.”
It’s not the first sighting of a black panther in this area. In September 2021, an animal matching the same description was spotted on the golf course adjacent to the beach in Rhyl. The location was only around 800 metres from this sighting and just a few minutes’ walk along the beach.
A few months earlier, in May, police were called after a “huge jet black cat” was spotted lurking in the bushes near Prestatyn train station. There have also been multiple sightings a few miles along the coast in the Talacre area – as well as near Abergele.
And only around a week ago, a couple of miles inland at Dyserth, four hillwalkers were “stared at for a couple of minutes” by a black animal they believed could have been a puma.
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.
Just last month, we shared a report of a big cat in Leamington Spa. While we focus on North Wales and the surrounding areas, we often receive reports from further afield and have shared sightings from as far out as Scotland and Cornwall.
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.
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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Beach image credit: Jeff Buck cc-by-sa/2.0