A hiker and his family recently encountered a huge black feline while exploring the remote Dartmoor region, reports devonlive.com.
Sightings of these large predatory cats have been occurring in the British Isles for years. While suspicions of a population of such creatures roaming the countryside have long existed, concrete evidence of their existence in Britain is scarce.
Some of these sightings are believed to have come from owners of big cats releasing their animals into the wild, especially after the introduction of the Dangerous Wild Animals Act in 1976. However, given that reports of large cats well into the 21st century cats persist, it seems that this is unlikely to explain all the problems.
Now a new report has emerged of a sizeable black cat in rural Britain, this time in Dartmoor, where numerous similar sightings have been documented in the past.
According to accounts, Jon and his family were enjoying a walk near Fernworthy Reservoir on August 27 when they came across a sizable black creature that closely resembled a cat.
“He slowly started walking around, saw me, stood there and looked at me and then casually started walking away,” he said. “I have a pretty calm nature so I thought I was seeing things and stayed calm because I had my dog and child with me and didn’t want to freak them out.”
“We decided to walk about a quarter of a mile further into the woods and my son immediately said ‘what’s that?’. There was a half-eaten deer carcass near the trail in the woods, and on the trail were quite a few bones about four to six inches long with broken bones from a ribcage.
“We then had to walk through dense forest to get back to the car and as we were walking we heard a roar. We thought we were going crazy.”
