Exotic cat reports in North East England

This article is a chapter that I wrote for the book,"Mammals, amphibians and reptiles of the North East", which was published by the Natural History Society of Northumberland in 2012. The full book is  free to download from the home page of this website.

The question of whether big or exotic cats are at large in Britain is one that has surfaced quite regularly in the media over the years and it is probably fair to say that hardly a week goes by without a sighting being reported in some local newspaper across the UK.  That exotic cat species can turn up in the wild in Britain is not disputed; there have been a small number of cases where this was well documented including the Eurasian Lynx, Lynx lynx, that was darted in Cricklewood in 2001 and taken to London Zoo, or the Jungle Cat Felis chaus killed on a road in Shropshire in 1989.  More locally a Leopard Cat Prionailurus bengalensis was found dead between the Reston and Grants Houses area of North Berwick in 1988 and a second in August, 1990 at Hule Moss, Greenlaw and sent to the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh (Bob Wilkin, pers comm., 2012).  The mainstream consensus seems to be that such instances are isolated though it is interesting that at least one county account of mammal fauna (Clark, 2001) considers big cats to be breeding in that county (Hertforshire) and even gives advice on what to do should you encounter one.

The North East has one of the longer traditions in this subject.  The so-called “Durham Puma” became well known as several reports featured quite prominently in the local newspapers in the 1980s.  In fact the eponym has become so well entrenched that sightings of big cats are often assumed to be of Pumas Puma concolor, even though the animal described is usually of black colouration and black Pumas have never been definitively recorded anywhere in the world.  Eddie Bell, who was a Wildlife Liaison Officer for Durham Constabulary and who is was the primary researcher on this subject at that time was aware of almost 300 reports from the period 1986-2000 (Minter 2011). 

In the 1990s reports seemed to shift to Northumberland or at least interest in them did.   Many of these were published in a series of newsletters edited by John Tait.   The ones for which there was a reasonable amount of information, which was by no means all of them, were tabulated in the November 1997 edition (Tait, 1997).  From January 1995 to October 1997 some 37 reports had been collated for Northumberland.  Of these, 26 referred to “Big Black Cats”, often described as a black panther, with five reports of Puma and one each of Lynx, Ocelot Leopardalus pardalis, Bobcat Lynx rufus, Leopard Panthera pardus (of the normal spotted type), Wildcat Felis sylvestris grampia and one of an alleged corpse where the species was not stated.   Reports were mainly from the Elsden, Kirkwhelpington, Harwood Forest area with another cluster of reports around the Hexham/Haydon Bridge area and some from Morpeth.  There was no apparent distinction in the distribution patterns of reports of Pumas and black panthers with both types being reported in the same area.

The pre-2000 period also provided what is to date the only hard evidence for the presence of exotic cats in the North East.    In 1992 professional photographer, Philip Nixon, took a photo of what he observed as a cat carrying an adult rabbit in its mouth, in the North Pennines near Ireshopeburn.  The picture is believed by many to show a Jungle Cat though others maintain it merely shows a Fox Vulpes vulpes. Then in 1993, a dropping was found at Whorlton near Barnard Castle, which, it was claimed, was identified by Hans Kruuk of Aberdeen University as being from either Puma or Leopard.  In the late 1990s, John Tait had a cast from Northumberland identified as Puma by someone who was experienced at tracking the species in the USA.

In 2010, Northumbria Mammal Group’s “Big Cat Diaries” were compiled in to a book, which in addition to the somewhat tongue-in-cheek reporting style, also attempted a brief but more serious analysis of the reports (Bond 2010).  As of August 2010, some 134 reports had been collated.  Of those, 102 were described in sufficient detail that they could be at least notionally attributed to a particular species.  By far the majority of those, 88 in total, referred to a large, black, pantherine species, presumed to be a melanistic Leopard and subsequently referred to as panthers, with a further seven to Pumas, six to Lynx and a single one to Serval  Felis serval.

In addition there were seven reports of black cats that are very much bigger than domestic cats but which clearly were not panthers.  According to the Big Cats in Britain organisation, which catalogues reports across the country, this is the second most common category for “big cat” reports nationally (Mark Fraser, pers comm. 2009).  An example of such a cat, which was larger than a Fox seen in the same video clip, was seen on ITV news in 2012.  The news clip included comment by Professor Steve Harris, currently chair of the Mammal Society, who described the cat as, “the largest predator currently at large in Britain,” though he concluded that it was just an outsized domestic cat.  A further five reports where the species was seen clearly and at close range and described in detail do not fit any known species.  Some may postulate that these represent hybrids or even an unknown species but it may in fact just be a measure of the potential for unreliability in some of the reports.   Nevertheless a number of those 134 reports were seen at close range by people who were experienced at observing animals and, in the author’s opinion, it is reasonable to say that examples of Leopard, Puma and Lynx have been reliably recorded in the North East within the past 10-15 years. 

Reports of panthers have occurred throughout much of the North East over the past decade though there are two particular areas where there are notable clusters of records.  One of these is Tynedale, particularly around Stocksfield and Hexham.  The other is in south east Durham between Hartlepool and Sedgefield, particularly around the Wynyard area.  The latter may be a case of recorder bias as this is where the author is based.  Just as significantly there are certain areas where there are few if any reports, for example; north -east Durham and south Tyneside; North Tyneside and several areas of Northumberland, including until recently Kielder, Europe’s largest man-made forest. 

The few reports of cats resembling Puma and Lynx have been spread across wide areas of the North East, with the only place where either of these species has been reported more than once being Wynyard with five of the 11 reports of Puma that the author has received to date.

Reports continue to come to light, if anything with increasing frequency, though this is largely due to them being forwarded from the national, Big Cats in Britain website, which being web-based has probably smoothed out some of the effects of recorder bias.  As of mid- 2012 the author has received at least 200 reports.  Even so these reports certainly do not represent the full picture.  That there are potentially many more reports of exotic cats than those received by the author was demonstrated by a Freedom of Information request to Durham Constabulary in 2011 asking for details of reports of big cats over the previous five years (Anonymous, 2011).  It transpired that Durham Constabulary had logged 28 sightings over that period and on matching those with reports received by the author it appeared that only three were the same report. 

While the distribution of the reports would suggest that there has been more than one individual of certain exotic cat species at large in the North East that is not to suggest that those species might have established themselves.  Only two of the reports that the author has received have claimed to be of mother and cubs.  For Lynx, Hetherington (2005) has calculated that it would require a founder population of around 12-32 animals in order for the population to have a 95% chance of persisting ten years after the release.  Even if, for example, individual cats near Hexham and Hartlepool could meet up the statistical chances of a population resulting from that must be very small.   The maximum that an individual cat might be expected to live for in the wild is into the low teens, though these are the exceptions (Guggisberg, 1975).  The reports have continued for several decades now therefore the conclusion must be either; that all, or virtually all, of the reports are cases of mistaken identity; that there are continued releases; that the animals are breeding in the region; or that there is a breeding population outside of the region from which individual cats are emigrating.  None of these strikes the author as very likely but one, or some combination of them, must be the case.   It will be interesting to see if the next few decades shed any further light on this.

References:

Anonymous (2011) http://www.durham.police.uk/uploads//disclosure_log/223-11.pdf

Bond I. (2010) The Path of the Panther: Northumbrian Big Cat Diaries.  BCIB Publishing, Kilmaurs.

Clark, M. (2001) The Mammals, Amphibians and Reptiles of Hertfordshire. The Hertfordshire Natural History Society.

Guggisberg C A W (1975) Wild Cats of the World.  David and Charles.  Newton Abbot.

Hetherington D., (2005) The feasibility of reintroducing the Eurasian Lynx (Lynx lynx) to Scotland. PhD thesis. University of Aberdeen.

Minter R. (2011) Big Cats: facing Britain’s Wild Predators. Whittles Publishing Ltd. Dunbeath.

Tait  J. (1997) The Journal of the Northern Mystery Animals Group.  Vol 1. No 4.