Alien Big Cats

I think one of the problems is that there obviously have been wild cats let loose in Britain. Some of those have been caught. So it is difficult to flat out deny that there may be some wild cats roaming.

But a viable breeding population? I seriously doubt that. The species most well adjusted to the conditions in Britain would probably be pumas and lynx, and some of those have been caught - but they have been escaped animals, not breeding animals, in all cases.

Some of the cats have been fairly exotic tropical species, such as clouded leopards, jungle cats and leopard cats - and none of those are anywhere near the size claimed in sightings, and they don't fit the descriptions either. Alien cats they may be, but not alien big cats. Jungle cats are almost the size of a normal domestic cat, not much larger. Heck, Maine Coon cats are just as big, or sometimes even bigger.

The oddest thing is that many people describe the cats as black, and often insist on it. I find that very unlikely. Not to mention that it is extremely difficult to judge a black animal's size at a distance. I've seen some of those videos recorded, and they all seem to show ordinary black domestic cats.

Now, at the same time there is this theory about a possible viable population of a kind of black domestic/wild cat hybrids. Maybe that is possible, but I've read some article where someone actually measured some of those alleged hybrid cats and they were anything but big.

Of course, there's a bunch of deliberate hoaxes too, making the issue difficult to resolve. What is hoax and what is not? Only a caught/killed animal has any value - and even then, it could still be an individual escapee. It's obvious that the animals that were released back when the act was made does not live any more. Cat's just don't get that old, so it can never be one of those.

Considering their gait, even real leopards don’t really look that big when they move around, yet the cats are often described as impossibly large. "The size of a really big dog" "much larger (or even taller!) than my Alsatian dog" etc.

I still don’t get how a handful(?) of pumas released over (whatever the square mileage of the UK is) could come to form a viable breeding population.  Isn’t the Florida puma in dire straits because of an unnaturally small gene pool? 

And how come it’s only pumas?  Surely, there would have been equal numbers of released lions, tigers, leopards, cheetahs – especially cheetahs – being almost totally non-aggressive, they were very popular pets among the rich and famous. 

There have been very very few mild attacks on humans (as far as anyone can tell – of course, humans do disappear ……….!), it’s mostly sheep that are preyed upon.   I think most Brits like the idea of having something a bit scary and exotic lurking in the countryside – adds a certain spark of excitement to the Sunday picnic.  It’s only the farmers who aren’t so keen.

A few Lynx have been spotted, mostly around London, so are certainly escapees from private collections.  But wild lynx are long gone, along with wolves.  Wild boar are making a come back though ……….     and there’s a decent population of wallabies living wild in the Midlands.

Windermere – so black is a kind of wild/feral hybrid default colour?  That is interesting!  Of course a dominant mutation in the right place could explain much about our big cats.