OldMcDonald
Platinum Member
I do not spend much time on TBN and have just seen this thread. I was aware from a little research I did a few years ago that some States in the US have the same denial approach as countries in Great Britain, also I noted that the animals are capable of travelling tens of miles in a night - and that they swim.
Previous to farming in Portugal I was in the far North of Scotland where the main enterprise was producing free range eggs, and I hope nobody minds the length of the following description of our encounter with a Mountain Lion in Scotland, but I think the episode needs to be put in perspective, rather than me just say I have seen one. Naturally we have frequently been told that we imagined it all because there are no Mountain Lions or any other big cats in Britain:-
Over the 2000-01 winter we lost a few ducks, which we thought were killed either by a wildcat (seen late in the evening on a night we lost seven) or a pine marten. One of these seven was taken and six others left dead. A bite to the neck was always the cause, not the messy killing of a fox. We had also had another predator that I found extremely hard to accept existed. On the odd occasion I had seen animal tracks in the snow about 4 inches across, possibly more, but difficult to tell in snow if the animal had passed a few hours earlier. I never saw any when it was wet and muddy despite looking, so I was unable to get a positive measurement and layout. At first I dismissed them as probably the way the snow had been blown after a wildcat or marten had passed, but later began to wonder if there was something else about, although I said nothing to anyone. Nobody ever believes you were sober if you mention the possibility of animals that do not normally live in your country. We had also lost several hens in their sheds; the design of the sheds (given in full detail in Chapter 12) was such that the manure from the roosting birds fell through weldmesh and onto the ground below. My assumption of what happened was that the predator squirmed its way under the shed and upset the birds to the extent that they would fly about. Anything unlucky enough to drop a foot through the mesh had its leg pulled off. Sometimes they died from this injury but on other occasions were still alive when let out in the morning, so had to be culled.
Then right at the beginning of May we had a glorious spring day. I was finishing off collecting the eggs (a rare treat for my wife) when I saw something in the rushes behind the house, about 100 yards away. My wife had noticed a roe doe and her very young twins acting rather strangely the previous day, at the same time catching a glimpse of an animal moving close to the boundary, and had mentioned it to me, but she did not see sufficient to know what it was. No mistakes this time though. Lying sunning itself was a “big cat”. We had binoculars and a small astronomical telescope, so got them and my wife and I were able to view it very easily from the house. We knew what we were looking at despite never having seen one in the wild before. It is known in different places as a Cougar, Puma or Mountain Lion, all the same thing so take your pick of the name. Now these cats simply are not native to Britain so, despite my suspicions of the previous winter, we were more than slightly surprised at it lying there. Gun law security being strict, I had my gun cabinet so that it could only be accessed by ladder, and I was unable to put my .243 together and load it without the need to leave the house, go across open ground in view of the animal and back again with the necessary ladder. I hesitated about attempting this, and tried to work out how I could get around the problem, but it was solved for me because after a few minutes the animal stretched, yawned and walked back across our boundary. Neither the neighbour Gordy Nichol nor we had any need of a fence between us, so there were only a few remnants of posts and no physical barrier.
Gordy and his wife had a little son who was prone to wander about, so I informed them. Their two teenage daughters had apparently reported seeing the cat a couple of weeks previously, but their notion of its size had been dismissed by the parents as due to them being startled by it and misjudging - the usual reaction of people who have not seen the animal. The next day one of the other neighbours, Gordy’s sister in fact, telephoned at lunchtime and said she had just seen it crossing a nearby field and it was heading our way. I had had only a short local delivery run that morning so luckily was back home for lunch. I knew I had a few minutes to get ready, so got out the shotgun as it was unlikely I would get a safe rifle shot, and moved into the area with the hen shelters closest to the way it would come in, about 40yards from the house, and waited. My wife watched through the kitchen window. I never saw the cat, but she saw it come out of a ditch, pick up a hen within about fifteen yards of me, and then go back the way it had come. You have to admire something that can be that good a hunter. It appeared that no other hens had seen it either because there was no reaction from any of them. A fox would have rushed in, the other hens would have set up a racket, and hopefully I would have shot the culprit.
We never saw it again, but when I mentioned it to Mike Purcell, a gamekeeper from about 15 miles away, he asked what colour it was. On describing it as greyish to sandy, he said, “Oh, most of the big cats in our area are black.” I subsequently discovered there have been many sightings of big cats in the Highlands, although only one report of an animal that was shot - about ten years previous to our sightings. The local opinion was that, apart from three which allegedly escaped from the home of someone who had them as pets, a change in the law in 1976 had made it difficult for people to retain them without a great deal of expense in security enclosures, so they were merely dumped in a remote area, and presumably some of them bred. If not, there had been more escapees or dumping because the time lag from the introduction of this Act was too long for sightings at this time to be of animals dumped in 1976, or at least they would be very geriatric, because other information I obtained, an article written by a keeper at Glasgow Zoo, is that most of these big cats live to a maximum age of about 15 to 17 years.
I am well aware that many so called experts dismiss these sightings as being in the imagination of those who only think they have seen such a beast, but there appeared to be some sort of official policy to deny that they existed in the Highlands, and I believe other parts of the UK too. I have even seen a TV documentary especially made to show that there were none in Britain. A very wild statement to make because it is impossible to prove such a thing. Whether this is supposed to reassure the general populace, or so as not to affect tourism I do not know. I do know what I, my wife, and neighbours saw. I am familiar with foxes, pine martens, wildcats, domestic cats, dogs, possums, several species of kangaroos, dingoes, wombats, feral goats, roe deer, red deer, otters, mink (the last two occasionally being seen a long way from water) and all farm animals. Looking at this cat through a telescope and binoculars at such close range, we had positive identification. I also have a great deal of respect for the likes of Mike Purcell who spend their lives ever vigilant and watchful, and who are very familiar with all the animals one could find in their part of the world. These people are not likely to mistake a native animal for an exotic one.
Previous to farming in Portugal I was in the far North of Scotland where the main enterprise was producing free range eggs, and I hope nobody minds the length of the following description of our encounter with a Mountain Lion in Scotland, but I think the episode needs to be put in perspective, rather than me just say I have seen one. Naturally we have frequently been told that we imagined it all because there are no Mountain Lions or any other big cats in Britain:-
Over the 2000-01 winter we lost a few ducks, which we thought were killed either by a wildcat (seen late in the evening on a night we lost seven) or a pine marten. One of these seven was taken and six others left dead. A bite to the neck was always the cause, not the messy killing of a fox. We had also had another predator that I found extremely hard to accept existed. On the odd occasion I had seen animal tracks in the snow about 4 inches across, possibly more, but difficult to tell in snow if the animal had passed a few hours earlier. I never saw any when it was wet and muddy despite looking, so I was unable to get a positive measurement and layout. At first I dismissed them as probably the way the snow had been blown after a wildcat or marten had passed, but later began to wonder if there was something else about, although I said nothing to anyone. Nobody ever believes you were sober if you mention the possibility of animals that do not normally live in your country. We had also lost several hens in their sheds; the design of the sheds (given in full detail in Chapter 12) was such that the manure from the roosting birds fell through weldmesh and onto the ground below. My assumption of what happened was that the predator squirmed its way under the shed and upset the birds to the extent that they would fly about. Anything unlucky enough to drop a foot through the mesh had its leg pulled off. Sometimes they died from this injury but on other occasions were still alive when let out in the morning, so had to be culled.
Then right at the beginning of May we had a glorious spring day. I was finishing off collecting the eggs (a rare treat for my wife) when I saw something in the rushes behind the house, about 100 yards away. My wife had noticed a roe doe and her very young twins acting rather strangely the previous day, at the same time catching a glimpse of an animal moving close to the boundary, and had mentioned it to me, but she did not see sufficient to know what it was. No mistakes this time though. Lying sunning itself was a “big cat”. We had binoculars and a small astronomical telescope, so got them and my wife and I were able to view it very easily from the house. We knew what we were looking at despite never having seen one in the wild before. It is known in different places as a Cougar, Puma or Mountain Lion, all the same thing so take your pick of the name. Now these cats simply are not native to Britain so, despite my suspicions of the previous winter, we were more than slightly surprised at it lying there. Gun law security being strict, I had my gun cabinet so that it could only be accessed by ladder, and I was unable to put my .243 together and load it without the need to leave the house, go across open ground in view of the animal and back again with the necessary ladder. I hesitated about attempting this, and tried to work out how I could get around the problem, but it was solved for me because after a few minutes the animal stretched, yawned and walked back across our boundary. Neither the neighbour Gordy Nichol nor we had any need of a fence between us, so there were only a few remnants of posts and no physical barrier.
Gordy and his wife had a little son who was prone to wander about, so I informed them. Their two teenage daughters had apparently reported seeing the cat a couple of weeks previously, but their notion of its size had been dismissed by the parents as due to them being startled by it and misjudging - the usual reaction of people who have not seen the animal. The next day one of the other neighbours, Gordy’s sister in fact, telephoned at lunchtime and said she had just seen it crossing a nearby field and it was heading our way. I had had only a short local delivery run that morning so luckily was back home for lunch. I knew I had a few minutes to get ready, so got out the shotgun as it was unlikely I would get a safe rifle shot, and moved into the area with the hen shelters closest to the way it would come in, about 40yards from the house, and waited. My wife watched through the kitchen window. I never saw the cat, but she saw it come out of a ditch, pick up a hen within about fifteen yards of me, and then go back the way it had come. You have to admire something that can be that good a hunter. It appeared that no other hens had seen it either because there was no reaction from any of them. A fox would have rushed in, the other hens would have set up a racket, and hopefully I would have shot the culprit.
We never saw it again, but when I mentioned it to Mike Purcell, a gamekeeper from about 15 miles away, he asked what colour it was. On describing it as greyish to sandy, he said, “Oh, most of the big cats in our area are black.” I subsequently discovered there have been many sightings of big cats in the Highlands, although only one report of an animal that was shot - about ten years previous to our sightings. The local opinion was that, apart from three which allegedly escaped from the home of someone who had them as pets, a change in the law in 1976 had made it difficult for people to retain them without a great deal of expense in security enclosures, so they were merely dumped in a remote area, and presumably some of them bred. If not, there had been more escapees or dumping because the time lag from the introduction of this Act was too long for sightings at this time to be of animals dumped in 1976, or at least they would be very geriatric, because other information I obtained, an article written by a keeper at Glasgow Zoo, is that most of these big cats live to a maximum age of about 15 to 17 years.
I am well aware that many so called experts dismiss these sightings as being in the imagination of those who only think they have seen such a beast, but there appeared to be some sort of official policy to deny that they existed in the Highlands, and I believe other parts of the UK too. I have even seen a TV documentary especially made to show that there were none in Britain. A very wild statement to make because it is impossible to prove such a thing. Whether this is supposed to reassure the general populace, or so as not to affect tourism I do not know. I do know what I, my wife, and neighbours saw. I am familiar with foxes, pine martens, wildcats, domestic cats, dogs, possums, several species of kangaroos, dingoes, wombats, feral goats, roe deer, red deer, otters, mink (the last two occasionally being seen a long way from water) and all farm animals. Looking at this cat through a telescope and binoculars at such close range, we had positive identification. I also have a great deal of respect for the likes of Mike Purcell who spend their lives ever vigilant and watchful, and who are very familiar with all the animals one could find in their part of the world. These people are not likely to mistake a native animal for an exotic one.