The CFZ solves another mystery!

And then, as if by magic, just when I had finished writing the previous blog, I got an email from a contact from the local news who said “One of our readers e-mailed me these this am. I’ve had a long chat with her and she is convinced they are a big cat’s prints. She heard a big “kerthump” as if it was jumping down. She has fields and woods around her and just three houses up there. Lots of deer in the fields. She is on the Cranmore side of Doulting. I said I would pass the photos on to you to see what you think. Her details are below and she is happy to talk to you. I have sent her copies of the stories we did as she had not seen them.”.


Attached were two photos, one showing the print, and the other showing the stride length. They looked pretty damn canine to me, but for a second opinion (always important) I passed them (again) on to Richard Freeman, who had this to say:

"These are clearly dog tracks. The concave shape of the main pad can be seen in the first photograph. Also, the toes are symmetrical and show the blunt claws of a canid. A cat's claws are finer and only seen in prints when unsheathed for a firmer grip on slippery or uneven surfaces. A cat's main pad has three bulges or lobes akin to the shape of a club in a deck of cards. The toes on a cat are asymmetrical unlike a dogs."



I don’t think I can add anything to that! Never mind, at least the CFZ now has a very good photo of what a dog’s print in the snow looks like!

I did have chat with the person who took the photos, and the fact that she lives next to a field in which a few dogs are walked closes this case. Apart from one thing: “She heard a big “kerthump” as if it was jumping down.”. This does sound a bit odd, until you realise that the prints were in her garden, and to escape the dog would have had to jump over the fence, creating the “kerthump” noise. Case closed.

But, the journalist who sent me this case also mentioned that she is “trying to check out the report from the lady from Cranmore who was saying she heard something big snarling in the bushes near her home last month.”. Now, as you can see, Cranmore is very close to the place where the lady found the dog prints. Naturally, I will keep you updated.

Cat prints? Not again...

It is now time to update on the hunt for alien big cats in the UK. Last time, you will remember I was told by a member on an invertebrate’s forum that her boyfriend had taken a cast of the print of an ABC, or so her other half’s mate said, in their local area. Naturally, I asked; “where is it now?” and the reply was “I don't think he has the cast anymore”. “Bugger!” thought I. Never mind, she sent me a link to a photobucket account where there were photos to look at instead. They looked like a good match for a cat to me and the size was well within big cat range. After forwarding them to Richard Freeman, I emailed Hollie, as her name turned out to be, who gave us permission to use the photos, and it is to her that I am very grateful for otherwise this extra evidence would not have come to light. The best photos are shown below.

Also, she said that her boyfriend (Dan) had “actually seen the cat one night when hunting up there, though it was it dark he says he remembers seeing a big pair of eyes, too big for any "normal" animal, and looked orange coloured apparently.”.

Now, it is time to explain this eye shine business. Eye shine is, obviously, caused by light entering an animal’s eye, reflecting out of the animal’s eye and then entering our own. The shine effect is from a layer of tissue called the Tapetum lucidum which is found in many vertebrate animals. Its function is to reflect light into the light sensing cells (Rod cells) in the eye to enhance night vision further. So, when a light is shone into an animal’s eye, you quite often see it shone back at you from their eyes as the light escapes from the lens and through the pupil. Carnivores possess a choroidal tapetum cellulosum which is made of reflective crystals, whereas artiodactyls and perissodactyls have a choroidal tapetum fibrosum made of extracellular fibers. So, these two different reflective layers give different eye shines.

Eye shine varies between different animals, but it is not an exact science. Cats usually have green eye shine (domestic), as do deer, but dogs can vary from green to yellow and to orange, depending on breed. However, a number of reports say that big cats like leopards have orange eye shine, which completely confuses the matter! I must say this subject has been hard to research; everything contradicts everything else!

Then, as if this wasn’t good enough, Hollie spoke to her boyfriend, who said that his mate still had the cast, and that we were welcome to have it for a bit! This is excellent news, so we will have to sit tight and wait for Pat.

In the mean time, Richard got back to me to say this:

“Though I will reserve final judgement until I have actually seen the cast my initial feelings are that these are indeed cat prints. The toes are asymmetrical and lacking in visible claws. The central pad lacks the concave shape of a dog’s .The toes also appear to show greater flexibility than a dog's.”

He attached the following photos; the uppermost photo is of a leopard, whilst the other is of a puma’s print.

Now compare these photos to the cast photos above. Richard says:

“It could belong to a puma or leopard but I think it is most like a puma's with the wide toe pads. In fact the print reminds me of a Florida puma print I saw that had been cast from a track left in sand.”

I agree with him, but also the central pad in a puma is more compact than a leopard’s, very similar to the print in the photo.

For a further analysis, we will have to wait for the print to be delivered. Watch this space with bated breath! But may I just say again how grateful I am to Hollie for letting me look at the photos and for doing her best to help find the cast. If only everyone came forward with evidence!

The cat came back

After me bemoaning the fact that there were less and less kills from this ABC in my area, it seems once again it is time to pop open a Beast (fear not reader, I will explain all).

Yesterday as you are all aware was Saturday, the day I fire up my car and zoom off to work to earn an honest buck in order to keep myself and beer as close friends. Now, the day was fairly unspectacular (other than the freezing cold conditions) until it got to around 1400, when one of the shotgun coaches said to the three people he had just been tutoring “Ah, here’s the chap you want to speak to.” as I wandered past. One of the gentlemen proceeded then to tell me that he had a big cat in his area (Taunton) and that it was killing sheep.

It had been through a fair few apparently, but the only bodies my contact had seen were those that the farmer had shown him after he had dragged them in from the field. The sheep’s pelt had been taken off the bones, and the only bones the farmer brought back were the spine, ribs and skull. Now, this proves very little (ie, was the killer a cat, canid or just an excuse) as the sheep had been moved from, what we would call in palaeontology, life position (you can think of it as being moved from its exact position of death). The sheep killed were all grown on lambs at about ¾ of full size.

This is very interesting indeed, and I have exchanged emails with one of the chaps who will provide me with photos when he can. I intend to get up there as soon as I can. This is probably not the same cat that I have been dealing with closer to home, but 25 miles away as the Raven flies (or as the Leopard runs for that matter) is, although seemingly large, not completely out of the question. Remember, an ABC in the wild would probably not have a territory this large, but this is not their wild habitat (with the possible exception of Lynxes). We have no idea how they behave when their prey is confined to a comparatively small area of land and are fairly easy to catch and kill. Will their territory size increase? My feeling is that yes it will do. Territory size is controlled mainly by two factors, how many competitors there are nearby, and how much food there is nearby. So, taking a Leopard as an example, lots of Hyenas and Lions around will diminish its territory size, and lots if easy to catch prey with a high nutrition value will again, diminish it. Few competitors and hard to catch, low energy prey (rabbits for instance) will both increase territory size. Note, low energy prey is prey that may be low in calorific content (or whatever measure of nutrition you want to use), but also take a lot of effort and energy to catch. For a Leopard of 80kg, a Rabbit which might get to 1kg is much more energy intensive to catch and eat than it is for a 10kg Fox, hence why Foxes take a lot of Rabbits.

Here in the UK, we can see a large amount of easy prey (expected to reduce territory size), but a low population density and little competition (expecting to increase territory size). I would expect with the evidence available to me that 25 miles for a territory is not as mad as it may at first seem for a Leopard/Puma/whatever. Just to err on the side of caution however, I would say that this is not the same cat.

Now, that lot is good for a day’s work. However, it gets better. I got home, showered, ate tea and then went onto the computer to write an article about keeping beetles for Exotic Pets magazine. I went onto an invertebrate’s forum, (on which I am the moderator of the beetles, aquatics and cockroaches sections) to check how things had been over the last day, and what did I find? Someone had posted a thread in Off Topic about big cats in Britain. Obviously I looked at it, and I was really surprised at what I found (I will not repeat the thread here, but you can go and look at it if you sign up as a member for Bug Nation).

The jist of the thread is that one of the forum’s members had noticed in the local paper (the Hastings Observer: http://www.hastingsobserver.co.uk/509/Bumper-year-for-big-cat.3674641.jp) that there were big cats in the area, and was wondering what people’s thoughts on them were.

Now, attached to one of the thread starter’s posts was two photos which her other half had taken. One was of a large paw print in some mud, and the other was of the plaster cast this person had made of it. This is a brilliant example of people (one wants to use the phrase “general public, but that would be a touch insulting) using their initiative, getting something done and helping us all out. Good job!

Unfortunately, I cannot tell if it is a cat or a dog, as although there are no claw marks, the back of the central pad is obscured by a lighter used to show size. The pad is the same length as the lighter, and the whole print looks to be about 1.5 lighters tall, within cat size. The digit pads are close to the central pad and are all of similar size. I have contacted the member to see if I she can get some better photos of it for me, and obviously, I will keep you all updated.

As for that thing about the Beast, well, it is a little tradition I have.

Whenever something big happens with my big cat research, I open a bottle of one of my favourite ales, Exmoor Beast (a superb dark ale with a strong chocolate and hops flavour) which depicts a melanistic leopard jumping toward the drinker. As proof of this being a good day for me, here you can see me drinking aforementioned beer...

The Raven's Revenge

The Raven (Corvus corax) is, at a maximum of 1500g, Britain’s largest crow. It is an omnivore, but its specialty in Britain is scavenging from dead animals. Its size puts it pretty near the top (for birds at least) of the scavenging chain, and it can easily intimidate smaller scavengers like carrion crows into giving up the lion’s share of the dead animal. Since the 1500s it has been persecuted by Sheppard’s and gamekeepers for scavenging or eating young animals and by the late 19th century it was confined to the west coast where the craggy cliffs it nested on afforded it some protection. Only after the First World War did the persecution slow and the Raven’s number begin to build up as it adapted again to tree nesting. Since then it has gone on to spread slowly inland, into Wales and Cumbria as well as making inroads into Devon. I had thought that the Raven was a species not really found in Somerset (where I currently live) and if it was at all to be found it would be far over to the west near Minehead and Watchet. I was, however, to be proved very wrong.

On Christmas Day this year, as you will remember, I was out and about doing some big cat research. After getting into the field, I saw coming towards me as I stood in the field was a crow, a “bloody huge one” if I remember myself muttering. Anyway, I carried on and ignored the bird. This was at the same moment that it flew past me and turned around over my head calling a deep throaty “prrrrruuuk”. “Raven!” I burst out. And indeed it was. Not just one, but four Ravens seemingly in two pairs.

After taking some photographs of them (as well as some rubbish video footage) I started thinking why were they here? Back at home I did come research on the subject, and found that Ravens are indeed found throughout Somerset, but they are few and far between with breeding occurring in Glastonbury’s Ham Wall reserve and across the Somerset Levels. Even though I had spend considerable time up at the killing fields, I had not noticed their presence at all, but seeing as on this day there was a freshly killed sheep, I am guessing they were in the area for this. The sheep’s eyes had gone, so one would suspect the Ravens of being the main scavengers of these from the kills. After following them for a bit on that first day, I found that one pair seemed to be spending a fair bit of time down on the quiet side of the quarry; it could well be that this is their perfect habitat: craggy cliffs for nesting, an abundance of food in the form of dead sheep, and no persecution. I for one am overjoyed at their comeback to Somerset, even if it is at the expense of a few sheep to keep them interested. Ravens begin nesting in January and lay their eggs in March, so it may be time to spend a while searching for their nest.




I have seen the Ravens twice in the four times I have been up there in the last month, however, I have not seen any sheep kills in this time (apart from possibly one) so it could be, as my best friend suggested when we went up for a look around early last week, that the cat has perished in the freezing temperatures that we experienced in late December. I need to get back to the field to see what’s changed, plus chase up the farmer and water board about the CFZ’s stolen trigger camera.

In other big cat related news, I was interviewed on Wednesday by the superb Geoff Ward who writes the “Mysterious West” page in one of the local newspapers. The interview will go up as part of his weekly podcast, and I (or more likely, Jon) will add a link to it when it is edited and published. I know full well I answered a few questions in the daftest possible manner (for instance, answering a question along the lines of “If big cats are comparatively numerous, why has no-one trapped one yet?” with “Well, in one night outside a large southern African city they trapped 27 leopards.” which means very little), but hey, it may just bring an extra bit of knowledge into people’s minds along with someone to contact if they do see something. It’s all about spreading the word...

PS, I apologise for this, but Fleur wanted to see some photos of me in my cat catching gear, but I only have one good one and im not even wearing my wide brim hat, but never mind:

The absolute final catch up!

Right, this is it now ladles and jellyspoons, the update on ABCs where I finally drag you all up to the present day. The music is on, door firmly closed, fingers flexed and the MSN conversation with JD shut down.

Previously we had just finished the quarry palaver, so we can now join the action on Sunday the 7th of December, early in the morning. I awoke early for two reasons, one, today was the day of the British Killifish Society’s annual auction and Jon and Matthew were picking me up to get up there before it started (as it so happened we didn’t, but that’s another story), and also because I wanted to have a look at the deer carcass to see if it had been eaten in the night. I breakfasted and kitted up with the video camera, stills camera (with 70-300mm lens fitted) and cat hunting hat I went out to record the nights action.

After driving up to work the temperature plummeted down to freezing levels (-3 degrees C I think) and so the walk down the road to the deer was slower than expected. Now, I must now talk briefly about the landscape near where the deer was killed. The first photograph is taken from my viewpoint near the top of the hill before it snakes its way past the carp ponds and the dead deer. You can see the road in front of me with brambles and other short plants between the road and the carp pond. A plump bush can be seen on the left which cannot be seen in the second picture. This other photo taken from in a field shows the ponds behind the vegetation, plus its thickness. The position of the deer cannot be seen in either photo, but it is to the right on the pond in the second photo. Got all that? Good.

Walking down the path, I got to the sharp left turn before the road moves in the straight line visible in the photos. It was now that I heard a loud, harsh and distinctive “Khheeeea!”. My immediate thought was “Holy Hell! A Leopard’s warning vocalisation!”. Needless to say, I moved back slowly the way I had came with the camera trained on the area the cry had come from as well as the pond in case it began to move away from me. I heard nothing again, so I went over into the field to take the second photograph. Again, I saw and heard nothing. By this time it was getting up to leaving time to catch the Matt car up to the auction, but I kept moving around closer to the pond. I noticed behind me about 200yrds away a friend who was also interested in ABCs with whom I had been examining the deer’s evidence the day before. We began to chat quietly, and he had been up since before dawn broke to look around the area. He was a keen rifle hunter, so I would have expected him to be both vigilant and muted when moving. He said he had seen nothing other than a large dark mass moving through the woods which could have been a deer. Now I got a phone call from Jon to tell me that they were very close to our meeting area and that I better get a move on.

We ended up being about an hour late, but had a cracking day.

Over the next few weeks the deer was moved around a bit and eaten in parts, probably by badgers, to the present day where it still sits in a broken heap next to some brambles where the badgers keep picking at it.

Nothing really happened for a few weeks until Christmas day when I got bored and decided to go up to the original killing fields (hooray! A reference to a Slayer song!) to see what had changed. After getting very distracted by Ravens (these will wait for another blog) I began my scouting and went up into the field above the normal one and came across a very nice bloody carcase of an adult sheep with a huge hole ripped into its side. As you can see from the photos, a few of the organs including the lungs and probably the heart were still inside the animal. The body was still warm at the time of discovery (1400). The eyes had been taken by the Ravens. The sheep’s head was bent backwards in the same shape as all the other kills.

I photographed and videoed this kill as I have done for all the others, and continued nosing around. I found an old kill which had rotten down to the bones and so the only tissue left was the ligaments between the vertebrae. It was in the same field as the above kill, but in a quiet corner where it looked not to have been disturbed (normally the bodies are moved after a day or two or the farmer knowing that they are there). The attached photos show the skeleton, plus the important bit of evidence for a big cat killing the sheep. The head of the sheep was twisted around to face the opposite direction, whilst the ligaments were still attached. You can see the twisted vertebrae in the photo. I pulled at one of the ligaments after photographing and it came away with little pressure. Because the ligaments are still attached, this leads me to conclude that the sheep had its neck broken before it died, not from an external force after death.

Now, we come up to mid January and finally, I had my trigger cameras to catch this beast! I had tested them beforehand, and myself and a few friends attached them to the fence which something jumps over to get into the field. We set the camera (only one was working) up attached to a fence not in the farmer’s field, nor in the water works land but technically in the quarry’s land, but this seemed to be a no-man’s land between the quarry and the field. We left after this...

Only to return the next day to find that the camera had gone! Seething, I rang Richard who muttered something about “commoners” and “Southerners” before ringing the farmer to see if he had removed them. He said he hadn’t, but he would try and contact the water board to see if they had. I could see the headlines running in my head: “Water technician proves existence of big cats in Britain!”, then a day later “Monster hunters claim the photograph was stolen!” then finally “Monster hunters triumph thanks to video evidence!”. Maybe that was a bit farfetched, but never mind.

A few days later I went back up to the field with a friend to take some photographs of me in suitably dramatic poses for an article being written about me by Geoff Ward (who did the article about the haunted pub a week or so ago, check the archives). Whilst there, I noticed that a few of the jaws were loose from the skulls, so I picked them up for a closer look. I found puncture marks in one, which led me on to search for more. I “stole” 3 jaw bones with damage and a skull which just looks cool. Next time I am up to CFZ headquarters I will take them up for a better opinion than mine.

Let’s hope the next blog is not quite as heavy going as that!