British Big Cats Society
Big Cats in Britain
UK Big Cats History

Quite a few big cats have been captured or shot over the years, most are suspected to have been released - including an overweight puma that was caught in Scotland. She was named Felcity and liked to be scratched behind the ears apparently!

A good recent book outlining many cases in the UK is Mystery Big Cats by Merrily Harpur. Her conclusions for any unexplained sightings, including those where descriptions of big cats do not match any recognised species, are somewhat Keelian but don’t let that put you off if you’re not a fan of that theory.

People have been seeing the tan coloured ‘Surrey Puma’ in South London and the county of Surrey since the 1960s. My father and I have both caught sight of one of the black cats in Norfolk, about 80 miles north of London. My ex father in law, a former gamekeeper turned pest controller, has also seen one nearby, although this was tan rather than black.

There are rabbit, deer, muntjac and various smaller rodents that might provide food. I have never heard of sheep or cattle being taken.

As Kittenz says, it was not too difficult to buy exotic animals, including big cats, in the UK for many years. They are traditionally associated with coats of arms etc amongst the gentry, and were status symbols for some. Many were kept as pets, for example in the Tower of London by past monarchs. It may be that quite a few cats were let loose by unscrupulous or impoverished owners when it became necessary to have them licensed and to have minimum conditions for keeping them. These conditions are outlined by an Act of Parliament called ‘Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976.’ It is possibly more than coincidence that the number of sightings started to soar in the 70s and 80s after this prohibitive and costly act was introduced. This act can be viewed at this site.

Of course this still does not explain the unusually high percentage of black cats compared to tan or brown cats being seen. As well as some actual big black cats it could be due to misidentification, or possibly members of rare Scottish wild cats that have strayed further south.

There are only a few places in the world where black cats - other than black domestic cats - are relatively common, and even in those areas they are more rare than their normally colored brethren.

I think it likely that the great majority of these sightings are cases of mistaken identity.

That being said, I do not dismiss the possibility that there are big cats living wild in parts of Great Britain. Harrod’s was known to sell lion cubs in its London store in years past, and many people in Great Britain have kept big cats as pets, just as they have and continue to do here. If a cat here or there escaped or was released, that could account for some of the sightings, especially those in more populated areas. It’s difficult to imagine a wild, breeding population resulting from a cat released here and there, though.

Of course, it may be that not just one cat, but pairs or groups of cats have been released together sometime in the past. In that case, if they were released in an area with suitable cover and prey, a breeding population could have resulted, and maybe that happened more than once, in more than one location. The animals being seen now could be dispersers from those populations.

Black pumas have not been proven to exist, but black leopards are very well known, and leopards are very adaptable and can flourish undetected near humans, even near cities. This is known to be true from documented examples of wild leopards in parts of Africa and Asia living near or even within large cities.

Black is a recessive trait in leopards, so both parents have to carry at least one copy of the recessive gene for black in order for black offspring to occur. Two spotted leopards, each of which carry the black as a recessive, can produce black cubs, spotted cubs which carry the black recessive, and spotted cubs without the black recessive. Theoretically, two black leopards bred together will produce only black cubs, because in order for a leopard to be black, it has to have two copies of the black recessive and therefore does not have any copies of the dominant gene for a spotted coat.

So if a pair, or better yet a few pairs, of black leopards adapted to living in the wild, within several generations a small breeding population of black leopards could become established. Maybe that is what is happening in parts of Great Britain.