InBritish folklore andurban legend,British big cats refers to the subject of reported sightings of non-native, wildbig cats in theUnited Kingdom. Many of these creatures have been described as "panthers", "pumas" or "black cats".
There have been rare isolated incidents of recovered individual animals, often medium-sized species such as theEurasian lynx, though in one 1980 case, apuma was captured alive in Scotland.[1] In 2025, four Eurasian Lynx were discovered in Scotland.[2] These are generally believed to have been escaped or releasedexotic pets that had been held illegally, possibly released after the animals became too difficult to manage or after the introduction of theDangerous Wild Animals Act 1976.[3]
The existence of a population of "true big cats" in Britain, however, especially a breeding population, has been rejected by experts and theBritish government owing to a lack of convincing evidence for the presence of these animals.[4][5] Supposed sightings made from a distance have been largely written off as domestic cats close to the subject being misidentified as a larger animal sited farther away,[6][7] with one folklorist considering such sightings of creatures to be little more than a "media artifact" driven by British journalistic practices in the 1970s and 1980s[8] while another described it as the result of a situation where "media-generated interest encourages rumour, misinterpretation, and exaggeration".[9]
A medieval Welsh poemPa Gwr in theBlack Book of Carmarthen mentions aCath Palug, meaning "Palug's cat" or "clawing cat", which roamedAnglesey until slain byCei. In theWelsh Triads, it was the offspring of the monstrous sowHenwen.[10]
TheNew Forest folktale of theStratford Lyon tells of howJohn de Stratford pulled a giant, red, antlered lion from the ground atSouth Baddesley in the New Forest in the year 1400. The story is first recorded in the marginalia of an 18th-century bible. In the late 20th century, sightings of the lion were recorded in the vicinity of the Red Lion Pub,Boldre.[11][page needed]
William Cobbett recalled in hisRural Rides how, as a boy in the 1760s, he had seen a cat "as big as a middle-sizedSpaniel dog" climb into a hollow elm tree in the grounds of the ruinedWaverley Abbey nearFarnham inSurrey. Later, inNew Brunswick, he saw a "lucifee" (Canada lynx) "and it seemed to me to be just such a cat as I had seen at Waverley."[12]
Since the early 2000s, there have been several claims by individuals in different parts of the UK of having suffered attacks by supposed big cats, though to date there is no substantive evidence proving these were in fact attacks by a non-domestic species of cat. Such claims include that of an eleven-year-old boy inMonmouthshire,[13] a man in southeast London,[14][15] a 74-year-old woman in theScottish Highlands,[16] and a man in Cornwall.[17]
Phantom big cats have also formed the basis of several local urban legends within the United Kingdom where unexplained animal deaths, typically livestock, would be blamed on such imagined creatures, such as the Beast ofBodmin Moor[18] and the Cotswolds Big Cat.[19] The search for physical "evidence" to support these claims has typically been found to have far more ordinary and less sensational origins. In the case of the Beast of Bodmin, when a skull found in the River Fowey was presented to theNatural History Museum as proof of its existence, it was found to have been cut from a leopard skin rug,[20][9] while in the case of the Cotswolds Big Cat, the only predator DNA that was found was of foxes.[21]
One particular instance of note of this phenomenon is the "Beast of Exmoor" (sometimes referred to as the "Exmoor Beast"). While stories about the Beast of Exmoor originally surfaced in a similar fashion to other local "big cat stories", with sightings of the creature reported as early as 1970,[20] the story came to national prominence in the United Kingdom in 1983 when aSouth Molton farmer named Eric Ley claimed to have lost over 100sheep in the space of three months, all of them apparently killed by violent throat injuries.[22][23] The claim that these livestock had been killed by a mysterious beast led to "nationwide interest", with theDaily Express offering a substantial financial reward for video footage of the creature, while the government took the unusual step of deploying a team ofRoyal Marine snipers to hunt down (and presumably kill) the creature.[23][9][24]
Despite extensive media coverage and both professional and amateur hunting for the creature, which in one unfortunate case saw acryptozoologist having to be rescued after spending two nights stuck in his own trap,[25] no large cat has ever been positively identified to explain such incidents as the 1983 livestock slayings, with them now being attributed to other causes such as large dogs.[26] Despite the lack of evidence, the Beast of Exmoor persists to some extent in the public imagination; alleged sightings continue to be reported occasionally around Exmoor long after an escaped exotic pet (such as a leopard or puma) would have died,[23][27][28] while one national newspaper reported a found carcass alleged to be the Beast of Exmoor that was later identified as a dead seal.[29] Beyond these rumours regarding the creature itself, it has been posited by one journalist that the lasting legacy of the urban legend may be as a mythological base that real-life wildlife stories such as theEmperor of Exmoor can reference.[30]
ACanadian lynx shot in Devon in 1903 is now in the collection of theBristol Museum. Analysis of its teeth suggests that prior to its death, it had spent a significant amount of time in captivity.[31]
In 1980, apuma was captured inInverness-shire,Scotland, and was subsequently put into theHighland Wildlife Park zoo, being given the name "Felicity". Zoo director Eddie Orbell concluded that the animal had been tamed and might not have been released for long, noting that it enjoyed being tickled.[32]
On two separate occasions,jungle cats have been found dead after being hit by a car, with the most accepted theory being that these are individuals escaped from private ownership.[33]
In 1996, police inFintona,County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, shot a cat. It was reportedly acaracal, a medium-sized wildcat species found in Africa and Asia, although a police report described it as a lynx.[6][34]
In a well-reported 2001 case ("the Beast of Barnet"), a young female Eurasian lynx was captured alive by police and vets inCricklewood, North London, after a chase across school playing fields and into a block of flats. It was placed inLondon Zoo and given the name "Lara" before ultimately being transferred to a zoo in France to breed.[35][36] The captured lynx was found to be only 18 months old, although considerably larger than an average domestic cat.[6]
In 2006, theDepartment for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has published a list of predatory cats typically kept as exotic pets that they know to have escaped in the United Kingdom, although most of these have been recaptured.[37]
On 9 January 2025 two lynx were captured after being sighted in the Drumguish area, near toKingussie, Scotland. They were put in quarantine at Highland Wildlife Park with plans to transfer them to Edinburgh Zoo. The lynx are believed to have been illegally released, given their tameness and bedding was found in a nearby layby.[38] The following day, two more lynx were spotted in the same area and believed to be linked to the first two.[39]
A spokeswoman for the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) said: "Neither Natural England nor Defra have received any credible reports of wild living or breeding big cats in Britain in recent years. Defra is not currently engaged in any work related to the management of wild big cats in Britain and has no plans to do so."
According to recent accounts by social scientists and environmentalists (widely supported by scientists and governmental agencies), most claims and beliefs about the presence of so-called 'alien big cats' (henceforth big cats) in Britain are largely imagined fantasies, social constructions and media-driven hysterias (Buller 2004; 2009; Monbiot 2013).
